The mindset shift to help you get more housework done

I’m definitely not a naturally organised or tidy person. I can recall being very messy as a teenager and even in early marriage I can honestly say I struggled with the self discipline required for the daily upkeep of a mostly tidy home.

However, I hate mess and I’m not comfortable living around it. I think gradually over time I’ve realised the connection between any neglected housework and me harbouring a negative state of mind and mood. The more household tasks I avoid or leave unfinished, the worse I feel. The remedy to my happiness is almost always getting on top of the work in my home. It’s annoyingly simple.

Yet despite this crystal clear link, I still often felt until recently like I was failing at getting those basic daily chores habitualised. Self discipline is hard at the best of times, it’s definitely harder when you’ve got two toddlers, long tiring days, and not much personal time.

In my experience, there’s at least a handful of household chores that need to be done consistently, like a rhythm or gentle clockwork, for a home to run properly. If these tasks get neglected then things easily pile up and your life feels like a mess (or at least that’s how I end up feeling!). Joy is so easily sapped from my days when my home isn’t managed efficiently and I don’t keep up with chores.

The thing is, as a homemaker there’s no boss standing over you waiting to hold you accountable if you don’t do the dishes after each meal. Nobody will sack you if you don’t tidy the kids toys away in the evening or put away the days clean laundry. If we don’t ‘put the kitchen to bed’ and reset it ready for the next day, nothing terrible will immediately happen. So, we are left searching within ourselves for that motivation and self discipline to get those basic mundane tasks done, which can be tough when the tasks aren’t super fun, we’re tired or we just don’t feel like it.

Recently however, I adopted a mindset shift that has helped me more than any forced attempt at discipline ever did! It starts with having compassion for your future self, and viewing housework a little differently. It really has changed things dramatically for me.

Approaching housework as a form of self-care

The simple hack is to have your present self view your future self like a friend, and to treat that friend with compassion and kindness.

Choosing to have empathy for our future selves prevents self-discipline in housework feeling like self-punishment and turns it into self-care.

When we force ourselves to do tasks like dishes we don’t want to do without this mental shift, it’s easy to burn out because it isn’t sustainable. People diet and then binge, or do a full day house-tidy and then by next week it’s piled up again. When your mind is only full of the discomfort of the present moment, the end goal feels far off and it’s very easy to give up.

But instead, if in each moment when we are faced with a choice, we decide to picture our future selves as a friend and compassionately consider how they will feel, their happiness or sadness based on our actions, it persuades us rationally, not through force, to change our behaviour. Plus, we get a dopamine boost following each decision to ‘do the work’ knowing that we’ve kindly supported our future selves. Each little act of housework can become a nurturing form of self-care. Those constant boosts also help make the behaviour enjoyable and it inevitably becomes habit!

Here are some examples:

• It’s 8.30pm, I’m tired, kids have just been put to bed and I realise the playroom is a mess. Naturally I may think ‘il deal with that tomorrow, I deserve some chill time’. But if in that moment I stop to contemplate how 7am me will feel .. I consider when I step into that room I’m instantly hit with that stressful sinking feeling. Morning me gets a bad start to the day. She feels like she’s behind already tackling yesterdays problems.

  
  

  I then think about how morning me would feel walking into a tidy playroom, how at peace she would feel, how grateful she would be towards the 8.30pm version of me. So I tidy up the room, it takes a few minutes. I get a feel-good boost knowing I’ve helped my future self.

• Or, it’s been a hectic morning with the kids. The kitchen sides are now strewn with food mess with dishes piled in the sink. After we’ve eaten I may naturally feel inclined to avoid the kitchen situation and take the kids in the garden, or sit with the kids in the living room as it’s easier and feels more pleasant in the moment. Instead, I stop to think about how 12pm me will feel walking into the kitchen to make lunch. Her joy would be sapped just at catching sight of the sticky pancake batter on the sides. She would feel stressed and overwhelmed from having to work longer in the kitchen clearing up the mess before being able to produce lunch for two hungry children.

  
  

  But, if I clear up, 12pm me would feel calmer and making lunch would be much easier. She would feel so appreciative towards morning me. So I clear up the kitchen. I feel proud that I’ve made the effort and taken care of my future self.

The modern trap is to believe that self-care means always letting yourself off the hook. It’s not unusual to see self-care described as sitting down with a slice of cake or enjoying some retail therapy or making yourself a cup of tea. Self-care comes across as always being lenient with yourself and validating your present feelings but of course emotions aren’t static, they’re temporary and they change quickly. We feel one way in the morning and a different way by evening. A lot of self-care recommendations only offer short-term enjoyment, not long term gratification. It’s made me wonder, is that really the best form of self-care, or do the kindest gestures to ourselves require a little more work?

I’m definitely not trying to say that homemakers, or anyone, shouldn’t take a break if they’re completely overwhelmed, or that people can’t enjoy their usual leisure time. I’m referring to the general daily friction we feel when faced with household tasks when we are under our typical, every-day stresses. I’m describing that self-disciplinary barrier I often feel towards my responsibilities at home during a normal day of tiredness and tested patience, and that temptation to choose the easy option of avoidance, because it feels kinder in the moment.

Choosing to make another cup of tea instead of tackling the laundry may feel nice for 10 minutes but my future self will end up drowning in that pile of dirty clothes and would probably like to time-travel back and throw the kettle out the window.

Seriously though, the simple mindset shift of compassionately considering my future self in each situation has drastically improved my personal self discipline. No hack will make us work like robots and succeed every single time, we are all human, but I’ve found this approach to really make a difference. It may sound silly or overly simple, but I encourage anyone to try it. Suddenly, keeping up with my housework hasn’t felt so difficult and it’s helped spark joy in those small daily acts of the mundane. I now look at those daily challenges around the house as opportunities to perform a little self care for future me, and who doesn’t enjoy self-care?

Peace be upon you,

An English Muslim Homemaker