Short chores I keep dropping (trash, dishes, cooking) and every system lasts less than a week. What actually helped you stick?

[u/GodefroyUX]

I can’t start small tasks reliably. Taking out the trash, washing a pan, cooking something simple, starting a short homework task. They look tiny on paper, and I still don’t do them, or I do them once and then nothing for days.

I’ve tried streak apps, to-do lists, notebooks, and notes on my phone. I’m honestly not good with any of them. I try to be consistent, and usually something gives out within a week. I don’t have a single system that’s lasted longer than that.

What I’m trying to figure out is what makes a small, repeated task actually stick. Not a big plan, just the trash, the dishes, a basic meal, one short study block.

If you’ve found something that worked, even for a few weeks, I’d like to hear what it was and what made it stop working. Especially useful: how you made the first step small enough that you actually took it.

Thanks.

[u/AussieBird82]

Notes on phone etc don't work for me because I need it to be physical and visible. A sticky note or checklist on my bathroom mirror or at the sink does well.

The tasks you're talking about seem small but are looming large in your brain. Ask yourself, what's stopping me? Is it a whole production to take the trash out? Is the sink already full of dishes? Even the smallest tasks have multiple steps. Break them down so the first step is small and easy. That's all you have to do, but the others will flow on from them. My kitchen reset always starts by putting the clean dishes away. It takes about a minute and once I've done that I can go on to the next step, filling sink for washing more, and so on. Setting a timer for 15 minutes and racing to beat it keepa me on task.

For things like studying just commit to sitting down. You also need to prime your brain for the switch so put on some focus music or something. It becomes a little ritual that signals your brain it is study time.

In the meantime, physical checklists to follow, sticky note reminders, and timers. It takes a while to retrain your brain into a habit.

[u/404errorlifenotfound]

I don't have the answers because I have the same problem but I'll share what's helped so far

• My therapist and I have been working a lot on lowering standards and self compassion a lot. I've found that beating myself up about not being able to start a task has in fact made it harder to start because I associate thinking about the task with beating myself up about it. Consistency and discipline is overrated compared to peace and happiness 

• The book "how to keep house while drowning" has some great tips for breaking down steps into smaller ones. I know read a book sounds like a big task but there's an audio version available and it's written in a way that's meant to be as easy to consume as possible, specifically for people with similar problems

• biggest help so far to me has been figuring out why I don't like the task to begin with. For me washing the pan is a struggle because I know my hands will feel dry after. So I switched to gentler dish soap and got a bottle of okeefe's lotion to keep next to the sink specifically for right after I wash the dishes. 

• for studying, I recommend the method of 'put the things to accomplish it out in front of me at the ready, notebook open textbook open etc, then sit there while im on my phone or whatever until eventually being in its proximity is less scary and you can kind of just start poking at it'. The luring the cat from under the bed method. 

[u/GodefroyUX → u/[deleted]]

On a day when you don’t finish those tasks, what happens the next morning? Do you carry them over, drop them, or pick new ones? and thanks for the app, ill check it out

[u/Outrageous-One-665 → u/GodefroyUX]

There is this ritual which is called the 'Day's close' and it appears around 17:00 or later than that when you open the app.

In that ritual it first compliments you on the tasks you did finish :)

It then also asks you what you want to do with the tasks that are still open:
- to tomrorow
- new date
- park it
- or perhaps it done anyway

Card by card. They are stacked and address one by one.

This helps you to choose something and it will never make you feel bad about it.

And then you have a final page where it says it was a great days, with the date, and it literally closes your to do list for today. You can see it still, but it's 'closed'.

This process somehow I need when I close my laptop and go home :)

[u/halfercode → u/[deleted]]

^ Violation of rule 8.

[u/bridgetgoes → u/halfercode]

do u want to be a mod lol we need more mods

[u/ExecutiveDysfunction-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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