I Tried the "Wheel of Chores," and It's the Smartest Decluttering Trick I've Ever Tried

A person can handle routine cleaning but struggles with extra tasks like decluttering drawers, sorting old mail, and organizing a closet. Cleaning well can take all day, and work, errands, dog walks, and writing leave little time for larger chores. Tasks repeatedly get postponed to “next weekend,” creating inertia. A hairdresser uses a “wheel of chores” hack learned from TikTok, using a digital wheel tool where chores are entered as options and a spin selects the next task. The person decides to try the wheel by setting it up with eight neglected tasks to overcome the difficulty of getting started.

"I can maintain a clean home. I have no problem cleaning the kitchen, dusting, and doing laundry. In fact, I enjoy it. But it's those extra tasks - like cleaning out my overstuffed T-shirt drawers, tackling a months-old mail pile, or decluttering my extra closet - that I can't get around to that weigh me down."

"Cleaning (and doing it well) can take all day. For instance, a trip to the laundromat and back is a few hours down the drain. That's not to mention working a 9-5, daily walks with my dog, weekly grocery store runs, and writing for my fiction workshop. So, after a few hours of cleaning, getting to the bigger tasks always seems to get pushed back to a mythical "next weekend," where instead of doing any chores at all, my husband and I take full advantage of our freedom and kick those chores down the road again and again."

"I realized that my inability to do these tasks is about inertia. How could I trick myself into getting started so I could feel the rewards of finally tackling something I've been putting off for months? That's when I saw an Instagram story from my hairdresser, Markee Speyer at Queen of Swords in Brooklyn, using a "wheel of chores" hack she learned from TikTok user Melitsmoi, who has an entire series dedicated to this trick she created."

"In Speyer's stories, she was using one of those digital "Wheels of Names" tools, where you input names (or in her case, chores), "spin the wheel," and you have a winner. Instead of a sweepstakes prize, she was putting in the tasks she needed to get done. Could this be the tool I needed to get those chores done? I had to try it."

Read at Apartment Therapy