Some time ago, I saw somebody on this forum mention how they used Beeminder on their home maintenance tasks. I assume they meant like the regular stuff you’re supposed to do to keep your house in tip-top shape. I recently moved out of an apartment and haven’t the faintest idea what one does to take care of a house (besides air filters, because my lease said so lol). I’ve googled it, obviously, but there’s so much information, I don’t really know where to start, and I especially don’t know how to decide which things on the lists apply. For example, a list written by someone who lives in Michigan is going to include things that a house built in Louisiana won’t need.
Anyway, could the person who beeminds house care share their list with me please? Or anyone else who takes care of a house?
I know this isn’t strictly on topic, but it will be when I start beeminding my list
I do that. Honestly I don’t remember where we first got the checklist we use, but some googling turned up Home Maintenance Checklist | Homes.com which is very similar. Over time we’ve deleted some irrelevant items and added some new ones. Honestly I don’t think it matters very much what list you start with. Just pick one and go with it. The important thing is to be intentional about adjusting it as you go and as you learn of additional things you ought to do for your house.
If they’re wood, aye! Just a plain mineral oil will do great, which you can find at most drug stores in the laxative section - it’s a mechanical/lubricating laxative when taken in large quantities. Put some on the cutting board and rub it in with a soft cotton cloth (I use an old cut up t-shirt). If your cutting board is really dry and gnarly it might want to be sanded first. This will improve the water resistance of your cutting boards and help prevent them from cracking, as well as preventing the grain from raising and breaking off into your food!
I use an app called Tody to track my cleaning tasks, which includes a library of pre-set tasks – they’re mostly on the level of stuff like cleaning the bathroom (in small steps like they have separate tasks for cleaning the toilet, cleaning the sink, cleaning the shower screen, etc), but includes stuff like cleaning ceiling fans, taking down curtains to wash them, cleaning fireplaces, etc. There might be some ideas there!
At some point in the last couple years I got tired of feeling guilty about all the home maintenance I never did, and invested a couple afternoons into a recurring task system for Roam Research.
The idea is that scattered around my knowledge graph are brief descriptions of tasks that need doing regularly, and perhaps links on how to do them (I have no idea how to vacuum my refrigerator coils, but it’s in the notes). The task descriptions have tags to indicate the frequency (#weekly, #biweekly, #fall, #spring, #yearly, etc.). This extension script I wrote crawls my knowledge graph for these tasks and, on the day they’re due, creates a new TODO in my graph.
It’s interesting to hear what you’re doing! I ended up making a list broken down by season/month – pulled in part from that Art of Manliness article – and making a beeminder to every week do something from the list.
