Overcoming the drudgery of routine chores

Whether it’s doing the dishes, cleaning around the house or tidying up a workplace, most of us hate the drudgery of repetitive and, let’s call them what they are, unattractive tasks. 

The way I deal with them it is by mixing a concept of continuous improvement, task optimization and competitiveness. I turn natural resistance into an appealing challenge that without a fail perks-up my interest. 

If we look at improving the way we execute any kind of work, it’s extremely rare that we can’t find a way, or ways, to do things faster, better (this bring the aspect of quality and its immense array of different measurements), more efficiently (less physical efforts required, less energy expended), longer lasting, more pleasant (not as noisy, dirty, etc.) and less dangerous. 

Optimizing tasks has to do with basic work organization and methods, like getting the general area where the work is performed ready along with all the tools that will be required, avoiding repetitions or avoidable round-trips to get things whenever possible, overlapping tasks when this is can be a good option, blend time-, cost-, energy- or effort- saving measures, as much as possible, keeping in mind both end-quality and durability as high as possible. 

Finally, bringing competitiveness will help the two areas by constantly trying to beat previous records, emulating other high performers and brain-storming on how to reach higher, going faster and being more powerful in the overall execution of that once dreaded task! 

In this discussion, I covered how I address the unpleasant work and the chores that befall me, but I could expand the proposed remedies by looking at the entire array of work that is part of our two people household aimed at making the team more cross-trained as well as stronger, uncovering a rich area for more great ideas and attractive outcomes. From there, it’s only a step away from small groups and large teams. 

A great subject for an upcoming blog!