5 Ways to Make Mundane Tasks More Fun
Mundane tasks are a part of life but that doesn’t mean that you have to be miserable while you do them! Here are Five Ways I try to make the grown-up things I have to do each day a bit more fun.
Music
I used to always listen to music while I worked and cleaned prior to having kids. After kids, the “music” I work to is usually Mickey Mouse’s grating voice in the background. I’ve started making it a point to put on some of my favorite music while I do tasks again and it’s amazing how much more enjoyable it makes even the most mundane tasks (hello, cleaning toilets). Suddenly, cleaning up someone else’s pee doesn’t feel like the worst chore ever, thanks to Ed Sheeran or Maroon 5 serenading me. I also started folding the piles of laundry at night while I watch a show like The Voice.
Reward Yourself
It works for my kids and I am not the least bit ashamed to say it also works for me. Currently, I have 8 kid-free hours a week. I tell myself that if I spend X hours working and running necessary errands, then I can have X hours to do something fun (manicure, lunch with the hubby, shopping with a friend, etc.).
On days I have to hop from errand to errand, I reward myself in between stops with an iced coffee or cute packs of notecards or pens.
Weird, maybe? But it totally works for me!
Break it Up
In my post 10 Simple Tips for the Work at Home Mom, I mentioned how I like to break up ongoing tasks. For example, instead of spending a whole day doing laundry, I do one small load a day and then it doesn’t seem like such a chore. Big tasks like cleaning out all of my kid’s closets for season changes are another task I like to break up. One kid per day for 3 days instead of an entire day cleaning out closets is more manageable for me.
(P.S. Click the image below to read the WAHM article if you missed it!)
…Or Attack it All at Once
Some things that I really dread doing, like my business taxes, I attack all in one day. (This year I’m trying to keep up with them a little better by doing them monthly though). When it comes to blogging, I tend to attack a ton of work at once, usually on Mondays, at least for all the parts that require working on my laptop. I type up the week’s post, design/edit images, schedule all my social media posts, and review my editorial calendar for the next few weeks. That leaves the other days for family tasks and the creative stuff.
Whether you like to Break it Up or Attack it All at Once may depend on your personality style or mood. Figure out what works best for you!
Hire Someone!
Remember learning about Opportunity Cost in school? As a reminder, an opportunity cost is “the money or other benefits lost when pursuing a particular course ofaction instead of a mutually-exclusive alternative” (via Dictionary.com)
Pretty much everything costs you time or money. Decide which is more valuable to you for each task. If it’s the time, hire out certain tasks.
While I can’t work a housekeeper into the budget yet (a girl can dream), I do invest in some organizational tools that help me accomplish tasks faster so I have more time to accomplish other tasks:
- I use the CoSchedule Calendar* and LOVE it. I can easily move posts around in the calendar view of the WordPress Plug-in and set my posts to auto-share to all my social media at different time of the day. It saves a ton of time and helps me re-share old spots to get more traffic. It’s about $10 a month, but well worth it!
- I use a pin scheduling service called Board Booster*. For plans starting at just $5 a month, I set up my posts to auto pin to Pinterest. It’s worth every penny for the time it saves me.
What do you do to make mundane tasks more fun?
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