The Yearly Household Chore and Self-Care Tracker
How can we do adulting better? It’s so hard to remember to do monthly tasks, even if you set a reminder for yourself. Listen—I’m almost 40. And my ability to do adulting tasks hasn’t gotten any easier with time. With a family to manage and the addition of a dog, plus just trying to prioritize my mental health, it’s been tough staying on top of tasks—both for myself and for the household. But I finally found a solution!
Introducing: The yearly (adulting) tracker:
Honestly. Do you remember when you last switched out your toothbrush? When you last ran your dishwasher on a clean-only cycle? These things are so hard to remember, but doing them helps keep your life running smoother. Regular maintenance of the things we own is a top minimalism principle. By taking care of our possessions, they will last longer and work better.
Here’s why monthly household chores are hard to remember to do, and how I use my yearly tracker in my digital planner in Notability to help me do adulting better when I use my iPad for life management.
Why monthly habits are hard to keep
Anything you want to track daily is going to be easier to keep tabs on. It’s a high-touch page in your planner, whether you bullet journal digitally in an app like Notability or Goodnotes, or even in your analog planner. You might keep track of your daily habits in a weekly log or on a master page. But either way, it’s something you probably look at every day.
Monthly habits and household chores are really hard to remember!
Even if you set a calendar appointment for yourself or add a reminder in your phone, it’s so easy to skip over these tasks. They’re usually lowest priority and when they pop up, they feel like an annoyance. So we swat them away, ignore the calendar slot, or delete the reminder altogether.
How a yearly household chore tracker can help
A yearly tracker can really help you set intentions for the habits and household chores that you want to complete monthly, and then stay on top of it.
You’ll visit this page in your digital planner whenever you complete a task on the chart, which will then help you get a reminder to the other tasks and chores you need to pay attention to that month.
This year, I will track self-care and household tasks to be completed monthly in my yearly tracker, like:
Changing contact lenses
Switching to a new toothbrush
Cleaning my dishwasher’s filter
Deep deodorizing the carpets
Reviewing my budget in depth
For each of these items, I write down the day of the month in the corresponding cell. This allows me to see when I last completed the task so I don’t repeat a task too soon. It also helps light a fire under my butt to remind me to get on a task where I’m behind.
I can also write an intended date in pencil to give me guidance, and switch it over to ink once I complete the task.
Try a yearly tracker in your digital planner
I have a new yearly tracker template which goes along nicely with my minimal planner in light neutral. This page works great as the one of the first pages in your digital planner so you will see it often. Make sure to bookmark it, too, so you can use it as one of your main pages in your digital planner! I think this is how the yearly tracker will work best for me, since I often read through my bookmarked pages in my digital planner out of habit.
Thank you to @lindseyscribbles for the inspiration from her analog “adulting log.” What a great idea, and I’m glad to have created a minimal digital template for all of you fellow digital bullet journal fans.
