Just a Little Bit Everyday

I just had a huge light bulb moment the other day: if I spend just 10-15 minutes a day working on maintaining the progress I've made, I can keep up with my house!

Of course, I must first spend a longer period of time initially getting whatever area I'm concentrating on in shape, but once there, just a few minutes of focused work here and there can keep it up.

Example: I HATE doing the dishes. I have a dishwasher, but I don't wash pots and pans in it, I do them by hand. Usually I consider myself "too busy" to do the dishes and I put them off until I can no longer cook dinner because the pan I need is in the sink. At this point, I have to do the dishes and watch over the cooking food simultaneously. :( Not fun! But, if instead I just spend the 15 minutes washing the dishes after I cook supper that night, then I won't be scrambling for a pan when all 3 sizes of skillets are in the sink a few nights later.

I also used to spend whole days "catching up" on laundry, dishes, doing extra cooking, etc. Then after catching up, I would be tired or not wanting to work on maintaining that chore because I just spent the whole day before working on it after all, so I would slack and it would just pile up again.

Now, I flip a load of laundry here and there in the evenings and fold it right away so I don't have a huge mountain to fold at the end of the week with lots of wrinkly clothes. I also don't have a huge mountain to wash on the weekend by spending just a few minutes throughout the week maintaining the laundry.

How do you accomplish your household chores? Do you work to maintain things or do you slack and then catch up?