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I had every intention of cleaning my home from top to bottom before my husband and I went on vacation. I envisioned how nice it would feel to return to a clean and tidy house, with nothing to do but unpack and unwind before settling back into our daily routines.
I made it through dusting and vacuuming the living room before my energy shifted into vacation mode. I did manage to change the sheets and make the bed before we left, but I never reorganized the kitchen counters and I left my home office a complete wreck.
When we returned, I was faced with not only unpacking and putting away my stuff (although my husband did all our laundry — woo-hoo!) but also with the cleaning that I had wanted to do before I left. Not surprisingly, my vacation vibes were fading fast.
Then I remembered Tody, an app I saw advertised in my social media feed. It promises to make housekeeping more manageable by breaking down cleaning tasks room by room. It even helps you schedule them out during the week, month, or season.
I’m a huge fan of to-do lists in general, but I often put things like “clean bathroom” or “tidy home office” on my list. Depending on the state of each room, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to hours to check off that task, which can be daunting. Tody, however, breaks cleaning rooms down into manageable doses, and I’m happy to say this app is transforming my home, room by room.
Tody is a digital to-do list for home cleaning and maintenance tasks. Depending on your home’s layout, you’ll add a room or space to your list, then add all the corresponding tasks.
Each room has three tiers of tasks: basic, special, and custom. For example, a basic bathroom task would be cleaning the toilet once a week, while a special task might be to change out the toothbrushes every two to three months. Custom allows you to create additional tasks scheduled for specific days of the week; the basic version only permits you to schedule tasks within a certain number of days.
For example, my office task list has the following:
To be honest, I have so many books that the simple act of reshelving them is enough to keep my office looking good, so I have that task set for every other day.
For the kitchen, my task list looks like this:
You can even add outdoor spaces, like a yard, garden, and shed to your list. Right now, I have tidying the shed down as a weekly task, and I’m actually excited to check it off. Fun fact: When you complete a task, you check off a dirt splotch!
I usually prefer writing my to-do list on paper with an actual pen, but the Tody app is a real game-changer for me and the cleanliness of our home. Here’s why.
I’ll admit when I first got the push notification that I had 11 tasks waiting for me, I was not too pleased. But again, these tasks are simple. I can wipe down the kitchen counter and take down the garbage in less than 10 minutes and voilà! Two dirt splotches checked off my Tody list.
It Gamifies Better Cleaning Habits
I’m a kid at heart, so I love a fun game. Tody offers the option to compete against Dusty, an animated dustball. The more tasks I complete, the more points I earn to put me ahead of Dusty’s progress.
Silly? You bet. Effective? Heck yeah. My husband called me out just the other day for muttering under my breath, “I’m gonna get that dustball,” as I scrubbed the sink.
A Little Effort Goes a Long Way
Cleaning an entire house takes a while, even when you take it room by room. But Tody takes it task by task, so a little bit of work at a time adds up to a lot. I also like that if I can’t complete the entire room at once, I can focus on the most important tasks. For example, I might not always have time to scrub the shower tile, but I can certainly clean the countertop and toilet at least once a week.
Tody has plenty of tasks to get you started, but you can add others, even in the basic version of the app. The premium version allows you to schedule tasks for specific days, along with sharing/syncing tasks with another account, pausing tasks for vacation, and adjusting the color/look of the app itself. While I’m not averse to paying for apps, I’ll likely stick with the basic version when the trial is done, but this is one app that’s staying put on my phone.
