If you find yourself staring at a sink full of dirty dishes, thinking it would take forever to do them, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Time yourself doing your chores and you’ll realize you get things done a lot faster than you thought.


Putting off chores comes down to time and effort. You don’t want to spend all of your free time cleaning, and you don’t want to exert what little energy you have on simple chores. It could all be just a matter of perspective, though. Annie Mueller at Asian Efficiency suggests you change the way you look at your chores by timing yourself:

Emptying the dishwasher was my least favorite chore. I put it off and let dishes pile up in the sink, getting aggravated everytime I walked by the kitchen. Then I timed myself. Four minutes to empty the thing. Really? Only four minutes? Not so bad. Much of my resentment, fear, and resulting procrastination comes from misjudging how much time something takes.


When you see how little time it actually takes to do your chores, you’ll realize you have plenty of time to get them done. Additionally, now that you see how quick chores can be completed, you might realize it doesn’t take nearly as much effort as you thought it did. So grab a kitchen timer—or use your smartphone—and see how fast you really are when you buckle down and get to work.

What You Can Learn from Obsessing Over Your Own Time Use | Asian Efficiency

Photo by Les Chatfield .