GTD and household chores

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frank F

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Hi, despite what my name implies , I am actually a woman, with a child, house, garden, dog, hobbies, and a career.

I am pretty hooked up on using digital tools for GTD which is probably reflective of my overall situation where I am happy to spend a lot of time on work (incl. complex projects which require a good amount of thinking - I am a scientist) but I absolutely hate household tasks which for me are a total waste of time and I am basically too lazy to walk around and put things back to their place :) I am excluding garden work which I enjoy a lot.

So I am wondering if people can share some tricks of lowering the threshold for doing those chores through GTD methods. One thing I am doing , and it's helping a lot, is to have physical inboxes for things which are lying around, so that it looks tidy at least, and things can be put back into their places later. you see where I am going with this - the putting back can be delayed, or not happening at all, as not everything has a dedicated , logical place (I don't just want to stuff it in any drawer). I guess I could just assign a dedicated box for this and put it in a corner...

I think a lot here is related to habits, and this was discussed elsewhere in the forum, i.e. it does not make much sense to put each and every task in your GTD inbox. I have also read and watched the Marie Kondo method which is helping. And yes, we already have a cleaning lady, but of course there are still plenty of daily tasks...

Forgot to mention that I have watched the video of David Allen with the dutch lady, which has also helped a lot as it focused on physical situations in the house.

But I was wondering if people have some other tricks to share :) sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere - I did go back through the fora but might then have missed it.
 
Assorted thoughts:

- If you're having trouble keeping the house in order, it's the house's fault. Now, I realize that this is in part a way of looking at things, but to a very large degree, you are who you are, and if you are a person who doesn't like doing a lot of housekeeping, then you need to transform your home into one that doesn't require a lot of housekeeping. Maybe you can do five percent more of this or ten percent more of that, but you're just NOT going to do twice as much. It's not going to happen.

- So you could set up some GTD projects for changing your house and possessions and the way you use them.

- I have a vague memory that the book Organizing from the Inside Out was kind of useful for this mindset--it addressed ways to change your house to match what works for you.

- And Dana K. White, who's written at least two books about housekeeping, refers to a "clutter threshold", which is the amount of stuff you can keep in control. (I find her infinitely more realistic than Marie Kondo.)

-- Maybe every item of clothing that can't go in the washer on "normal" needs to go.
-- Maybe you need to cancel all your magazine subscriptions.
-- Maybe you have six different sets of pretty towels and eight sets of pretty sheets and you need to just give them all away and buy All White All The Time to simplify laundry day.
-- Maybe you have too many different kinds of dishes.
-- Maybe you need to rip out all the carpets and put in hard floors, so you can give away the vacuum cleaner.

- One of my rules is that whenever possible, it should be possible to get something out or put something away one-handed.

If you can take a big plate out of the dishwasher and put it on stack of identical plates one-handed, yay!

If you have to take the big plate out of the dishwasher, then put it on the counter, then remove the little delicate dessert plates that are on the top of the plate stack and put them on the counter, and then remove the the salad plates and...no, there isn't enough counter space, so put them back and move the cereal boxes and then pick them up again and put them on the counter and then put the big plate on the stack and then return the salad plates and then return the dessert plates and then you discover that you have YET ANOTHER BLEEPING BIG PLATE and you have to do it all again...well, that's not good.

That's back to that "five percent more". If it's REALLY EASY to get those big plates into the cabinet, you might stretch that five percent and do that. If it's a move-everything-and-move-it-back puzzle...not going to happen.

- You say that not everything has a dedicated place. Is that because it's boring to designate the places, or is it because there isn't enough room, or...?

- Cheryl Mendelson, in the Neatening chapter in Home Comforts, recommends having a number of "temporary holding stations" around the house. This works well for me, though I need more of them.

If, for example, I naturally get around to putting away books and magazines once a month, then I need to identify a shelf that's big enough for a month's worth of lying-around books and magazines,and somehow clear it. (Perhaps by donating a glob of books to the library sale.)

With that shelf there, I can just sweep through the living room, snatch up books and magazines, and put them on the shelf, and if you don't look closely, they look like they belong there. But the snatch-and-stash took me ninety seconds, while putting them away properly might take me an hour or more. Again, five percent--pushing yourself to do that snatch-and-stash every two days might be doable, while pushing yourself to troop around the house every day putting things precisely where they belong--no. Too much.

Edited to add: And since the goal is to put that stuff away once a month, you can have a tickler for, say, every three weeks--it comes up, you see it, you groan, but you manage to force yourself to do it within a week, check it off, and then it's going to come up in another three weeks. (Or you manually create a new one, if you aren't using software that has a "remind again after..." feature.)

Similarly, if I manage to sort my mail once a week, I need a nice-looking basket that stores a week's worth of mail. If you have kids and you know you won't really put away the toys they leave in the living room more often than twice a week, then you need a nice-looking basket or box to fling living room toys in, that will hold four days' worth of toys. (And maybe you can get the kids to stretch five percent and actually snatch-and-stash their own toys.)

All this keeps the spaces looking more decent, and it means that when you do grit your teeth and make yourself put things away, they're already fairly pre-sorted.

I feel like I had more thoughts, but apparently not right now. My main suggestion is: Blame the house. But don't blame the house and give up. Blame the house and then write GTD projects for changing the house.
 
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@Gardener - this is great, thank you so much. I will read this again and probably come back :) first, I will very happily blame the house. I had heard of or even read the other books already (organising inside out sounds familiar... I will double check). Marie Kondo gives some good ideas, not that I intend to do the whole thing... I like the folding thing and agree actually about "sparking joy" (or whatever you want to call it). I am also relatively visual so color coding or sorting by color etc works for me.

Regarding the designated place - some items, if you want, do spark joy, but they are rather memorabilia, or things you use very seldom (but they could theoretically be practical, ahem... they are from my childhood, so I am attached ). It is not that many, but I don´t want to throw them away, nor put them in storage (it woudl never reappear). We have a relatively large house, so place as such is not an issue. Therefore, I might just declare a "leftovers" box , or whatever. It is not that it is mega-cluttery, but things are lying around... I am also using dedicated boxes where things go in which have to go in different places in the house.. So it is basically boxes everywhere :)
 
Gardener said:
- If you're having trouble keeping the house in order, it's the house's fault. Now, I realize that this is in part a way of looking at things, but to a very large degree, you are who you are, and if you are a person who doesn't like doing a lot of housekeeping, then you need to transform your home into one that doesn't require a lot of housekeeping. Maybe you can do five percent more of this or ten percent more of that, but you're just NOT going to do twice as much. It's not going to happen.

- So you could set up some GTD projects for changing your house and possessions and the way you use them.
Click to expand...

Great advice! I would add Marie Kondo's philosophy about things: leave what sparks joy OR what you REALLY, REALLY need and get rid of everything else (but before throwing out things THANK THEM).

Gardener said:
If you can take a big plate out of the dishwasher and put it on stack of identical plates one-handed, yay!
Click to expand...

I have no dishwasher. Why? Because I have 1 big plate, 1 small plate, 1 fork, 1 knife, 1 spoon, 1 teaspoon and 1 mug. I wash them after each meal.
 
I Kon-Mari'd a couple of years ago and it's been fantastic. It felt like a natural companion to GTD. I didn't use her method for paper as I prefer the GTD approach but otherwise followed her advice. Now when the house feels like a tornado went through it, it's actually simple and quick to restore order as everything has a home to return to.

I'm not sure that GTD can help. You say these are daily tasks so I'm imagining dirty dishes in the sink, clean dishes in the dishwasher, a dirty rug, a full trashcan etc. You walk past these things every day and don't seem too bothered about them. GTD is great for getting things off your mind and focusing you on the next step, but you don't seem to need that. You know the dishes should be put away, but you say you're just too lazy to do it. If you're OK with that, I don't think GTD would change anything.

Is it worth examining why you think it's a waste of time? Do you feel it's not as worthy of your time as a scientific endeavor? Does it feel beneath you or do you resent having to do it? Or do you enjoy chaos at home after being in an orderly lab all day? Perhaps looking at your reluctance can be helpful and be a project on your list. It's an interesting scenario. Let us know what you ultimately end up doing.
 
I was thinking about this today!

I made up a few "routine" lists of stuff I'd work through as I cleaned the house. Setting those up as projects and clicking and dragging tasks from them to my Next Actions list almost seems like a big hassle.

I wonder if it would be a crime to add something like, "Clean the bathroom" to my Next Actions list and from there, just refer to the checklist.
 
ERJ1 said:
I was thinking about this today!

I made up a few "routine" lists of stuff I'd work through as I cleaned the house. Setting those up as projects and clicking and dragging tasks from them to my Next Actions list almost seems like a big hassle.
Click to expand...

Why? Either you need the reminder or you don’t. If you do, why not add it?
 
taradee said:
Why? Either you need the reminder or you don’t. If you do, why not add it?
Click to expand...
Good thinking! So, from this perspective, I would perhaps leave it out of my system entirely, seeing as I know I intend to do it and don't necessarily need a reminder of it?
 
I think I have come to some conclusions from everyone´s answers. Firstly, this is not an activity which is somehow "below" me and I suspect others will feel the same. On the contrary I have to do this, by myself to own my surroundings. While our place is not majorly cluttered, there are still many things which constantly stare me in the face. But I often drift off and do other things which are also on my list... It is thus not a matter that it does not bother me, on the contrary. This is also why I rather not put reminders in my GTD system. It would just put me off to be constanty reminded - I know I have to do this . So for the common tasks I will rather "block" some time twice or so a day where I will be doing as many tasks I realistically can within this limited time frame. Not too long and not too short to be worthwhile but at the same time not too daunting. Maybe I can expand it from here once the habit got more stable.

Very helpful for more than routine tasks is the DA interview with the dutch lady (sorry I don´t have the link now, it is a couple of threads below "best interview ever or sth" . He says to her once she starts to do her inventory that she needs to do this for the whole house. It does leave her shocked... but the message is the inventory needs to be made for the physical space first and then it can be attacked later. So I went around with my phone and took pictures which I will process later. This somewhat decreases the threshold of doing this in the first plae by not having the feeling everything has to be resolved at once. the good thing is that already now I have found some things I was looking for longtime, and of course did take some things upstairs. But then left to continue for another time.
 
ERJ1 said:
Good thinking! So, from this perspective, I would perhaps leave it out of my system entirely, seeing as I know I intend to do it and don't necessarily need a reminder of it?
Click to expand...

Yep. My "that seems logical" was based on the impression that you were doing something more complicated than that. If cleaning the bathroom is a habit that you do reliably, you may not need any reminder. If you do want a reminder, I'd err in the direction of it being as simple as possible.
 
frank F said:
But I often drift off and do other things which are also on my list...
Click to expand...

Dana K. White's ("A Slob Comes Clean") methods are based on the assumption that you're likely to be interrupted at any moment. Also, you can get a lot of her content before you spend money on anything--she has a podcast and videos. She's the decluttering/housekeeping source that I find most useful at the moment. (I tend to like to read something about anything I'm doing--not so much for guidance, just...because I like to.)
 
Gardener said:
Dana K. White's ("A Slob Comes Clean") methods are based on the assumption that you're likely to be interrupted at any moment. Also, you can get a lot of her content before you spend money on anything--she has a podcast and videos. She's the decluttering/housekeeping source that I find most useful at the moment. (I tend to like to read something about anything I'm doing--not so much for guidance, just...because I like to.)
Click to expand...
Haha - a slob comes clean - I will look into this :) I also liked your other thoughts from above on "presorting". This sounds like something I need to do. I already have "interim inboxes" for stuff lying around but some sort of sorting might be better , otherwise it is too demotivating to acually empty out the messy boxes. Clearly, as you say, I don´t always feel like walking through the rooms to put things back in their place constantly. What works well for example is a basket at the stairs, for everything which has to go up. Kind of common sense really.. but you can expand this to boxes for stuff which need to go to certain rooms (eg bathroom, office).

I also like to read about things I am doing. For the household I also find it useful to watch youtube videos . Just watching people doing things makes me more likely to also try it (but hey , the idea to make a living out of it is kind of weird..).
 
Gardener said:
If you're having trouble keeping the house in order, it's the house's fault. Now, I realize that this is in part a way of looking at things, but to a very large degree, you are who you are, and if you are a person who doesn't like doing a lot of housekeeping, then you need to transform your home into one that doesn't require a lot of housekeeping.
Click to expand...
I love this!

And I'm going to implement many of your ideas and suggestions. I too have been struggling with what I want my housekeeping standards to be and what they really are, in part because I am unwilling to spend as much time as it would take to meet my standards. So I either need to lower my standards, or change the house so that I can meet them in less time.

Plus this also fits into the major refresh, declutter, change direction stuff that we are going through this year.
 
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