It's the Little Things...Like Cleaning the Toilets!

Last week I mentioned I might write a more uplifting post related to the election. It was going to focus on local elections that came down to a very narrow margin (like the North Carolina state Supreme Court race that’s headed for a recount and Woodson Bradley’s 27-vote election night lead in the state Senate race).

These tight races helped me feel like my efforts volunteering, canvassing, and writing postcards could have made a real difference in outcomes. I still feel that way, and I also know that every vote matters and every motivated volunteer matters, even in the races that are not close.

Even though we’re only two and a half weeks out from election day it feels like a lifetime ago. Maybe my attention span has shrunk to fit our modern age of rapid-scrolling media headlines. In any event, instead of being about world affairs, this blog post is about the most mundane apolitical topic of all…cleaning my house.

I do not like cleaning my house, but I do like the result.

Some things in life are about the journey, not the destination. Cleaning my house is 100% about the destination.

I have reason to believe that some people get some sort of perverse joy out of the act of cleaning itself. I am not one of those people. For this reason, I hire cleaners who come once a month, which is absolutely awesome. However, there are things they don’t do (like picking up after me on a day-to-day basis), and there are tasks that need doing more often than monthly.

So I went looking for apps related to house cleaning. I found one, called Tody, which I have been using almost daily ever since. I’m not sure about the name - I guess it’s a blend of “tidy” and “today”?  No clue, but whatever it’s called, I am absolutely recommending it!

Here are the things I love most about Tody:

1. It is a “gamified” app, meaning that it turns cleaning into a game. I am competing with a little cartoon guy named “Dusty” who creates a certain amount of virtual mess each day and also talks trash. You earn points by doing chores, and as a competitive person I find this highly motivating.

   

   
   

2. The setup was super simple. There is a library of possible tasks you might do in each room of your house, and each one comes with a recommended frequency. This took the guesswork out of setup for me, as I have no idea how frequently one should be expected to mop the floors or wash the shower curtains.

   
   

3. 

   It helps keep track of infrequent tasks. In addition to daily or weekly chores, Tody’s library includes things like “clean gutters” that only need to be done a few times a year. I already used it as a reminder to change my furnace filters. Today I washed my bedspread, and I was grateful for the reminder because I’m pretty sure my bedspread was last washed… [sheepish cough] never.

The absolute best thing about Tody is that I am more consistently pleased with the state of my space. No more last minute frantic cleaning before guests arrive! My house is never going to be a showroom because people live in it, and also that’s just not my vibe. But Tody has allowed me to start enjoying the journey a little bit more, thanks to the dopamine hits of defeating a little animated dustball.

If you're in the market for a motivational and organizational system for cleaning, try out Tody!