Which household tasks do you struggle most with?

[BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation]

I can't deal with cooking and meal prep.

I was doing the daily evening meal since I was 14 and lived with the bio mother. I just kind of accepted it as what you have to do. Did it all through my life then found, once I hit menopause, cooking infuriated me and I was struggling to deal with it.

Dh didn't want the dcs cooking, even though they were older and capable, so he's been doing most of it. I can manage pasta bolognese or fish fingers once a week and tinned soup once a week.

It don't know what it is about meal prep that's so difficult. I've identified some reasons:

Having to mess the kitchen up at the end of the day when I'm tired and can't face doing anything.

I'm usually not even hungry - my body clock insists my main meal should be eaten between 2-3 pm with only a snack later.

It's boring! I put the radio on or a YouTube video whilst I'm cutting vegetables up, but it's still deadly dull and sometimes I just wander off to do other stuff and get distracted.

My lovely clean kitchen gets messy, full of people and I have washing up to do afterwards.

Trying to decide what to eat. I'd happily eat the same meal day after day, but most people won't tolerate that.

Why do people have to have a fully cooked meal every evening? We don't do office hours anyway, so no time restrictions.

Food is boring. I just want to eat for energy and get it over with.

What are your household nemeses?

Paperwork

Oh yeah, paperwork 😖

I like food (too much!) but really struggle with cooking. It’s just too much strain on executive function. Timing everything, keeping an eye on different pots so nothing burns, not hurting myself with the knife or peeler or hot things - I’m quite clumsy.

The main other thing I struggle with is general tidying. We are cluttered and disorganised and have too much stuff. I put something down and it ceases to exist in my mind I think.

Yes timings are tricky.

Too much stuff is a struggle. Dh has a lot of stuff. I like those large plastic ikea storage boxes that are stackable.

Dealing with other people's mess.

I clean our house, I know it's clean, and then discover hoola hoop crumbs under ds's desk or marmite smeared on the breakfast table. I clean loos every day but DS (13) is incapable of leaving a loo as he found it.

State of bathroom is tied to pocket money this year. Loo flushed, seat down, tap off, rinsed basin after cleaning teeth or no pocket money Apparently I am completely unreasonable.

Laundry in the Winter. It just seems to be an ever-growing pile.

I am going off cooking too, so I batch cook a couple of times a week instead cooking every day. DH can't cook now without help due to illness.

All of them, sort of. Starting them actually.

I can do it all, once I start. Then I go hyperfocus and burn through the entire house sorting, cleaning, cooking.

But I've probably spent 3 hours faffing around wandering aimlessly beforehand.

I suspect I have ADHD, as well as autism.

The washing mountain, putting away, cleaning, tidying, paperwork... housework in general really!

Anything repetitive that needs doing again as soon as it’s finished. Like doing the dishwasher, washing, wiping the kitchen surfaces. Also hoovering because of the noise but I have a robot vacuum cleaner now and it’s much quieter.

Everything as I do everything to within an inch of its life and so it takes forever. I've seen threads on MN asking how much a cleaner should do in 2 hours and everyone responds with what they'd get done in 2 hours. And I'm sat there thinking, '2 hours! that'd take me 2 weeks!'

Like Friday is my meal planning/food ordering day and it takes me literally all day to do it. Working out what we're having, what it needs, what we already have in, what needs to used up first, ordering the stuff etc. No half hour dash around the supermarket here.

All of it. The co-ordination, planning, organising, thinking about what actually needs doing and what order makes sense to do it in, accepting that it always needs doing and it’s not just a project that I can do once and be done with it.

I love food and cooking but can’t manage the whole planning/prepping aspect.

I am currently finding a Gousto meal box very helpful. All the thought and planning is done for me. I just come home from work and follow the instructions. Eating so much better since getting these. I’d love to be choosing and planning recipes and shopping for them myself but do not have the ability right now, so this is a good compromise.

I am also on an online course called “Take Your House Back” run by some YouTubers including Dana “A Slob Comes Clean” and Cas “Clutterbug” who are VERY ADHD friendly and it is really helping me get things under control and not feel so overwhelmed by it all.

Cleaning the bastarding bathroom.

Paperwork I am EXCELLENT at - I run spreadsheets for everything (I am an an analyst in 'real life' and a very competent VBA programmer, so everything is coded appropriately). I love to cook, so that's grand (I also have a larder / fridge-based spreadsheet ).

Cleaning the bathroom, though - WHY? It's literally a room that you go into to get clean, why does it get so dirty?

It's got worse since we moved to more 'natural', sulphate-free cleaning products - soap scum everywhere. In saying that, I can't abide the smell of highly industrialised cleaning products (bleach makes me feel physically sick), so swings and roundabouts, I guess.

My problem is keeping things neat. If things are neat and organized, I have no problem maintaining that. The second someone leaves something on the counter, I can’t maintain things anymore and it spirals out of control. I end up getting angry when DH brings in the mail, but doesn’t sort it because if it is there when I come in with my things, I struggle to put my things away properly. It’s quite a ridiculous problem, but the visual clutter just overwhelms me.

I struggle with the bathroom as well. I can't understand how it gets so dusty.

I don't like chemically products either and try to stay with more natural stuff.

The kitchen sink and I regularly reach a stalemate. I just can’t bring myself to clean it. I do the dishes in the dishwasher, but the sink just taunts me.

Paperwork. Totally acceptable to have 5/6 storage places for unopened envelopes right?

Dd can't tidy her room. She seems incapable of knowing where to start and needs distinct instructions and help. We can cook but we are very messy and the thought of cleaning up afterwards puts us off. I hate the house being messy but I just can't seem to summon the mental energy to do it and there's no one else. I had a rare day off yesterday as ds is sick so I hoovered lots of edges and under the sofa cushions with the new very loud hoover. I felt worn out just listening to it but much better knowing there's no crumb mountain down the side of the sofas.

All of them, but dishes and laundry are the worst. Both pile up and are a never ending task.

@Blossom64265

My problem is keeping things neat. If things are neat and organized, I have no problem maintaining that. The second someone leaves something on the counter, I can’t maintain things anymore and it spirals out of control. I end up getting angry when DH brings in the mail, but doesn’t sort it because if it is there when I come in with my things, I struggle to put my things away properly. It’s quite a ridiculous problem, but the visual clutter just overwhelms me.

Yes - there are rules!

I get very angry if my NT OH doesn't deal with his mail there and then - you open it, make a decision, crap goes straight into the recycling, sensitive stuff goes in the shredding pile.

Don't put it down, deal with it.

Cleaning and tidying, I hate it, I leave it to DH far too much I was nearly kicked out of my house when I was on my own with DS1.

Tidying up.

I have to be really regimented to do bit every day and every week or it completely gets on top of me.

I hate keeping on top of the mud in winter, and crumbs and coffee stains everywhere (thanks MIL) and tidying up after the two lazy bastards I live with - DP just can't (won't) do the dishwasher. MIL grew up in the far east with servants and now confuses me with one.

I seem to sweep the floor at least five times a day as MIL no longer notices or bothers if she drops something - coming in to a crunchy sugar coated floor the other evening was fun, not.

Our dog is a mud paintbrush and a few days after he has had shower, he will be covering everything in mud. I asked for washable paint in the hall, kitchen and stairs but didn't get it.

Meanwhile I am an obsessive sink and kitchen tidier as I hate greasy feelings and stickiness.

I clean every day but within a few hours it is just as bad. I was promised a cleaner by DP when we moved in, in 2017 but that never materialised.

I am very sorry to have such a huge moan.

Cleaning.

For one thing, I genuinely don't see mess in my own home - but in an unfamiliar environment, I see everything. I have to make an effort to see my house through someone else's eyes. Even then, I will step over a pair of shoes in the dining room 100 times rather than just put them away. Drives partners mad.

For another, I have to clean in order. The dishwasher gets emptied and then loaded, then the worktops are cleaned, then the floor swept and clean laundry folded and put away - and that is usually as much as I have time and energy for. So the next day I start again. I might manage to get as far as the living room a couple of times a week and the bathroom once, but the bedrooms are a state because they are at the bottom of an effectively endless list.

Cleaning windows.

Definitely doing the dishes. It always gets done after every meal and i have a dishwasher but I've always hated washing up