My Daily Dozen: The Habit of Doing Chores

Earlier this year I began a blog series on my "daily dozen"--twelve habits that I use as the scaffolding of my life right now.   The first four (rest, eating well, exercise, fresh air) are habits of fostering good physical health.  The second group of four habits (Bible reading and prayer, spending time with my children, fostering my marriage, and prioritizing ideas) are related to relationships.

 
The last four "daily dozen" habits that I use as the scaffolding of my life during this season have to do with discipline. 

I find that many people shrink at the word "discipline." I suppose it conjures up ideas of punishment.  But I mean it more in the sense of self-discipline; that is, training the self.  And self-discipline is essential to living a fairly ordered life.

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The first discipline that must truly be a daily habit--and I think this applies universally to everyone--is the habit of doing chores.   By this I simply mean the routine tasks of daily life at home: laundry, cooking, cleaning the kitchen, making the beds, caring for pets, cleaning something (not everything, and not all at once!), perhaps wiping down the bathrooms.  In other words: the daily tasks that keep life running smoothly.  

It takes self-discipline to do these chores every day.  The bad news is that self-discipline can be tough, but the good news is that disciplining yourself to do the basic quotidian chores can exercise the muscle of self-discipline, which carries over into other aspects of life!

(This is a bouquet my aunt and uncle sent us in the hospital. I loved these tiny roses!)

Choosing the Chores

What are the chores *you* must do each day?  We don't all need to do the same things every day, but we *do* all need to do some things every day, and the trick is figuring out what chores you must complete daily, given the unique circumstances of your life.

For me, the basic daily chores are making the bed, doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen, wiping down the bathrooms, taking care of pets, and of course cooking! I do other chores on other days, but these are the daily essentials and those are the ones I'm focused on here.

Do I do my chores perfectly every day?  No.  I do not do every chore on every single day. But I hit most (or all) of them on most days, and a few I simply never do escape unless I'm staying in a hotel (those are cleaning the kitchen, making the bed, and feeding the animals!).  I am human and sometimes I skip a chore, but the daily chores I mention here are those that, if undone, tend to get worse and worse.  Laundry and dishes pile up, food goes unused, surfaces get grimy, bedding becomes dirty, et cetera. These chores must be done every day, or almost every day.

Managing the Chores

I find that the easiest way to manage these routine chores is to compartmentalize them. Creating morning and evening routines is so helpful!  My morning routine includes sorting and starting laundry, feeding pets, making our bed, wiping down our bathroom, cleaning the litter box. The evening routine includes making sure the kitchen is spic-and-span, getting the laundry folded and put away, making sure the chickens are tucked into bed, and looking at tomorrow to be sure we're all set on the menu plan. Just create a simple, straightforward routine that you can memorize and then do almost effortlessly.

 Last night my best friend and I were talking about how overwhelming life can be, and I mentioned the fact that Steve Jobs always wore the same clothes, thus eliminating that decision from his life and streamlining his decision-making.  Now I would *never* take the Steve Jobs approach to wardrobing because I love picking out my clothes for the day, and I enjoy variation in my clothing choices, but the principle behind that is useful when applied to certain routine tasks.  If you don't have to decide each evening to clean the kitchen--you just do it out of habit--life is easier and more efficient.  Setting up your repetitive daily chores in a way that reduces your need to decide what to do and when is a genuinely helpful approach to managing the home.

Now I will admit that when we are not doing schoolwork or we're in an extended period of unusual scheduling, like we are right now, I am more flexible about when I accomplish these tasks. But they still need to be done, and if I get too flexible, they start to fall by the wayside! I have learned the hard way that life runs more smoothly in my home when I stick faithfully to the morning and evening routines.

And our children help out, too.  In fact, I have an entire extra post planned for later this week on children and chores.  I began writing it and realized it needed a post all its own, so I'll publish that soon.

(A really fun bouquet our pastor's wife left on our front porch. Those sunflowers make me so happy!)

One additional thing to remember is that sometimes we dread a chore so much that we put more mental energy into not doing it than we would put time into doing it.  I know someone who dreads washing the dishes so much that this person simply didn't do it for a long time--and then had to throw away dishes and get new ones!  In reality the time it takes to wash dishes, even without a dishwasher, is quite minimal.  I would bet that this person spent more mental time feeling irritated about those dishes than they would have spent just washing them each day.  So: chin up! It's so much easier to just do the chore and not have it hanging over you.

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 I am always interested in how other people manage and tackle the routine tasks of life.  Do you have any tips on accomplishing daily chores? Please share them if you do!

If you are interested, you may find all posts on habits here.

Now time for me to make the bed!