Do Your Chores Drunk

Your floor is dirty. Your rubbish bin is overflowing. You need to change a light bulb and do the laundry. You’re always busy and household errands fall through the cracks. Here’s an idea: get drunk.

If you’ve ever arrived home from a night at the bar and started furiously tidying up, you know what I mean. The right amount of booze, combined with the right state of mind, can work like some sloppy variant of ritalin and help you knock out simple errands.

If you keep this in mind when you’re sober, you can prepare your future drunk self to power through your household chores. And you’re gonna have a blast, because when you clean drunk:

You get to the point

Drinking lowers inhibitions, we all know that, but we mostly think about it in terms of social lubrication or self-destructive behaviour. But those lowered inhibitions can also help you get tedious or unpleasant jobs done. You just have to prepare.

The trick is to do as much prep as you can while you’re sober. Do all the procrastination stuff, like buying supplies and getting out the mop and anything but the actual chore. Set them all up where your drunk self can see them. It’s the “write drunk, edit sober” of chores.

Don’t plan too hard, don’t build up to it and make an obligation. Your future drunk self is a cat and you are playing a game with it, slyly setting out the shoe box and the catnip fish toy, acting coy. “I don’t care”, you tease yourself. “I just put these things out for myself. Do what you want”.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/11/why-you-should-set-a-timer-when-you-do-chores/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/c6ctdi5y963wzkarb6ye.jpg” title=”Why You Should Set A Timer When You Do Chores” excerpt=”People who calmly and happily do chores when they need to be done, you can stop reading now. Everyone else. ugh, I know, right?”]

Get yourself the right kind of drunk. Figure out your own personal style. My drunk productivity is more like buzzed productivity; I find it by drinking 2.5 beers and talking about my short-term aspirations. I get all worked up about achieving my goals and all the bullshit standing in the way, so I start doing all the bullshit.

When I’m drunk enough to tell lies like, “You and I should hang out more!” I know I’m in the mood to improve my life before the booze wears off.

You sublimate all that drunk energy

When you’re drunk, you don’t want the night to end. (Except for when you do and that’s OK, get some sleep, try again next time!) Going to bed is for losers, you think. So you look for the after-after-after-party, you text your friends “still out?”, you text your ex “you up?” You embarrass yourself because you don’t have a healthy place to put all that energy.

Put that energy into scrubbing down your bathroom.

You don’t mind getting on your hands and knees when you’re drunk. You don’t get bored of scouring the tile because you are all about scouring the tile right now. You don’t even gag at the odor in the toilet bowl and if you do, you’re already right above a toilet bowl! No muss no fuss! Back to work!

If you do have company, rope them into it. Get your tall friend to change the lightbulb. Don’t make anyone clean for you, but maybe get them to talk to you while you fold your laundry. Or initiate the chore-doing at their home, help them out, fix their kitchen cabinet, sweep the hall. You’re allowed to bully your friends about their dirty apartment if you’re drunkenly cleaning it.

You’re so proud of yourself.

You feel amazing

Have you ever cleaned up after a party on the night of the party? Just gone for it, recycled the bottles before they could stink up the living room, maybe even vacuumed until your neighbours banged on the ceiling? You blasted your favourite music, you made complicated manoeuvres to save yourself another trip to the kitchen, by pouring all the un-drunk wine into one clear plastic cup.

You made a little mess of your own but you didn’t mind, you cleaned it up, you had fun.

Do you remember the morning after, how thankful you were to yourself? How wide open your day felt, extra hours for brunch and recovery? Your body, your temple, still paid the price, but your castle did not. The kitchen was clean, the coffee machine was full and ready to be turned on. You could walk all the way to the shower without stepping on beer residue.

Now just do that without a party. Think of how far you’ll get ahead. You are gonna crush this. And place it in the recycling bin.