Getting those weekly chores done!?

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Have you any efficient strategy to get chores like cleaning, getting garbage out, paying bills, clothes wash, minor repair work etc.. done?

A person with AS which I know told me that when he starts things like vacuum cleaning his living place. He stays on the task even if other things needs attention because he wouldn't know next time he would get into the mood.

So the problem is to get started, once in that state, it just runs with great expediency. The goal being to lessen the starting resistance and be more efficient in that area. There ought to be anyone else that has tried out something that works really good.

For cleaning I have things I do every day and things I do weekly. For the things I do weekly I have a set day to do them.

Every day:

Take out all garbage and replace all garbage bags
Wash, dry and put away all laundry
Wash and put away all dishes (I do this after meals and I wash up as I go while cooking)
Straighten up the house
Make the beds
Sweep the whole house and damp mop the kitchen
Sweep off front porch, walkway and driveway, and back deck and steps

All that only takes an hour, tops, except for the waiting for the laundry to be done.

Weekly:

Monday - Sweep and mop all floors. If you have carpet, you should vacume
Tuesday - Dust
Wednesday - Clean windows on the inside, mirrors, tv screens, monitors, and any glass top tables etc throughout the house.
Thursday - Scrub all bathrooms (Sink and countertop, toilet, tub and shower walls) and replace towels with fresh
Friday - Change bed linens and wash sheets and blankets
Saturday - Anything that I need to do outside


For bills, when I get a bill in the mail I open it immediately and write the amount and due date on the calander. By knowing how much money is coming in already, if I see that I can't pay it on that date, I call them right then and set up payment arrangements.

Does this help? Is that what you meant, or did you mean how do you make yourself get started on them?

I face the same problem of getting work done and it depends on my mood swings some days its too hard for
me to get the work done

In India servants are easily available but then i dont know how to control one and if we dont control them
they act smart and end up taking lot of leaves

Ok coming back to household work

I sweep the floor daily
I mop the floor with wet cloth every alternative day
Washing dishes are daily and several times a day
washing clothes alternative day
Dusting depends on my mood and when the dust looks visible then
i start dusting
Cleaning bathrooms, washing bed sheets, changing bed linen as and when they
look terribly dirty

well lot of my time ends up going into running behind my son
and working at my part time job

Yeah, I meant to get started with them. As to the timing, it's all about when it needs to be done. Otherwise there's yet another time appointment to deal with.

i'm not very good at this. but once i do start i tend to go on a bit of a rampage and can't stop.

writing schedules and lists usually helps a bit, i'm not sure why

Well, I have a routine. I'm a housewife so this is my job sort of. After I get up and drink my coffee and get my eyes open, I just do the major picking up. I get up and do it right then. I pick up all the laundry from all over the house and put it in the laundry room, all dishes from all over the house and put them in the kitchen by the sink, I get the big kitchen garbage can and go through room to room and throw away any garbage and empty the ashtrays and empty the bathroom garbage cans, then I take the garbage out. I walk through the house and pick up and straighten up each room but I don't make the beds yet. That's taken me about 15 minutes at the most and my house is presentable but not clean.

I know that if I go ahead and get up and spend those 15 minutes doing that, and go on and get it over with, that I will feel much better. A chaotic environment stresses me out, so once it's neater, I feel more like doing my chores. I also feel a sense of accomplishment from just those first 15 minutes.

I would suggest that you make yourself a routine somewhat like that. As soon as you get awake and all, just do those few things. Go through and pick up dishes, laundry and garbage and put them where they need to go. I've found that those three things are the biggest factors in making a room look messier than it is. Once you have those done, it usually only takes a minute to pick up. Just start at one corner of the room and go around it and straighten things up and pick up anything that isn't supposed to be there and put it in it's place. Do that to every room. After you get that done, do some other things you want to do and then start a load of laundry if you have a full load, and either run your dishwater and put your dishes in to soak or load the dishwasher and start it. Then make the beds. That will take maybe 20 minutes if you have to sort the laundry. Now all thats left to do is to finish the laundry and dishes and put them away and whatever chore you have planned for the day.

Sometimes I like to break it up after I have my initial stuff done. I do a whole lot more than just what I've written, but it's not relevent to your situation, so I didn't include it. I do a lot of cooking and mending and have to make phone calls and arrange things for the kids and all that. What I do is I do one or two things, then I sit down for a fixed amount of time and then I get back up and do one or two more things.

A list helps. Write down everything you need to do that day as you think of it. Then write it down again in the order that you need to do it in. Keep your list by you and look at it and get up and do the next two things on it, then sit back down for however long you plan to. That's how I get things done during the day and also have time to do what I want to do.

ETA: I also try and do the worst thing(s) first if possible. Do them as soon as possible and get them over with. By worst things, I mean the chores I hate the most and will dread until I get it done. I find that once I've done the chore I'm dreading, the rest goes so much easier, and I do feel accomplished.

Getting started right when you wake up seems effective. I usually think up what I need to do and then eat a lot of sugar, it seems to get the process started. But I think that's not good for the body. However I have always been slim so it doesn't add any fat etc.

Lists are easy, I can optimize them for both time and energy in all imaginable ways. Starting to execute them is worse even if I have ways to get to that point.

i hate doing chores so i chose not to do them. i live with my parents and they keep nagging me about them.
if it bothers them then they should do it themselves. i couldnt care less, not my problem.

One thing that you need to remember is that most of the time, motivation follows action. I can sit here all day long waiting to get motivated and knowing I have to do all this housework. If I make myself get up and get started on something, I get a little motivated. Seeing results and also having a list and crossing things off it, is tangable proof of what I've done. I'm motivated to do more and get everything finished. If you wait until you want to do it, you'll never do it.

Breaking things down into short tasks helps a great deal. Don't worry about "cleaning the kitchen." Instead break it down into basic tasks -- wash dishes, put away dishes, wipe counter-tops, wipe stove top, take out trash, etc. -- that can be completed quickly, then write it down in a schedule. Some things need to be done every day -- sweeping -- others only once a week or so -- washing windows.

As for bills, I try to set as many as possible to automatic payments. It's the only way I've found to make it work. Just be careful about setting credit cards to auto pay -- the ones I had would change my due date or payment amount and I ended up getting in trouble for not paying on time, even though I had scheduled the payments properly over a year before. For rent and utilities, though, automatic payments are absolutely the best way to go.

Any company that would change amount or pay date like that would be shafted instantly. Auto payment is a trust relation in my book.

Starting bit-by-bit seems a good approach. Small stuff gets done more easily. Otoh, it doesn't really address the basic issue
Maybe one should get some adrenalin injections

I usually do all my chores whenever shame & embarassment of all the mess sets in.

I prefer to do maintenance in the preventive style

Same here. I make a goal to clean my room for an hour a day. It's nice not living on my own, because the rest of the house isn't my problem, my parents hire a cleaning lady for that.

But each morning at five A.M., I:
Sweep
Mop
Detail dust a portion of the room
Scoop the catboxes
Feed the cats and dogs
Take out my trash
Make my bed
Febreeze
And put away any clothes that are sitting around

It makes cleaning a lot easier if I do it every day, because then each of those things only takes five to ten minutes instead of 15 or more.

I suggest just getting in the habit of cleaning every day, first thing in the morning. It feels good not having to worry about doing the work later.

Use the AS power of rigid routine against the AS weakness of inertia. Put the chores on your schedule and do them at the same time every day or week. It may be hard to establish the new routine at first but you'll only have to use that effort of willpower until the habit kicks in--maybe a month or so.

I do all my major chores at the same time every Sunday morning. I watch a certain show while eating breakfast and getting caffeinated, then pop off the couch at 9:30 and clean for an hour and a half.

It helps to get the tasks into an efficient order--for instance, strip the sheets off the bed, THEN start the laundry (with dirty sheets included) or change the cat litter, THEN take the garbage out (with dirty litter inside.)

Couldn't agree more. I know it will be tough to start with, but once you have stuck to a (solid) routine everyday for even a week you will begin to feel like things aren't "right" if you don't do it.