You’re not alone. The weight of all those things adding up is enough to put anyone off from starting. When it comes to cleaning, I wasn’t keeping on top of it and let it get to a bad state, then once every few months I’d have a mad day of cleaning everything spotless, nothing unturned. I thought being thorough was good but in reality it was a major reason for me always avoiding minor daily or even weekly cleaning. I often look at tasks as monoliths that need to be tackled in one go.
What worked for me is this cliche book https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits. I’ve only read the first 30 pages lol, but the general gist of it is at the start. Consecutive small tasks are a lot easier to manage, and a lot more effective than doing it all in one go. I’m no where near perfect, but I now have the mindset of “something small is better than nothing at all”. That really can take you a long way, the results just won’t be instant.
E.g rather than clean the entire bathroom in one go and not touch it for weeks, I now clean one tiny area for 1 or 2 minutes every time I go into the bathroom. Seems like nothing, but over a week suddenly the whole thing was mostly clean. After that the habit stuck and now I just have to wipe the areas I use most daily. The rest I do on the weekend.
Still have a long way to go. Boxes piled up from moving in one year ago, but I’m slowly getting through the contents over the last few weeks.
Any small annoyance in your daily life that causes mild stress. If you can afford it, buy the tool that solves the problem.
I was constantly looking for my phone charger, taking it into my car, leaving it downstairs and realising I needed it in bed. I just bought 4 more cheap ish chargers and now have one everywhere. Seems like an obvious solution but I was putting up with it for years not realising the mental toll it took on me daily. Same thing can be applied all across your life, if something makes it 1% easier, it’s worth it!
Other items that worked for me:
Nothing here sounds like it would be a “productivity” item, but the method saves me a good few minutes every day and it does add up. I also avoids the mental toll/annoyances which keep me in a better mood and therefore more productive.