Avoiding household chores makes you… happy?

“The more time-pressed you feel, the lower your well-being.”
– Ashley V. Whillans, Associate Professor at Harvard Business School

Harvard research has proven that removing negative moments in the day makes you happier than buying things for positive moments.

In other words, if you can buy yourself free time by avoiding household chores – do it.

Spending time and money right

For families, this means that when you outsource household chores that are big time sucks, you get time (and energy) back to invest in family quality time instead.

If you feel you spend all your time on householding, the risk is you lose control of what’s important.

“If you’re stressed out because it feels like there are never enough hours in the day, here’s a solution: hire a housecleaner, order takeout, and pay the kid next door to mow the lawn.”

What to do if you can’t afford to buy time

Of course, redistributing your expenses is only possible if you can afford to buy nice-to-have “positive moments” in the first place.

If you have nothing to redistribute, you’ll have to get intentional and mindful about spending your time well.

We believe there are three areas of household time optimization that have the highest impact:

• Clear partner/parent responsibilities and communication
• Clear child responsibilities
• Time hacks for cooking and cleaning

As uncovered in Fair Play by Eve Rodsky, the division of household work is universally inequal and usually unfairly impacts mothers. This is why we believe the first step is to always set clear responsibilities and establish consistent communication between couples. It can have a truly massive imapct.

But this is still just the first step to unlock more quality time. There is more to learn than is possible to publish in a single article, and our mission is to uncover all aspects of family time optimization. (Join the Family Compass newsletter for bi-weekly insights and tips backed by research to fully cover the topic.)

Transforming household chores into quality time

Especially for families with kids above the age of 4, there is another aspect to all of this. Even though you may have the money to frequently outsource household chores, cooking and cleaning are important skills to pass on to your kids – and actually enjoy together.

Cooking, the center stage of life in the home, should not neccessarily be viewed as a miserable chore. Try viewing it as an opportunity to spend mindful time with your family to learn about healthy, fresh ingredients and the art of cooking. And yes, the same can go for mindful housecleaning. For many, it’s therapeutic.

If you found any of this insightful, I hope you join the quality time movement.

Sincerely,
A fellow navigator