I had a lot of fun writing my Christmas-themed Top Five/Bottom Five posts (followed by a special cookie edition for Engie). Based on the comment sections, some of you have very strong feelings about holiday music, food, and movies.
I posted a Top Five/Bottom Five chores roundup on my old blog, but as we march into a new year, it seemed like a good time to revisit the topic. And I’ve had some shifts in thinking over the last few months so my top and bottom picks have jockeyed for new positions. Let’s get started, shall we?
MY TOP FIVE CHORES
- Organizing/decluttering. I know this is a broad description, but I’m going to label it as a single “chore”. I like putting things back into order; fluffing pillows, smoothing down blankets, adding unused items to a donation bag for the thrift store. I enjoy straightening shoes in the entryway, stacking books on my bedside table, and tidying our living spaces. In the right context, decluttering doesn’t feel like a chore to me at all – in fact, I view it as a form of relaxing self-care!
- Buying groceries. I enjoy going to the grocery store, finding deals, and imagining all the delicious eating moments in my future. (See my Bottom Five for how I feel about the next step, though).
- Washing dishes. I generally like hand-washing dishes, especially if I’m playing music on the kitchen speaker. I appreciate the sensory experience – the smell of the dishwashing detergent, the warmth of the water – and it’s very satisfying to clear a stack of dirty dishes off the counter.
- Paperwork/schedule management. I love writing cheques. I don’t mind filling out forms for school events (permission slips, activity registrations). And I enjoy sitting down with the calendar and fitting things in like a Tetris game.
- Laundry. This is huge. Laundry has long been one of my absolute least favourite chores. I have changed my system and made the tiniest of tweaks but I LOVE the result. My changes have made it so much easier to stay on top of loads and overall I feel much less angsty. Stay tuned – I will be back with a recap of my new laundry process tomorrow. Will you manage to sleep tonight with all this suspense?
MY BOTTOM FIVE CHORES
- Cleaning mirrors. Even with my new hacks – in particular, using coffee filters instead of paper towels – I still hate cleaning mirrors.
- Putting away dry dishes. While I enjoy washing dishes (see above), I loathe unloading the dish drainer. A is theoretically responsible for emptying the dishwasher, but I often help her. In that context, putting away cutlery is my least favourite, but cups and mugs are also a big nuisance since little divots at the top often retain puddles of water (that end up on the floor as we’re unloading items).
- Cleaning the bathtub. I should start by saying bathrooms in general don’t rank very high on my chore list. But the bathtub is my least favourite. It takes so much effort to scrub and I have short arms and, apparently, not enough muscle power.
- Putting away groceries. I don’t mind making a list or shopping, but I hate unloading things when we get home. To be fair, John often spearheads this; he likes an organized fridge and does a great job of maximizing space (which is important because we only have an apartment-sized fridge). Unpacking items and shuttling them around to different places in the house feels like such a hassle – fresh fruit goes on a tray on the counter, lots of things need to go in the fridge, and various items go in our two “pantry” spaces; then there is the small standalone freezer downstairs and longer-term storage on shelves in our basement (extra toilet paper, paper towel, canned goods). I love to eat, but sheesh there is a lot of work that goes on behind-the-scenes to get food on the table.
- Watering plants. I love having plants, but I dislike watering them. I’m not sure why it feels so onerous, but it does.
And there you have it – my top/bottom five selections in the category of household chores.
Your turn. What would your top five/bottom five chores be? What’s your favourite cleaning tool or hack? Do you mind watering plants? Unloading the dishwasher?
Header photo by Jonathan Francisca on Unsplash
sarah
THE PLANTS! I agree on this one– I like that I am taking care of my pretty plant ladies, but the dripping and the lugging them into the sink or tub (my plant ladies want showers LOL). It DOES feel like a lot. And also the unloading! I do grocery pick up, so I want to make sure we got everything (the store has been known to forget a bag or two), so I sort of stage things before I put them away, and it’s a pain. I also wipe out the fridge and straighten the pantry while Ben is on the way to pick up the order, so the process never ends.
Elisabeth
It is a lot, isn’t it? And I have gotten so bad about sticking to a schedule and my poor plants are showing the lack of love. Sigh.
The whole experience of buying/storing/preparing food is literally a full-time job in and of itself.
Kyria @ Travel Spot
I can come over and clean your tub and put away your groceries if you will fold my laundry! I don’t mind doing laundry, but my least favorite part is the folding and putting away. The good thing is that I often wear the same 10 things (a running outfit, a sweatpants/house outfit, an outdoor outfit) so there are only a few drawers to add things back to, but I still like that least of all. I also don’t mind handwashing dishes! Obviously plates are the most fun, but I will roll up my sleeves and do a pot without too many complaints. I always had to do this growing up (my brother was notorious for leaving dishes to “soak” all the time, aka leaving them for someone else, ME, to do later), so I would think I would hate it, but I guess it grew on me a bit. I almost never use the dishwasher, plus it barely cleans anything, so I may as well wash by hand.
Elisabeth
I also don’t love putting away laundry but this is getting easier. The kids (mostly) put away their own laundry and I hang all my shirts and dresses; I don’t fold underwear (I have a little basket it goes into)…so I do everything humanly possible to cut down on folding because, agreed, it stinks.
My dad is the resident “soaker” – and they have never owned a dishwasher so there are a lot of pots to handle!
I use our dishwasher daily and LOVE IT. It’s older than any other dishwasher I’ve seen but works like a charm! That said, there are still lots of dishes I need to hand-wash like plastic tupperware and good knives. There is never any lack of dishes 🙂
Nicole MacPherson
I hate drying dishes. HATE. I always leave them to dry on the rack. I don’t mind putting them away though. I also really hate vacuuming. Fortunately, between my husband and his new vacuum, and our Roombas, I never have to actually do this. I don’t mind dusting/ tidying/ cleaning the bathroom. I do them so frequently that the tasks are not onerous. I have a new oven that has an aqua clean function, so I have actually cleaned the oven three times since moving here. It’s the easiest thing in the world. Water in, run the function, wipe it out. Cleaning the oven the normal way is an incredibly huge task and this is so easy.
Elisabeth
Okay, confession time. I have never – NEVER – cleaned our oven. I cook in it regularly (many times a week). I didn’t clean it when we moved in, and I haven’t cleaned it since living here. I think Engie asked about my “dirty little secrets” before and this is definitely one of them.
I HATE drying dishes and avoid it at all costs. I grew up in a household where we washed, wiped, and put away (my parents still do). I know it drives my mom CRAZY to visit and see dishes drip-drying but it’s so much easier and it’s wayyyyy more hygienic to allow them to air dry vs. spreading germs around with a dish towel.
I also dislike vacuuming. I’ll sweep and everything else is the robovac.
Jenny
Yep, I hate unloading the dishwasher (does anyone actually like this???). It’s just time consuming, annoying, and yes there’s always little puddles of water to contend with. Tragically this is a chore that has to be done OFTEN.
Cleaning the bathroom is low on my list, but I agree the bathtub is particularly unpleasant. It’s just awkward to get down there and scrub.
I don’t mind laundry, for some strange reason. I’m looking forward to your laundry post tomorrow! Why is it so fun to read about how other people do laundry? I’ll save my laundry “routine” for tomorrow’s comments!
Elisabeth
You’re right. It IS tragic. I wish the dishwasher needed to be emptied like, once a month. I think most household chores are far more onerous because of how frequently they need to happen.
Like laundry wouldn’t be so bad if it was once every month or two, right?
Colleen Martin
I love (as much as you can love a chore) vacuuming and mopping. I think because it’s so satisfying to see all the dirt in the vacuum and mop water and it also means your house is really clean, because everything has to be picked up and put away before you can clean the floor.
I hate anything to do with laundry – so much laundry!
Elisabeth
Now that we have a robovac I don’t mind vacuuming since I don’t have to do it. I love mopping, but hate getting the floors prepped to mop, if that makes sense? Like the mopping part is fine, but I hate making sure the floors are clean + all the things are picked up.
Speaking of which, my floors are so bad (like, so, so bad) right now. I really need to mop them.
With so many people in your household, I cannot imagine how many loads of laundry you need to do in a day!
NGS
I’ve never cleaned our oven, either, Elisabeth. Never. Not once. And we bake in it multiple times a week. Oh, well.
I don’t like dealing with dishes because it irritates my eczema, so my husband has almost entirely taken that over. I will empty the dishwasher occasionally, but my husband mostly does it when I’m walking the dog. I also don’t like cleaning toilets. I don’t mind doing laundry too much, but I don’t like folding it or putting it away.
I don’t mind doing the chores having to do with pet care. I like walking the dog, training the dog, and feeding the pets. I don’t even mind emptying and cleaning the litter box. I don’t mind too much that I have to vacuum multiple times a week because of dust bunnies of fur (although it’s hard these days to find time during daylight hours to do it!). So, basically, work associated with living as a human being = yuck, work associated with living as a four-legged creature = fine.
Elisabeth
Ha – I love how Hannah and Zelda care are fine. I mean, look at those eyes and that sweet fur. How could it not be fine?!
I’m glad I’m not the only one that has NEVER CLEANED AN OVEN. How often to people clean ovens?
I also don’t like folding clothes, so I try to fold as little as possible. My underwear go into a little tote unfolded in a drawer, and I hang all my shirts and many of my pants which is way faster than folding.
Karen A.
Top Five:
1. Putting groceries away. I actually do love doing this. When we move, my favorite thing to do is to stock the new kitchen.
2. Cleaning out the fridge. See #1. I like to do this before or just after a grocery run, it’s so satisfying! I also like decluttering/cleaning out the pantry. I try to do this on the regular, ever since we had mice (now that we have a cat, I am hoping mice never show their faces here again!)
3. Decluttering and organizing in general. I love tossing things way too much, e.g. the time I was cleaning out the car and accidentally threw out the _current_ car registration along with the old ones. Whoops. But seriously, I get giddy when I find a newer, more-efficient-to-me way of storing things. We have a small house, which makes this even more of a fun challenge.
4. Washing dishes/cleaning up the kitchen. I LOVE a clean kitchen. I will even clean an oven by hand–using the self clean function, I’ve been told, shortens the life of an oven, so I do it by hand. We stayed in a friend’s rental house last month and the oven had clearly not been cleaned for a long time (and my friend pays a cleaner to clean the place! Either she’s paying her too much or not enough). So one rainy day when we couldn’t go anywhere, I buckled down and cleaned it. SO SATISFYING.
5. Laundry. I like doing laundry. I don’t fold, though, except for towels. My mom had a regimented folding routine, due to my dad’s being in the Navy, and I logged many hours in front of the TV folding everything just so, including underwear. Yuck.
Bottom Five:
1. Washing floors. For whatever reason my mom did not have an indoor broom, so we never swept the kitchen floor. And she thought mops were the “lazy way out”, so I was made to wash the unswept floors (kitchen and bottom landing) on my hands and knees. Picture a layer of crumbs and guck, plus the cat hair from our two cats, having to be picked up with a rag, swished in the bucket, rag wrung out, rinse and repeat. Grossness. When my DH (then fiance) was visiting, and offered to help clean, he said he’d do the floors and asked, “Where’s the broom?” He was agog that we did not use a broom, except for the garage broom to sweep grass clippings off the driveway. Honestly. To this day I instinctively put off mopping, even though I am civilized and have a broom and a Swiffer and a mop. (And still, I sometimes get down and do it with a rag, because it doesn’t feel clean!)
2. Toilets. I have four boys. Do the math.
3. Mirrors and windows. My mom was horrible at floors, but great at washing windows. She’d get the ammonia out on a spring day, and open the windows all up and take them down and even wash the screens. I wipe them down when I think of it, or when the cat’s made enough nose prints. I have yet to create a streak-free surface, no matter the cloth or cleaner. They look *better* when I’m done, but not great.
4. Drying dishes. Washing dishes will always be my favorite, drying not so much. My brother and I used to fight over who got to wash vs dry.
5. Declogging bathroom and kitchen sinks. I mean, it is very satisfying to get all that ick out, but I really hate doing it. Especially in a house we’ve just moved into (we are renters) where it’s clear the previous residents did nothing to mitigate hair going down the drain.
Elisabeth
I’m stuck on the NO BROOM. Wow! That said, I used to hate sweeping. Now that we use our robovac a lot, I don’t mind sweeping occasionally, but used to hate it.
My mom used to hand-wash AND wax our floor when I was growing up. Within a day or two you couldn’t tell and it always seemed like so much effort. But I did love the smell of the wax.
Yes to the declogging of sinks and toilets. THE WORST.
Also hate drying dishes and basically never do it. We are drip-dryers in our house, though I grew up in a household where everything got dried (my parents still do this). It’s the worst part of hand-washing dishes, so I very happily skip it.
I love (love, love) a clean fridge, but I really hate wiping it down. My fridge freezer needs a deep clean so badly. Wanna pop over and help?
Ally Bean
Top 5 –
Grocery shopping
Dusting furniture
Laundry
Cleaning counters
Watering plants
Bottom 5 –
Cleaning mirrors
Changing batteries in anything
Putting away holiday decorations
Cleaning toilets
Changing sheets on the beds
Elisabeth
You like dusting and watering plants?
I would never think about hating changing batteries but you’re right – it does happen a lot; I feel very neutral about batteries when I stop to think about it.
But how did I miss changing sheets? Anything to do with washing or changing sheets I loathe with an otherworldly loathing. I should update this post…
Lindsay
I love watering my plants, haha! It gives me a chance to check in with them 😉 top 3 chores: 1. washing dishes 2. wiping down counters (but….) 3. vacuuming. Bottom 3 chores: 1. cleaning bathrooms 2. cleaning off counters 3. cleaning mirrors (the streaks!)
Elisabeth
I actually like cleaning counters – even in the bathroom.
Maybe I should start talking to my plants so I feel more attached and can “check in” on them. A few of mine are dying so they would have some choice words for me caretaking abilities. Oops.
Katherine B
Every time I empty the dishwasher I remind myself how long it would have taken to wash it all up by hand. The dishwasher is a wonderful invention and I am grateful to it every single day. Just try a week without it when it breaks down! Hate grocery shopping, thank goodness my husband does all the online ordering and all I have to do is help put it away when delivered. Quite like ironing so long as there is a decent bit of sport to watch on TV. Turning a pile of crumpled clothes and bedding into a lovely neat, smooth, smaller pile is so satisfying as is the gorgeous smell of freshly ironed clothes. Haven’t cleaned the oven for 10 years maybe. That old saying of “each to her own” is so true.
Elisabeth
I didn’t include ironing because I never do it, but that would definitely end up in my bottom five. I HATE ironing. My mom ironed so many things when I was growing up; now I just toss it all in the dryer and hope for the best…And I forgot to mention (but was reminded by Ally) that I also hate changing and washing sheets. Ugh. Such a nuisance.
I am so relieved I’m not the only one who doesn’t clean ovens. We moved into this house 7 years ago, so according to your math I have at LEAST three more years before I need to think about it – haha.
And yes. What a delight dishwashers are; I say at least once a week – out loud so the entire family hears me – “I love having a dishwasher.” This house is the first time in my life I’ve had access to a dishwasher and I cannot imagine going back to a place and time when I didn’t have one now. We did have to do a whole week with neither dishwasher nor kitchen sink and it was horrible!
M
Hmmm…chores I love? This is a challenging subject! LOL
I like grocery shopping…although the only actual going to the store shopping I do nowadays is at Costco. We still do a lot of curbside pickup for nonperishables and things like milk and juices. I hate putting them away because our freezers are so full. I guess we should use those things up to make this task easier (see? I solved my dilemma! LOL)
I am surprised at how many of your readers love to mop floors. What mops do you use? A wet mop is so heavy for me. Our downstairs is 90% hardwood floors — the kitchen is tile. I’d love to get ideas on mopping tools. My husband does the big mopping jobs using the O-Cedar EasyWring Microfiber Spin Mop. For myself, I bought one of those battery-operated mops (I got the Nellie’s Wow Mop from Costco) and it’s so easy that I don’t mind mopping with it — but I feel like it doesn’t clean as well as a mop and bucket.
I also recently bought a cordless slim vacuum that has a bit of self-propelling thing, and it’s made vacuuming a lot easier so the task has become a lot easier.
I don’t mind doing laundry (we hang a 90% of our clothes — my workout pants/eggings, underwear and socks don’t get hung…oh and swim swuits/swim trunks, too) so it’s not too bad. And I also don’t mind cleaning kitchen counters. I used to be OCD about kitchen counters being free of things and specially of crumbs (to the point I cried when I was newly postpartum and a dear family member who came to help out with the new baby left bread crumbs on counter! LOL) I don’t like putting clean dishes away…but I it anyway.
This was fun!
Elisabeth
Glad you solved a problem as you thought about it!
I use the Vileda Spin Mop (foot pedal) which I think is a LOT like the O-Cedar mop. I love it, and don’t mind mopping at all, but I hate, hate, hate making sure the floors are all clear of debris first. Even with a robovac, I’m lazy – sigh.
Joy
Top 5: ironing, tidying/organizing, putting clean sheets on the bed, folding laundry, sweeping
Bottom 5: bathtubs (I’ve outsourced this!), cleaning out the fridge, grocery shopping (I shop online at my local store and pick up. Now I only do it about once a month to stock up at Lidl. I find most stores overwhelming and exhausting), toilets (I’m the only girl in the house and its just gross), drying dishes ( I always airdry)
I rarely clean my oven–it’s such a pain. I love ironing–the smell, the satisfaction of freshly ironed clothes, the soothing heat and back and forth strokes. But I’m busy so often use the steamer instead.
One thing I don’t have to do anymore is clean the stove hood. That was always awful and I was so glad to replace it with a microwave.
I like to sweep. Instant gratification.
I don’t mind cleaning out my drains but don’t enjoy cleaning out the kids’. I bought one of those drain strainers you wrote about last month. My life is transformed. I have long hair and was constantly fighting my shower drain. Now it’s so easy. Yay for household gadgets that really work.
Elisabeth
Another person that likes ironing. What? How…?!! And I hate putting clean sheets on beds (or stripping/washing sheets to be honest).
Drying dishes is a very obvious dislike among blog readers! I’m not the only one 🙂
I just cannot stand ironing. I’m terrible at it and it feels so long and boring (but someone else commented ironing, so clearly it’s a “thing.”).
I was just commenting to John today how much I love the TubShroom. It works SO well! A gamechanger in a household with two girls with longish hair (that shed A LOT).
Stephany
Oh gosh, grocery shopping may be one of my least-favorite chores. Almost every week I have to talk myself out of ordering it online and getting it delivered, lol. I just dislike the process, PLUS I have to drag my groceries up 3 flights of stairs. UGH. But I don’t mind putting it away! It helps that I have a small galley kitchen and I’m just buying groceries for one person, so it goes pretty quickly!
I didn’t use my dishwasher for such a long time and hand-washed all of my dishes. I didn’t MIND hand-washing, but once I started using my dishwasher, my life CHANGED. It’s so much nicer to throw all of my dirty dishes in the dishwasher and let it do all the hard work for me. Emptying it isn’t a huge deal for me (again, small kitchen/one person/etc).
I think my most hated chores are mopping the floors, cleaning the bathtub, and cleaning the oven. I only clean my oven when I realize all of the dropped food particles are going to create a fire hazard, lol, so it’s not often but maaan, I hate it.
Elisabeth
A dishwasher is literally life changing, right?
Well now you know that I have never (never!) cleaned an oven. Somehow we’re all still alive, but the more people tell me how much they hate it, the less I have any desire to ever clean my oven.
Allison McCaskill
My husband hates unloading the dishwasher and I do not, so I get points for something easy, which is always fun. I don’t mind doing laundry, my favourite part is folding it up in my room with music or tv on my ipad.
We have a cleaning lady every two weeks and it’s one of the best things we’ve ever spent money on. I didn’t mind cleaning the bathrooms, but my back is not good since my messy c-section with Angus and it’s just uncomfortable.
I like organizing and decluttering, but I kind of have to be in the mood for it. Fortunately, at this point in my life I don’t like sitting down to relax and having clutter in my field of vision, so I will generally tidy the area first.
I like grocery shopping and putting away food. I like cooking some of the time, and some of the time I would rather eat thumb tacks than have to decide what to cook.
Elisabeth
Wait, you LIKE FOLDING?! Gah. I can’t even.
I am 100% with you – sometimes it is pure joy to cook and other times I’d join you with the thumbtacks. Ouch.
Ricki
This is probably my first time commenting to your awesome posts.. but it really spoke to me when you said you hate unloading the dishwasher! I hate it so much! But I love loading it!😂And as for putting away the groceries.. I usually have a strong urge to just keep on driving … to Canada?! Don’t be surprised if I show up at your house one day with a car full of groceries!😂 Thanks for all your great blog posts! Xo, Ricki in NY
Elisabeth
I just hate putting away things, maybe? Groceries and dishes! Though I enjoy tidying, so I guess my logic falls apart at that point.
Lisa's Yarns
I don’t do a lot of household chores since we have the agreement that Phil will do the cleaning since he refuses to hire a cleaner… So top chores for me are folding laundry, organizing projects, and putting groceries away. Least favorite is putting laundry away. I will be so happy to hand this task off to my children but until they pick out their own clothes, I would rather put their clothes in their dressers so it’s organized the way I like it (like I put clean laundry at the bottom of their piles of shirts, pants, etc so they don’t wear the same things over and over).
Elisabeth
That’s brilliant. I definitely have kids that prefer to pick out the same (clean) clothes over and over and over again. I mostly just don’t care, but this idea is a smart way to make it a bit more challenging for them to live on repeat.
San
Any type of organizational task – esp on paper – is my jam. I have spreadsheets for everything and I love writing in a planner (digital and paper). I’ll put all your groceries away (ok, I understand you have John to do it) if you come wash my dishes (well, my Jon actually does that) – so it sounds like we’re both lucky having Jo(h)ns 🙂
Elisabeth
Oh I really do like washing dishes. Turns out that my John told me today (after reading my post) that he LOVES to put away groceries and looks at it like a LEGO game. I always helped without complaining, but secretly hated it. NO MORE! This blog is helping me get out of chores 🙂
Tobia | craftaliciousme
I keep repeating myself but I love the top 5 bottom 5 posts.
I think my least favorite task is cleaning the shower. It gets done not enough time. But we started the habit of having a shower wiper we both use every time so at least you can only see the splatters when you look closely. Second one would be folding laundry but the husband declared laundry his job – I am not complaining.
Not sure what my favorite one would be. All household things are chores and who likes chores…
Elisabeth
Well, if you feel bad, we have a standup shower in the basement that I’ve cleaned about 7 times in the 7 years we’ve lived in the house.
Yay for someone else doing the laundry. That’s awesome.
Rachel
We have very similar top 5 and bottom 5! I don’t ever clean a bathtub or a mirror as I realized I hate cleaning bathrooms and we hired a cleaner. I would love to spend an hour or two decluttering my house and definitely agree it is a form of self care.
I disagree on dishes though… maybe because we didn’t have a dishwasher until recently, or maybe because washing dishes while pregnant sucks, but I do not like washing dishes at all.
I can’t wait to read about your laundry routine!!
Anne
This is so interesting… particularly for someone who lives alone and has to do all the things, or they don’t get done. And I’m too compulsive (ha) to not get things done.
I did want to share – as someone who is short and has difficulty reaching the far wall of the tub (and it’s not that far!) – this:
https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/2076415/Scotch-Brite-Bath-Scrubber-24-Handle/
I have not purchased one yet, but oh, it is tempting. 🙂
Elisabeth
That is tempting!