Making Essential Tasks Less Tedious

I just started listening to the book Effortless by Greg McKeown, who is widely known for his book Essentialism. Effortless piggybacks on Essentialism by saying “Okay, if you’ve identified what’s essential and why, that’s excellent…but then how do we make doing the essential things easier?”

I’m not far into it, but I’m already LOVING it! Something he wrote really got me thinking…why do we often see the “essential” as tedious?

It’s essential we have clothes to wear: Laundry

It’s essential that we have food to eat: Grocery shopping

It’s essential that we keep a hygienic environment: Cleaning

These are obviously household essentials - so the list is different for workplace essentials, relationship essentials, or what have you - but you get the picture:

What we have to do feels like a drag.

Let’s stay on the subject of home management since that’s much of what I talk about in regards to decluttering and mindful consumption (though, as you know, I believe being intentional beyond what we own is a catalyst for being intentional in EVERY area of life). 

What if we decided right now that the essential parts of managing our home aren’t tedious? That they don’t have to be so hard? That it’s not a big sigh of exasperation that makes life a slog?

When we approach them with that negative mindset of just “getting through it” so we can be off to better, more important things, then we’ll always dread it. And that just seems silly - why would we want to dread the things that are part of the cyclical makeup of our routines? If I’m going to be doing something on repeat for the rest of my life, I want to find a way to find joy in it! Not just live in the land of “pushing through.”

This mindset shift can stem from practiced gratitude or radical acceptance, but it can also emerge from practical changes aligned with the new mindset. In other words, take what’s “tedious” is to make it less so. 

Laundry becomes less tedious when you fold it somewhere where you can also watch TV or chat with your family.

Cleaning feels less tedious when you have less stuff on your counters or floors to move out of the way.

Grocery shopping feels less tedious when you’re not in a rush, or you sit down to make an order with your favorite beverage and album playing every time.

How can you adjust the things you find tedious in order to make them more enjoyable? What parts of the task can you focus on that bring satisfaction and gratitude?

I weirdly look forward to putting away laundry because I love how organized my kids’ drawers are. I get a dopamine hit every time I see the dividers and note how loved every single item is.

I enjoy cleaning the playroom because it’s my time to listen to my audiobook!

I enjoy doing a quick scrub of the toilet because it’s while I’m watching my kids be super sudsy and cute in the bathtub.

I enjoy grocery shopping because I take my sweet time - even if it means getting there at 7:30am before work so I don’t have to rush in the evening. (I’m one of the only humans left on the planet who prefers in-store shopping to grocery delivery.)

I hope that this gets you thinking about the parts of life that feel tedious or annoying to you, even though you have to do them regularly. Why not decide to enjoy the essential? What a more positive and satisfying life that will be! (Not to mention, it’ll help you declutter the things that get in the way of making those things easy!)