We all have a wide variety of chores to get through in any given week or month. In fact, most of us have at least a few chores to handle every day.
Of course, “chore” isn’t exactly a synonym for “fun and motivating activity that I love spending my time on,” which means that, all too often, chores tend to become overdue or pile up and become even more difficult to face head-on.
Here are a few tips for more effectively getting through your overdue chores, so that you can regain peace of mind, and can keep progressing in areas where it’s important to do so.
Use a Good Tool or System to Compile a List That You Can Work Through Systematically
Part of the reason why people end up with a large backlog of chores is that they simply aren’t properly keeping track of all the different things they need to get done, and so forget about things at unfortunate moments, or else aren’t able to systematically approach the task of ticking items off their to-do list.
A good quick fix here is to use an effective tool or system, to compile a list that you can work through in an orderly and focused way.
Maybe a tool like Microsoft To-Do, with its ability to populate a daily list with items from your backlog, would be right for you. Or, maybe something a bit more systematized, like Nozbe (which has been designed to be used with David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology), would do the job.
If a Task Seems Too Daunting or Tiring, Just Focus on the First Small Step You Can Take
Procrastination out of a sense of pre-emptive exhaustion is far from a rare phenomenon.
If you find that you are holding off on taking action on a particular task, simply because it seems too daunting or tiring, an important thing to do is to narrow your focus and to just zoom in on the first small step you can take.
Maybe something like investigating local bin hire prices would be an effective first step in moving the ball towards a total home organising and decluttering process, without leaving you feeling overwhelmed upfront.
There’s a lot to be said for momentum. Once you build it, things naturally tend to flow much more easily.
Focus on Getting Better Rest and Find Ways to Make Some of Your Chores a Bit More Fun or Interesting
“Get better rest” may sound like a counter-intuitive way of getting through your chores more easily, but the simple fact is that if you are well rested – and particularly if you’re getting enough sleep and are eating properly – you will be a lot more emotionally resilient when it comes to dealing with tasks you might not be thrilled about.
In addition, try to find ways to make your chores a bit more fun or interesting. This could include “gamifying” the process of getting things done, using a platform like Habitica, or it could just involve listening to music, a podcast, or an audiobook while tidying.
