How to Make Chores Fun with Bassetts Vitamins | AD

* This is a paid post in partnership with Bassetts Vitamins.*

So you want to know how to make chores more fun? Chores and fun in the same sentence… why not, hey? A recent study commissioned by Bassetts Vitamins has revealed that only 3% of the 2,000 adults involved described their daily life as fun. As a result, the lovely people at Bassetts Vitamins challenged me to put the fun back into  functional and I am ready for it! Read on for lots of ideas on how to make chores fun for the whole family.

Drag yourself out of bed. Brush your teeth. Put a wash on. Make packed lunches. Travel to work.​  Shop for food.​  Make dinner. Do the dishes.​ Put washing away. Go to bed. Repeat.

Please tell me it’s not just me who sometimes feels like I spend my life picking up random bits and bobs from the floor, washing clothes, cooking, cleaning and asking people to brush their teeth? All these things we have to do day after day, week after week don’t have to be monotonous. 

All you sometimes need is very simple changes and a dull task can end up as the highlight of your day! That’s exactly what ​Bassetts Vitamins for Adults aim to do. 

With their soft, chewy multivitamins, they turn something boring like taking daily supplements into a moment of unexpected joy. The one-a-day multivitamin is chewy, fruity and contains Vitamin D, which helps support healthy bones, muscle function, teeth and also supports the immune system.

To bring this to life, Bassetts Vitamins partnered with comedian Katherine Ryan to create a lovely video to show mindless daily tasks in a fun light:

What’s a chore?

OK, let’s define chores.

Chores are all those little things most people can’t stand doing, but still they have to be done. The Cambridge Dictionary’s definition for a ‘chore’ is as follows:“a job or piece of work that is often boring or unpleasant but needs to be done regularly.”

The beautiful thing about individuality is that someone’s chore might be someone else’s hobby. How I wish I lived with someone who enjoyed tidying toys, dusting and cleaning toilets for a hobby… Anyone with me?

There are many many chores most of us have to do regularly, some more bearable than others:

• Getting out of bed
• Brushing your teeth
• Vacuuming
• Exercising 
• Folding the laundry
• Putting clothes away
• Cleaning
• Cooking
• Picking up random clutter
• Dusting
• Washing up
• Grooming / feeding / walking pets and disposing of their excrements 
• Tidying
• Decluttering
• Gardening
• Ironing
• Mopping floors
• Taking out the bins
• Unloading the dishwasher
• Paperwork
• Looking after indoor plants
• Listening to the kids’ reading
• Changing sheets
• Food shopping
• Making packed lunches
• Homework
• Cleaning windows and mirrors
• Making sure everyone goes to bed at a reasonable time

What do you mean, chores aren’t the highlight of your week? 

Let me prove you wrong and show you that what we see as chores can be livened up, just like something as mundane as taking a daily vitamin needn’t be a chore.

How to Make Chores Fun

When you’re having fun whilst doing chores, time flies by. Chores are done and dusted more quickly and before you know it, you’re snuggling with the kids on the sofa, watching a film. 

Pick your favourite chore

For chores to be mildly enjoyable, they’ve got to seem fair. My philosophy is very much as follows: you live in the house, you contribute to the upkeep of the house. Simple, right?

Focus on individual strengths and likes. I can’t stand matching socks (I swear the odd ones get eaten by the washing machine!), but I find ironing whilst watching a good series quite therapeutic. Therefore, in my house, I’m the one who does the ironing (three of the children have already had a go too) and the youngest two pair up socks. 

My 7-year-old enjoys vacuuming so she’s usually the one doing our rooms and my boy can follow a recipe by himself once I’ve fired up the hob for him. My 10-year-old is quite good at cleaning the bathroom and my 6-year-old likes dusting and cleaning the table after dinner. They’re not the only chores they do, but they’re ones they don’t mind doing and that’s a start!

If you can, sit together and create a master list of everything that needs to be done in the house, breaking it down fairly and evenly into small lists for each family member. 

It’s a treat, not a chore! 

Call it a chore and it becomes a chore, right? If you treat a daily task as a treat, it becomes a treat. It’s that simple. At home, I’ve instilled it into my children that it’s a treat to cook dinner with me, so most nights, I’ll have a little helper prepping, chopping or stirring. 

If you let your little ones help in the kitchen from a very young age, starting with simple things like rinsing vegetables when they’re toddlers, they’ll become confident cooks as they grow up. Granted, very young ‘helpers’ make the cooking process slower, but the time you’re investing in training them to cook will come back to you tenfold. By the time they’re teenagers, they’ll be able to cook a meal from start to finish. 

Washing up, Scmwashing up…

According to research commissioned by Bassetts Vitamins and focused on 2,000 consumers, 72% of adults agree that doing the washing up is one of their ‘least fun’ daily tasks. I couldn’t agree more!

I don’t like washing up or doing anything to do with dishes or putting away plates or cooking utensils but  I also don’t like having random dishes all over the place or a sink full of dirty crockery. I don’t like loading or unloading the dishwasher. After years of hating the thought of doing the washing up, I found a way to make it less of a chore. 

First of all, I bought a dishwasher as I was about to return to work after my second maternity leave. Best present to myself! Everyone in the family (and anyone who comes round) knows we each clear our own plates and bits and bobs. 

Every night, I put the dishwasher on just before I go to bed and unload it first thing in the morning, as my coffee is brewing.  Having a clear reward for a chore makes it so much sweeter and easier to manage willingly. 

Have a laugh whilst ironing

Who said that ironing and having a good belly laugh were mutually exclusive?

Ironing time is also my TV time. I always watch comedies when I iron and it turns the tedious task into one I look forward to every Saturday evening. I know, right? Living the dream and loving it! 

Treasure hunt!

Before your child starts dusting, tell them they’re looking for treasure. Hide stickers under plants and in areas you want dusted. When they’re done, they can have their stickers and put them on their T-shirt or in a notebook.

Do squats as you brush your teeth

Sock matching competition 

Give your children a basket full of clean, unmatched socks. Set a 5-minute timer and tell them they have to match and fold together pairs of socks. They have to have as many pairs of sock ‘balls’ as they possibly can. When the time is up, place the now empty basket 2 metres away from the players. They take it in turns to try and throw a sock ‘ball’ into the basket. The winner is he one who managed to get the most pairs of socks into the basket. The winner gets to put all the socks into the correct drawer. 

Dusting hands

‘Orphaned socks’ can be turned into dusters. Slightly dampen the socks and place them on your children’s hands to dust furniture, skirting boards, worktops and plant leaves.

You read, I read

When listening to young children as they’re reading, either pick a funny story or take it in turns to read words / sentences / pages

Rewards, rewards

The promise of a reward always makes a chore seem less tedious. Can’t get your kids to today their bedroom? Can’t face decluttering your ‘cupboard of doom’ (we’ve all got one!)?

Plan a good incentive! Whether it is a trip to the local park for your children or a film you’ve been looking forward to watching on the TV, snuggled under a warm blanket, the thought of the reward will give you / them the energy needed to complete the task. 

When tidying becomes a workout…

Fill a backpack with tins of food, put some ankle weights on or squeeze in your core and gluts for 15 seconds then rest for 15 seconds and get tidying! Add in a few squats and lunges here and there and you can tick exercise off your list for the day! Now who’s multitasking?

Vacuuming silent disco

Put on your favourite tunes and vacuuming will be a breeze!

Ready, steady, go! 

Turn tidying up into a competition. Make it really clear what needs to be done (e.g. floor clear of clutter, bed made, all books on the shelf and tidy, all surfaces dusted, room vacuumed). Whoever finishes their room first can pick a film for that evening. Second best can cook dinner with mum. Whoever comes last can match socks in front of the TV or fold the laundry. 

Speed Window Cleaning

Any chore will be more enjoyable if you treat it like a race. Put a song on as you are about to clean the windows in one room. Try to finish cleaning the windows and mirrors in that room before the end of the song. Repeat in the next room, with a different song.

Get the house ready for tomorrow

At the end of the day, put a timer on for 9 minutes 31 seconds (or another random combination!) and it’s everyone’s job to put randoms bits and bobs back to where they’re meant to be. Make it a daily routine and after a few days, everyone will get on with it without moaning. 

Have you got any other tricks or tips on how to make chores more fun?

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Disclosure: This blog post is part of a paid partnership with Bassetts Vitamins. You can find out more and purchase all products by clicking on the link. All copy and photos are my own.