Turning Mundane Into Magic: Discovering Joy in Daily Chores
Ever felt weighed down by the everyday chores on your to-do list?
In this episode of The Simple Joy Show, I dive into transforming the mundane tasks we often dread into delightful rituals filled with joy and purpose.
From dance-party dishwashing to competitive cleaning, I am revealing strategies to revamp your routine.
Uncover the sparkle in the seemingly ordinary and learn to celebrate every small win.
Dive in and embrace the art of finding pleasure in the everyday! 🌟
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How to Get Started Decluttering When Overwhelmed PDF: https://hub.simplejoy.co.uk/overwhelmed
30 Day Decluttering Challenge: https://hub.simplejoy.co.uk/challenge
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Transcript
Hayley Forster [00:00:00]:
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Simple Joy Show. Today, I want us to talk about uncovering the joy hidden within our daily mundane tasks. We’ve all got those daily routines that perhaps aren’t the most fun. We don’t enjoy doing them. And in some cases, we We might even dread doing them, but it doesn’t have to be that way. So today, I want to share a few things that have helped me We learn how to find joy in some of these mundane tasks, and I hope that you find them helpful to make your dreaded tasks a little bit more enjoyable too.
Hayley Forster [00:02:57]:
The reason why I chose this topic is because I’ve been procrastinating a little bit. As I mentioned in the last episode, we have had a period of quiet time in our home at the moment. There’s not a lot of activities in our calendar. There’s not a lot of things to do at the moment. Obviously, that’s gonna change in a couple of weeks when all the festivities start for the end of the year. But I’ve been wanting to use this slower period to perhaps catch up on some things that need doing, just doing a little bit of decluttering here and there. And I have found myself procrastinating, which is fine.
Hayley Forster [00:03:44]:
I just usually go with the flow. If I’m not feeling it, I don’t do it. But it has become a bit more of a habit over the past couple of weeks to the point where I’m getting a little bit frustrated with myself. I do it quite frequently and it’s one of the main reasons why I perhaps live a minimalist lifestyle because I don’t like cleaning. I don’t like tidying. It’s not one of my favourite activities. I would much rather be doing other things and that is why I choose to live the way I do.
Hayley Forster [00:04:21]:
I try to live quite minimally and I try to live quite in an organized fashion just because it makes it easier, and I don’t have to spend as much time doing the things that I don’t like doing. But, yes, I’ve got a home. I’ve got a family. There are things that need doing just to keep us ticking over, and sometimes I can find those quite difficult to do. I find it difficult to motivate myself. So I have, over the years, found little ways of just finding a little bit of joy within them or making them a little bit more enjoyable just so I actually can get them done. I don’t wanna keep putting them off and keep procrastinating on things, and that’s what I wanna share with you today. So the first idea is to try combining the mundane tasks that you’ve got to do with an enjoyable task. So if your mundane task is something that doesn’t really require a lot of focus from yourself,
Hayley Forster [00:05:20]:
you can try combining it with something else, but something else that you enjoy doing at the same time. So some of the things you could think about here are listening to music, put some of your favourite podcasts on, or perhaps you haven’t caught up with a friend for a while, so you give your best mate a ring while you’re doing the task at hand that you need too. This is one of the things that I like to do when I’m sorting the kitchen out. So if I’m sorting out the cupboards or cleaning up after tea, anything like that, I usually stick on my favourite podcasts. I’ve got a lot of podcasts I listen to, and it’s just my time to just switch off, listen to those, get the kitchen sorted that I need to get sorted every day. And it just makes that task more enjoyable. And I can guarantee that actually I don’t mind doing it. I finish my meal and I just get up and I sort it all out, stick my podcast on, the kids go and play, and then that’s my moment.
Hayley Forster [00:06:24]:
That’s my half hour to kind of be by myself and listen to the things that I want to listen to. And I actually do look forward to to that part of the day, which just sounds bizarre to me. If you said to me 10 years ago, I would enjoy like cleaning the kitchen! But I actually do enjoy it now because I’ve combined it with something that I like doing. So I’m more focusing on listening to the podcast and the sorting of the kitchen just ends up happening. It just kinda on autopilot really.
Hayley Forster [00:06:53]:
I don’t really think about the fact that I’m doing it. And I even have a couple of friends that have dance parties when they’re sorting out in the kitchen. So they put their music on really loud and they just dance around the kitchen while sorting the dishes out, which just sounds like so much fun. So just find something that you really enjoy doing it and pair it with a task that you don’t and just see how you get on. See if that enables you to do it much easier. The second idea is to try turning the task into a game. So if it’s something that you really really hate doing and you find yourself struggling and not wanting to do it, you can set yourself a timer and see how quickly you can get everything done. And if you’re someone who’s quite naturally quite competitive, this might work really well for you.
Hayley Forster [00:07:38]:
I first realised that the time limit thing was a good idea for me a few years ago. I mentioned in a previous episode that we have a cleaner, and I’ve had a cleaner since my eldest was born, so 11 years. And she had a set time every 2 weeks to come around to do the cleaning. And then one week she messaged me and she said, “Oh, instead of coming at 11 AM, can I come at 9 AM?” And she messaged me that just before I was gonna go of bed the night before, and I was like, “Yeah. It’s fine. Not a problem.” So I got up and obviously I had to take my daughter to the nursery, so I had very limited time in the morning.
Hayley Forster [00:08:16]:
And usually what I like to do before the cleaner comes is I have a sweep around, make sure the surfaces are clear, and have a little bit of a tidy so that she’s Able to to clean as well as she can without there being junk everywhere basically. And In that 20 minutes that I had sort the house out before she arrived, I got so much more done than I ever would because I had a time limit. I knew that she was coming at 9 and I knew what I needed to get done, and I completed it so fast. And it was fine. It wasn’t like a half false job, or anything like that. It was just that I had a time limit, and I just got it done so much quicker than I ever would. So try giving that a go and see if that’s something that can can gamify it for you and make it much more enjoyable.
Hayley Forster [00:09:12]:
The third idea is doing something with somebody else. So if it’s something that you really don’t enjoy, just ask someone if they can help you. I don’t particularly like grocery shopping by myself. I do most of my shopping online. But if there’s stuff that I want to do at the supermarket or pop to somewhere that doesn’t deliver perhaps. I get the kids to come along with me because they enjoy it, they get excited because they love going shopping. It’s the benefit of 2 girls, I suppose.
Hayley Forster [00:09:44]:
And it just makes it so much more enjoyable. It makes a nice experience with me and my daughters rather than just me popping out and grabbing a few things and it become in a bit of a chore. It’s me taking the girls out and we’ll have some quality time together. We might pop to a little cafe and get coffee and a cake, things like that. And it just makes it more of an experience rather than a job to be done. Another thing for me is when we’re decluttering, I like to do it with the girls or with my husband depending on the location of the items. And we usually stick on a film or we can watch one of our TV programs, put some music on, podcast again, and we’ll just have a little bit of a chat while we’re doing it. It becomes one of those moments where we’re together, we’re enjoying each other’s company or we’re doing something that we enjoy. So instead of me being in a room by myself, not really interacting with anybody, it can become much more of a sociable experience and again makes it much more joyful.
Hayley Forster [00:10:44]:
And the last idea is rewarding yourself. So if you’ve got, like, a massive pile of dishes to sort through or you’ve got a massive mound of washing perhaps, you can just say it right. If I get this done and I get It’s done in the next 10 minutes. I’m gonna get myself a bar of chocolate or I’m gonna get a bottle of wine and just sit with a glass and watch a film. And just having some type of reward to look forward to automatically motivates you. It helps See power through when you’re not in the mood. And, yeah, this works really well for me. I suppose I’m like a little kid in a way where I like getting a little pat on the head and I give that pat to myself.
Hayley Forster [00:11:24]:
And it just feels really good to get it knocked off your to do list, especially when it’s something that you’re not looking forward to or perhaps it’s been on your to do list for a few days. Just giving yourself that little pat on the back that you deserve, it helps you feel accomplished, and it’s gonna make you feel less likely to dread it when you come to do it next time, and that’s because you’re getting back into your routine. You’re getting into those habits. And sometimes you’ve
Hayley Forster [00:11:59]:
gotta reward yourself. As I say, treat yourself like a little kid and say, what would I most like in this moment in time? It might be that you go for a walk, have 5 minutes to yourself. It might just be, like I say, a bar of chocolate and a glass of wine. And reward yourself. So before I wrap up, I just wanna leave you with a little thought, and that is that each task that we have in our life, in our day to day lives, no matter how dull they can be, you can turn them into a source of joy. It’s all about the perspective and the approach that you choose to take, and that can make all the difference with it. So I just wanna challenge you that next time you’re faced with something that you just really don’t wanna do, you can change that. You can make yourself think differently about it.
Hayley Forster [00:12:52]:
And one way of doing that is by choosing one of these little suggestions that I’ve taken you through today to try and make it more joyful for yourself. So which one of them are you going to try? I’d love to hear about it. Let me know which tasks you usually try to sidestep and how you’re gonna plan to just sprinkle some of that joy into them. Tell me your stories. Drop me a DM on Instagram because I’d love to hear all about it. So thank you for joining me on today’s episode of the Simple Joy Show. Remember that life’s ordinary moments can become extraordinary. And until next time, keep finding your simple joy.