{"id":194199,"date":"2026-07-11T14:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T19:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=194199"},"modified":"2026-07-11T14:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T19:48:08","slug":"two-10-minute-weekly-chores-with-a-surprisingly-big-payoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/skills\/homeownership\/two-10-minute-weekly-chores-with-a-surprisingly-big-payoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Two 5-Minute Weekly Chores With a Surprisingly Big Payoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

There are a lot of tasks that go into keeping your household running and your home ship-shape.<\/p>\n

I keep a weekly maintenance list of these recurring chores and use the Todoist app to stay on top of them. I’ve made my Todoist home maintenance template available as a free download here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, I added two new weekly tasks to that list: blowing out my garage and cleaning out the interior of our family car. Both take just a few minutes. But they’ve turned out to offer a high ROI when it comes to improving my everyday quality of life.<\/p>\n

Blow Out Your Garage<\/strong><\/h2>\n

My garage doubles as my gym. Every afternoon around 2 p.m., you’ll find me down there hoisting the iron.<\/p>\n

For a long time, though, the garage itself was a bit of a dreary place to train. Every time the door went up, leaves blew in. Dust settled over everything. Cobwebs collected in the corners. It wasn\u2019t terrible, but it didn\u2019t make the space as inviting as it could be.<\/p>\n

So I started blowing out the garage every Saturday. I open the door, start at the back, and blow all the leaves, dirt, and dust onto the driveway with my Ryobi electric leaf blower<\/a>. I can get some of the cobwebs out with the blower, but others are more stubborn or collect in nooks I don\u2019t notice. I take care of those by sucking them out with a shop vac twice a year.<\/p>\n

The job only takes 5\u201310 minutes. The key is doing it weekly. When I only cleaned out the garage a couple times a year, the mess had months to build up, which made the clean-up jobs big and time-consuming. A quick weekly blowout means things never accumulate much in the first place. Now the garage stays respectable year-round.<\/p>\n

A clean garage has made my workouts a lot more pleasant. It’s easier to get into a session when I\u2019m not stepping over leaf litter on the way to the barbell rack.<\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019re not using your garage for workouts, a grimy garage subtly weighs on the mind. Your garage is typically the threshold you pass through to get into your house several times a day, and keeping it clean sets the right tone for your return home.<\/p>\n

Clean Out Your Car<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Left to its own devices, our family car turns into a rolling garbage can. I\u2019m sure yours does, too. Soda cans and protein bar wrappers pile up in the cupholders and door pockets. My kids treat the backseat like an annex of their bedrooms, leaving behind shoes, brushes, books, backpacks, headphones, and random articles of clothing.<\/p>\n

So once a week, the car gets a cleanout. First, I throw away all the trash. Then I gather up all the kids’ crap, dump it in a pile by their bedrooms, and tell them, “Sort this crap out and put it away in your rooms.” Finally, I vacuum out the interior with my shop vac.<\/p>\n

It takes about 5\u201310 minutes. I spend the week driving around in a clean car. Less chaos. Driving is more enjoyable. And I’m never embarrassed when I unexpectedly need to give someone a ride. I can say \u201chop in\u201d without sheepishly sweeping off beef jerky crumbs from the passenger seat while saying, \u201cSorry for the mess. Kids, am I right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither of these chores is going to change your life dramatically. But for less than twenty minutes of effort a week, two spaces I use every day stay cleaner and more pleasant. That’s some nice ROI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a lot of tasks that go into keeping your household running and your home ship-shape. I keep a weekly maintenance list of these recurring chores and use the Todoist app to stay on top of them. I’ve made my Todoist home maintenance template available as a free download here. Last year, I added […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":194203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42277,42259],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homeownership","category-skills"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2026\/07\/chore-538x280.jpeg","aom":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2026\/07\/chore-372x230.jpeg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2026\/07\/chore-320x240.jpeg","reactor-640":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2026\/07\/chore-640x480.jpeg"},"yoast_head":"\nTwo 5-Minute Weekly Chores With a Surprisingly Big Payoff | The Art of Manliness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/skills\/homeownership\/two-10-minute-weekly-chores-with-a-surprisingly-big-payoff\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two 5-Minute Weekly Chores With a Surprisingly Big Payoff | The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are a lot of tasks that go into keeping your household running and your home ship-shape. 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