Meetings, deadlines, traffic woes, are all part of typical urban life. Despite the hectic schedules, I’m one of the fortunate souls to run my household without any hiccups. All credit goes to help I get from my trusted maid.
But all that order in my life went for a toss when the cleaning lady relocated to her hometown permanently. I searched frantically for a replacement. But I failed to find the convenience I enjoyed over the years.
After exhausting all means, I finally decided to bring the task to myself. Well, it was easier said than done. Initially, it needed extraordinary commitment, even to finish a part of the household tasks. And on many working days, I had to buy food from outside. Besides, there were signs of chaos. Dust was pervasive, items were loosely lying around and the earlier sheen was missing.
But, slowly through trial and error, I learned to pick up the pieces and worked out a plan. As a start, I kept 20 minutes of each day to clean and scrub my house. Besides that, here’s how I became adept at my household chores, without getting exhausted.
Advance Setting
Every day morning, just before I leave for work, my house gets close to being a war zone. With items cluttered around, there are frantic searches for keys, bills, clips and other items. Often during the search, there are verbal accusations and blame game. And in the end, we came to a tipping point when I finally decided to take the bull by its horns.
Each day before retiring to bed, I spend 10 minutes putting everything I need for the next day in place. My office bag is placed at the designated place, the key on the hook, kids’ homework and text books in the bag. And then, I make a to-do list with pending tasks to be completed the following day.
Viola! Peace reigns once again in my house. All the confusion and fights are put to rest by following a simple plan.
Order Inside the closet
This took me a day’s effort to set my closet right. At first, I placed separate baskets for laundry and dry cleaning. Next, I separated summer and winter clothes. Earlier, it was just a big bundle of clothes for all seasons. Besides, I took out the worn out clothes and donated them to a nearby charity. Finally, I sorted my clothes by purpose. I kept work clothes in the middle of the closet and then sorted the casual and night wear. Apart from that, I bought couple of hooks and wooden pegs to hang my scarves and belts. All those minor hacks created the much needed space and order.
No more rummaging in my closet for my favourite shirt.
Create a clearance zone
I reserved a place next to the front door, just to quarantine everything that comes through it. I call it the landing strip. Just like a sentry post, I use this place to filter out unwanted stuffs like packages, or covers.
Delegate the tasks
I shared a few tasks with my family of three. For instance, I delegated the youngest one to dispose the trash off, my partner to keep the living room in order, and the rest of it to myself. After a couple of reminders, things started falling in place.
Clear laundry without piling it
Instead of waiting for stinking socks and towels to pile up, I started doing a little bit each day. That made it easier to load the clothes in the machine and rinse later.
Listen to the radio or plug in some music during chores
While doing the work, I played the favourite radio station, and on some days, I played from my playlist. Better still, singing or humming or whistling diverted my mind from the mundane.
Kill the time fillers - complete the task against the clock
“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion” – Parkinson’s Law
On the thoughts of Parkinson’s Law, I’ve noticed how I get distracted with calls, children and other projects. In short, I’m a victim of time fillers. Inevitably, household works remained undone. So, here’s how I found a way to complete what was pending. I used a timer and set it for short durations (5 or 10 minutes). And with some grit, I started to tackle one task after another in my to-do list. If you face similar problems, then this could offer a realistic solution.
Cultivate daily rituals
Just like brushing our teeth, start cultivating a daily routine. For instance, it could be clearing the dustbin or wiping the dust from the door, or any random house cleaning task. Done repeatedly, it becomes a part of your daily life, and then it just comes to you automatically.
Lastly...
Stick to the daily task without giving it a break. You might also try switching tasks with others, or even change the order of the tasks. In the end, breaking a big task into smaller chunks, and doing them regularly brings back a great deal of order in your life.
Author bio:-
Bharath Joshi a Marketing Executive at Unishire Belvedere Premia. We began with an aim of redefining real estate and creating benchmarks for others to follow, that provides German life style luxury apartments for sale in Bangalore and Condominiums in Bangalore.
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