Tip #18: Set aside one day for chores

Let's digress a little bit to get boring and practical. When you are on your own, the mundane activities of life become even more burdensome. You might live with roommates that help with common house duties, but there are still a lot of things you have to do alone. Whether it's going grocery shopping, cleaning the living room, doing laundry, or whatever, the drudgery is magnified all the more when there isn't someone to share the burden.

There's no way to get around these dull tasks. Sometimes you can hire people to do it, or use technology to make it go faster, but they still have to get done and they eat into time that you'd rather spend doing more interesting stuff. So, get chores out of the way as efficiently as you can. There are some, like washing dishes or taking out the trash, which must be done daily or every couple of days. For the others, if possible, set aside one day a week to do all of it. Do as much as you can in that day, and then do the rest the next week. If you think about it, many things can wait a week, and if they can't, do them first on chore day. And when I say "next week" I mean "next week", not two weeks later or three weeks later or when you feel like it. Procrastinating doesn't make it go away; it just puts you under more stress because you start to believe it will never get done (and sometimes it doesn't).

Managing time is a discipline that every single person must learn, because it doesn't get a whole lot better after you're not single. You may have someone to help with some of the dry stuff, but relationships require their own time to nurture and develop. They also require balance, which means you're sometimes going to be the one doing chores for the other person too, and those chores are often doubled. Get into the habit of managing those tasks while you're still held to only a single schedule and it will become easier to transfer those habits over when you have multiple schedules to reconcile.

Tip #17: Get a pet

It has been almost two months since I wrote a blog entry. Blame the usual holiday busyness and the new addition to my life. No, not THAT kind of addition (otherwise I'd have to shut this blog down), but a significant other nonetheless. That's what this next entry is about: the advantage of getting a pet.

Now, right up front, I want to say that owning a pet — or "adopting" as the more PC term goes — is not for everyone. No matter what kind of pet you have, he or she or they will put a crimp in your lifestyle, particularly as a single person. They demand feeding, cleaning, and playing that will take away from valuable social time. With vet visits and all the supplies you need to buy, they can end up being quite expensive to keep. (Hint for future entrepreneurs: pet stores are a great business to get into.) Pets can misbehave, they smell bad, they require lots of attention, and in return, they don't help you out with anything around the house. Some even have the potential to damage your property or affect your health. If you are not prepared to deal with these issues, do not get a pet. Ever. Don't be swayed by their cuteness. Don't do it simply because you think you will learn responsibility. You'll regret the decision each and every day of their lives and will agonize over what on earth to do with this new thing that is upsetting your life.

But if you are prepared to deal with the multi-year commitment — indeed, if it sounds kind of cool to spend all this time and money taking care of a living being, pets can bring great rewards. They offer entertainment, companionship, and love that is conditional only upon food. They can impose a routine on you which forces you to work normal hours (see previous post) and come home at a regular time. Bottom line: they can teach you to be less selfish which is an attribute that can improve human interaction too. When you live alone or live for yourself all the time, it's hard to get in the habit of thinking about someone else's needs, which is rule #1 for successful relationships. Sure, you can learn these things just by interacting with more people more often, but a pet helps you develop these skills in private, and gives you a chance to fail, without much risk of lasting hurt feelings (they're animals after all). For some people, a pet is exactly what is needed to learn the lesson of looking out for others.

But like I said, it is a major commitment, and won't work for everyone. It has worked for me so far, though, going on a month.