Managing my household with Tody: A Review
Background Photo by Delaney Van on Unsplash; Design by Jodie Parris
Hello my loyal readers! Can you believe it’s August and school will be back in session. I don’t have any children of my own so I am not in countdown mode until the first day of school like many, but I know my family and friends who are parents are about to get a whole lot busier.
I think in most seasons of life there’s one thing we put off and procrastinate when life gets a little chaotic and that is our common household chores. Let’s be honest, who really wants to spend precious free time cleaning their home when all you want to do is relax?
Research is coming out showing that a clean and decluttered home actually has health benefits, and if you don’t believe me just do a quick google search.
For me I have certainly seen these benefits in my life, especially since I work from home. I need that weekly reset to feel like my environment is encouraging a productive atmosphere for my work week.
This post is a little different because it’s my review of an app I discovered a few years ago, and it completely changed the game with how I tackled cleaning and managed our household. The app is called Tody!
Why we started using the Tody App:
I will never forget when I first moved out and had a tiny studio apartment to myself for the first time in graduate school (Go Gamecocks!). I remember calling my mom and telling her how exhausting cleaning was, and I don’t know how she did that with a two story house growing up. Since it was just me I never had to clean too hard that often.
Fast forward six years, and I was sharing a two bed, 1 1/2 bath rental with my fiancé and two cats. It was still a tiny place, but certainly needed a good cleaning every single week. We also had a very controlling landlord who would have final like inspections every quarter to six months, which meant we had to really stay on top of the cleaning.
Growing up I always saw my mom doing the bulk of the housework, and I knew I didn’t want that in my future marriage. I wanted to feel my husband and I were equal when it came to maintaining a home. However, I never knew how hard (and emotionally exhausting) it was to communicate what needed to be done every week.
I ended up developing a spreadsheet that would encompass our weekly chores for the month, print it, and hang it on the fridge. This certainly worked for us, but we had a hard time feeling motivated when it came time to do the less frequent chores that were every quarter, or once and twice a year because we would procrastinate them.
The Highlights of the Tody App:
1) My favorite feature of the Tody App is the fact I can assign my husband chores!
Now let me say, throughout the years of being together I know what chores he doesn’t mind doing, so this was fairly easy to allocate. We both have our strengths when it comes to cleaning, which is great when deciding who does what. It also shows the total each person has to do, so you can see the workload the other person may be contributing, which means you can help them if your list is shorter. This app would also be great with having teenagers help contribute more towards cleaning the house since you can have a number of active users.
2) Scheduling quarterly, twice a year, and annual chores
This was the part of the spreadsheet system I developed that just didn’t work for us because we would stack it all at the same time. However, with the Tody app you can schedule it and it will remind you of it when the time comes. I think this is helpful because if you find things are really stacked together, you can pause something a few weeks later and really start creating a schedule that works best for you.
3) Scheduling Random Home Reminders
Some of the random home reminders you may have may be like changing filters in certain appliances or your HVAC, watering your potted plants you are trying to keep alive, washing drapes, and even changing out your mascara. Seriously I use this app for everything with managing the household and myself! Having all my reminders of things on one App really helps me make sure it gets done.
4) Ability to manage multiple households
We mainly used this feature when we were preparing our current home and still living in our old rental. It was helpful to be able to manage both places at the same time. I could see how this would be a helpful feature for someone with a second home, or even an RV/Camper that they maintain. Seriously with Tody I feel like the sky is the limit with making cleaning and maintaining your home more productive.
5) Unlimited Boards and Rooms
We are a two adult and two pet household and we have 14 boards total. We have the common places, but also have boards dedicated to the pets, and even the garden and outside work. To some it may appear excessive, but being able to organize something in one place that both my husband and I can see has helped tremendously.
The majority of our boards! The additional ones are General, Laundry, Decks & Outside, Garage & Storage Shed.
Why we continue using it:
The beauty of the Tody app is that you pay for it once if you are an Apple User (It’s only $7), and it’s FREE for Android users!
Once you get things set up the way you want in the App, which I will admit does take some time and is ever changing as you use it more, you never really have to think of your cleaning list again. You know those moments when you think and say to yourself “when was the last time I did this____”, it really does just tell you what to do which for most people is the best solution to staying accountable.
“Having the Tody app really freed up my brain which helped me be less anxious and overwhelmed when it came to cleaning, and managing the household. It helped me feel in control versus being controlled by a never ending list.“
For myself, I certainly feel like it made cleaning house in my marriage more equal and less stressful when it came to our weekly reset. It’s nice knowing my husband knows what he needs to do without me asking (or telling) him.
It also helps you can see what is upcoming, and can spread out your cleaning across days. I know some people function better this way, and some like yours truly want to have a dedicated cleaning day.
Although I don’t know if I will ever find cleaning fully fun or enjoyable, I do feel accomplished when I get my Tody list down to zero and look around at my beautiful clean home on Sunday’s.
Until Next Time,
