This 1 Simple Technique Is The Secret To Making Cleaning Your Home Less Miserable

Hate cleaning? You’re not alone.

Keeping your living quarters tidy can be tiring, tedious and stressful. Maybe that’s why a staggering 78% of respondents in a recent Taskrabbit survey said they’ve gotten into a fight with someone about household chores.

Unfortunately, unless we can somehow pull a Snow White and convince a gang of woodland creatures to scrub down our homes, we’re stuck doing it ourselves. So what can we do to despise it less?

That’s what we — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — asked Patric Richardson, the beloved “Laundry Evangelist” and author of “House Love: A Joyful Guide to Cleaning, Organizing, and Loving the Home You’re In.”

Listen to the full episode by pressing play:

“When you buy cleaning supplies, you also buy candy,” Richardson said, laughing. “You call it your ‘cleaning candy,’ so you only eat it when you clean.”

The cleaning king noted that if we treat ourselves with something special while we do our routine, it makes it less miserable, and can even give us something to look forward to.

“You’ve said that you like a Diet Coke when you’re going to clean,” Michelson said. “I used to buy myself an iced coffee that I would have while I cleaned.”

Creating a playlist, saving a new podcast episode for cleaning day, or cueing up one of our favorite shows or movies while we straighten up can also make it less laborious.

“It used to be that cooking was a chore, and people dreaded cooking,” Richardson pointed out. “Now there are stores and magazines and books and channels all devoted to cooking, and the only thing that happened is we just, we got the right tools, so we decided it was fun.”

Having those “right tools” — and keeping them nearby — can make