Are common maintenance tasks really considered unpleasant by people?

Some people really enjoy the stuff. I can’t say that there is anything I really hate, and I do enjoy the aftermath, and the sense of satisfaction I get from it, but I can’t say I really enjoy actually doing it. I wish I could just hire someone else to do it!
I especially get frustrated when there are things that need to be done and I need some assistance and can’t get any.

I don’t like making my bed or doing dishes.

I don’t make my bed.

I do the dishes / clean the kitchen, though, before work. It’s just part of my morning routine.

I remember realizing at some point that the unpleasantness was almost entirely in the anticipation of the task, and almost never in the actual doing of it. When I realized this, I learned to ignore the negativity associated with the anticipation.

Disclaimer: The above does not apply to plumbing tasks, which are pretty much always worse than you think they’re going to be.

I enjoy a lot about the routine maintenance tasks, I find dish washing a soothing thing, I like doing laundry, the smell and warmth of clean clothes is a treat, mowing my lawn is nice on a sunny day.
Housecleaning I HATE with a deep and abiding profound intensity, and I have a bad shoulder so painting is not pleasant.
I’m guessing it’s more of a cultural cliché to “hate” this stuff, it implies we don’t have the time or the means to go somewhere else on our leisure time. I like being home, so it doesn’t bother me.

I think any job can get boring and unexciting with enough repetition.

Sure, you enjoyed painting this weekend. But if you were painting 10 hours a day, 5–6 days a week, for 30 years, I’ll bet that it wouldn’t be a whole lot of fun.

By the way, I don’t mind washing dishes. Putting them away—now that’s a horrible job.

I seriously hate ALL maintenance chores. Especially dishes!!!!

@elbanditoroso: “I think any job can get boring and unexciting with enough repetition.”

True, I say as I procrastinate my development work.

@elbanditoroso: “Sure, you enjoyed painting this weekend. But if you were painting 10 hours a day, 5–6 days a week, for 30 years, I’ll bet that it wouldn’t be a whole lot of fun.”

You’re right. I wouldn’t want to do this full-time, although I have done my fair share of painting. However, my grandfather did this full-time for 50 years, and my father spent 20+ years as a painter and wallpaper hanger. They both claimed to enjoy the work.

I really like outside work or household repairs and upgrades. I don’t care for cleaning, dishes and stuff like that.

Those that do really dislike doing the dishes, etc – what is it about these tasks that you dislike? Is it that you feel that they take time away from doing other things?

There is one thing I haven’t been able to learn to enjoy: Vacuuming. I think it’s the futility – my dogs shed quite a bit, so if I wanted things perfect, I’d have to vacuum several times a day. The noise is another thing I dislike.

I thought about this last week, when I was mowing my lawn. It’s tiny – takes an hour at the most. I used to love mowing lawns when I was just doing it once in a while. Now, it’s every three weeks. I dread it – but I realized last week, as I do every time, that it’s actually a fun thing to do. I like being outside, I love the smell, and I like seeing an immediate effect of my work.

It’s similar for me with most maintenance tasks. Except for vacuuming.

I dislike washing the dishes, too.

It traps you in one place, to do one repetitive task. The task provides no mental stimulation, yet prevents you from being stimulated. I have to stare either at the dish I’m washing or at the white wall in front of me. It cannot be moved to a more desirable location. The sounds involved mean I can’t have a conversation with someone who isn’t willing to stand right next to me. I can’t hear what’s going on on the TV, and no one wants to wait for me to finish up, yet expects me to know what’s going on.

And, it’s the same thing every damned day.

I love painting. And weeding the garden. And refinishing furniture, and washing the windows. Anything that isn’t an assigned, daily, monotonous task.

For the cars or the bicycles?

A source of self sufficient pleasure.

What seek said, it’s boring and keeps you from doing other things. It’s almost as bad as being trapped by chitchat

The only really good thing to come out of washing dishes (besides clean dishes) was when I enlisted my school aged kids to help me. It’s a non-distracted, 15 minutes together, just to talk about what ever they want to bring up. The warm water and just getting things clean kind of added to it.

Both my kids have dishwashers, but they don’t want to use them. They still prefer to do them by hand.

Ahem, We…(wait for it)…have staff…(here it comes)…for that…(he shoots, he scores)

I fucking hate painting. My sister painted her house last summer and seemed to love it. I think I am a bit too much of a perfectionist for painting. My sister will paint a wall in the time it takes me to paint a square meter.

However, I am totally fine with dishes, mopping, laundry and so on. I like jobs that have clearly defined ends.

I also won’t do those jobs when people are home and can destroy my work. I like to have at least a few hours where I can walk by and think, “I did that” before the shitheads come home and destroy it.

I have a dishwasher but I do still do dishes, either because for just a few, or if I need something quickly, like a certain coffee mug. I look out the bay window at the backyard, so it’s not that bad, but if I had to wash a ton of dishes from multiple family members, really dirty pots and stuff like that, I would hate it.

Painting I think is not awful but it’s the prep work including moving the crap out of the way and then putting everything back and cleaning up that I dislike and that make me postpone any painting of walls. Painting furniture is fun and painting small things like the saddle between the doorway is fun, too.

Laundry and folding clothes I dislike just because I have limited free time and wish I didn’t have to do it. It’s not that the task itself is so awful, it’s just taking me away from leisure or rest. I’m out of the house from around 8 to 6 every day 5 days a week, and when I come home from work it’s dinner and getting the child into the shower and then I’m done. I really only have weekends to do errands and chores, plus rest and recreation, so it’s limited time to do a lot of stuff, not all of it pleasant.

It really depends on my mood. Sometimes the repetition or immediacy of the task seems almost painful—but I’m usually in a bad mood otherwise that day, so it’s not really the task itself, it’s me. Sometimes it feels like a wonderful change of pace from abstract, intricate, unyielding subjects—something more definite. Usually it’s just something else to do. I like to move (I’m horrible at sitting still), and I like to daydream… chores let me do both. Alternatively, like others have mentioned, they let me focus on a single thing for a period of time rather than trying to be everywhere.

Hm…. The chores I enjoy also change with my mood. When I’m stressed, I want to clean. When I’m angry, I want to chop up all the veggies in the apartment (even if I’m not cooking anything immediately after). When I’m feeling lazy and cozy I want to do laundry—wait for the machines and then fold the clothes with a TV show playing. When I’m bored I start to tidy things up. Etc.

I grew up with a hands-on remodel so I’m familiar with painting, hardwood floors, tiling, insulation, etc. I don’t like insulation—it’s just itchy and hot. I also grew up doing yardwork—I don’t like the yardwork, mostly because of the soil. It’s dense, rocky clay that dries out until you need a pick ax to break any ground—which makes it feel more like a constant battle with the ground than anything else.

I f’ing looove painting, the results are so satisfying. I painted some windows on our building last week and I still take a moment to check it out whenever I’m behind the building. Dishwashing is fun, too.

Folding laundry bores me really fast, like in 15 seconds.

I too hate painting and vacuuming. I like things tidy and dishes, laundry, no problem, but vacuuming and painting, ugh. I too hate repetitve, monotonous task work but I do a lot of it anyway. lol

Well, I tried to enjoy my vacuuming today. I was able to appreciate, at least, that vacuuming is a task that’s perfectly compatible with thinking. The monotonous noise and repetitive movement actually works for me, in that regard. It was less of a chore than usually, because I wasn’t just “getting it over with”.

Maybe I was wrong. I’d love to learn to like it. That would give me about three additional hours of happiness/contentment every week, as well as save a whole lot of fretting beforehand.

What is nice about any chore (vacuuming, laundry, dishes, painting) is seeing the nice finished product afterwards. In the case of laundry, it’s now having the selection of clean clothes that you didn’t have before!

@longgone: “I was able to appreciate, at least, that vacuuming is a task that’s perfectly compatible with thinking.”

For me, the task can become unbearable if I spend it in contemplation. Committing myself to the task is something I find useful. For example, when doing the dishes, I pay very close attention to doing the dishes. The feeling and sound of the water, the soap, my posture and tension, etc. When folding household laundry (we have a ton of it – towels, cloth napkins, cloth wash clothes for the kitchen, etc), I focus on folding the laundry.

When painting this weekend, there was something amazing about facing a task seems insurmountable. There is no pressure to “get it done” when completing it seems an impossibility. Rather, there is only the task of completing each tiny task – from dipping the tip of the brush bristles in the paint to seeing what works best for each stroke of paint on the house.

In some ways, most tasks are like this: mowing a lawn that never stops growing, cleaning dishes that will be dirty again in a few moments, folding laundry in order to mess it up, etc.

@DoNotKnowMuch Interesting. I think that’s what I did, and it may be what made it bearable. I looked at what I was doing. My carpet is a dark grey, and I had just trimmed a white dog, so there were white curls being sucked up to be replaced by the grey. This was satisfying in itself, so it held my concentration. I didn’t think about all the carpet left to go over, but just the small piece I was working on.

I’m good with this sort of mindfulness when doing laundry, and okay at most other tasks. I still get distracted quite a bit, and my brain wants to insist I work faster.

I wonder how we teach our brains what to like and what to dislike. I imagine speed is quite important. If I’m alsways rushing through certain tasks, I can see how my mind would decide that these tasks are to be avoided.

I’m with @DoNotKnowMuch on the focus-on-task aspect. I have a lot of trouble slowing my thinking, and these repetitive tasks really help me regulate. Meditation, in and of itself, is extraordinarily difficult for me, so I substitute those chores. Often, by the time the task is finished, my subconscious has sorted out the things that were bothering me, and if I don’t have a solution, at least the process is more ordered.

Chores, at best, assist in distracting me from contemplation.

Washing dishes and folding laundry are automatic tasks. I don’t have to think about them, so my mind wanders because it has nothing better to do.

Time to ruminate on my thoughts is not something I need more of.

But that’s the thing, @Seek, I don’t “ruminate” on anything during those tasks, I only do those tasks so my mind can basically shut down and rest. My heart rate and blood pressure go down (yes, I’ve measured, out of curiosity) and I feel a bit refreshed as well.

I’m glad it works for you.

@DoNotKnowMuch The chores I hate the most are the ones that need to be done the most often. That’s why doing dishes seems like I accomplished very little. They will just have to be done again in a few hours.I love water. Even warm soapy water. But not dirty dish water.

I prefer chores that will last for awhile. Like cleaning out a closet. Or something really important like paying bills.

I realized that the way many people are describing chores—as a way to be able to focus on a task, and focus on the moment—that’s one of the reasons I run. I love the speed, and the loping/leaping feeling, and I really get to focus on the movement. It’s also one of the reasons I love to dance… So I was trying to figure out why I don’t do that more regularly with chores, and I found a tentative theory… I guess I have a harder time losing myself in the moment when I feel like the “moment” is about something else—I feel like chores are more about getting them done and over with, so I guess I don’t pay the same sort of attention that I would something I’m doing for the moment itself… Not sure. Though if that’s the case, I think I should definitely work on how I approach things.

This question inspired me to count, how many times a day I bend over to do something here on this property, house, kitchen, barns etc. So far at 1p.m. I have bent over to pick up, move, carry, scoop, feed, put away dishes, make my bed, do laundry etc. a total of 45 times in the last 5 hours. No wonder my back hurts a lot of the time and the day is only half over. haha