Gamifying Homemaking by Making a Fandom Out Of It
The rough start
After Lee and I got married, we found out that I wasn’t very domestically inclined. I remember making box meals and sweeping the floor in our first apartment. But I also remember spending too many hours watching Pretty Little Liars. I got so hooked on Netflix, I remember defending my habits, saying, “I don’t want to miss out.” Also, if you look at The Domestication of the Running Rose, while I wanted to be “domestic,” I wasn’t really interested in homemaking. I am creative, I am an artist, and I chase a lot of creative passions that align with the homemaking and lifestyle niche, such as birthday party planning, DIY home decorating, and fashion. I had a few recipes on my blog, but it wasn’t truly a homemaker blog.
My problems ran deeper than that I just didn’t want to cook and clean, or that I was lazy (to an extent, I was, but it wasn’t the full story.) I wasn’t used to the new routine I needed to keep. I needed time to learn and adjust. I had spent my entire life being a full-time student and hadn’t learned how to be an adult.
Millennials going on about “adulting” like it’s an achievement speaks truth of my experience. A lot of people my age found growth challenging, which Buzzfeed capitalized on. In a way, I wasn’t ready to be married, but like I had said in pre-marital counseling, “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I need to just do it, and then I will become ready.” I wasn’t ready to be a fully functioning adult, even at 24, but the only thing that was going to make me ready was patience and practice. Unfortunately, it took me several years. In that time, I found I was good at other things. And, fortunately, my husband patiently stuck by my side.
I moved to a new region, which was a huge transition for me.
I left everyone I knew and moved over 1500 miles to the Midsouth from California and had to make entirely new friends, which doesn’t happen overnight. I lived independently in an apartment with my new husband. I was very happy to be with him. I never regretted marrying him and moving. But Lee was the provider in our marriage and worked long hours for Domino’s. If you know anything about the pizza industry, you know that it is very hard work. The hours are brutal. Lee often came home at 10:00 p.m. He is a reliable worker and has covered a lot of other people’s shifts. I spent most of my days alone in our little apartment, keeping myself busy with my blog and watching Netflix. I struggled for the first year to get employed. Even when I did, it was only part-time.
Transitioning to a new lifestyle, leaving everyone I knew for 1,565 miles, being alone for hours… did not motivate me to throw myself into sweeping, vacuuming, picking up clutter, cooking three meals a day, baking extra treats, keeping the dishes out of the sink, and greeting my honey with a kiss. Although I was always very happy (read: relieved) whenever Lee came home (then disappointed when he slept, because he was exhausted), I became depressed, and at one point, a nudist.
And, in the whole mess of it, I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong. I truly didn’t get it. I believed I was doing fine because I was oblivious. At least I meant well.
I can explain
I should give some context. I am autistic. I don’t do well with big transitions. I adjust and process slowly. I develop slower and have always been less mature than my peers. I am also diagnosed with major depressive disorder, so big changes that lead to big meltdowns tend to result in major depression episodes for me. I don’t remember when I was depressed, or just burned out on autism, because autism all by itself is exhausting. Normal expectations are exhausting for an autistic person, even (especially) when we pull it all off.
It got better!
In 2019, I graduated from college with my bachelor’s degree. Shortly after, in early 2020, I became pregnant with our first child. We were also encouraged to stay inside and not breathe near anyone that year. In the time I was pregnant with Sabrina, something changed in me. I became slightly more domestic. I took more interest in cooking dinner. Also, Lee’s mom now lives with us, and she taught me my foundation of how to cook. Knowing how to cook a variety of recipes makes choosing what to make for dinner much, much easier. I was also slightly less messy. And, we bought a house that year.
Buying a house during a pandemic is rough. With everything considered, our income, the housing market, and the realtors cutting their hours, it is a true work of God that we got the house we did at all.
Having a house makes staying home and eating in a lot easier. There is something about ownership and more space that makes staying home and doing home things more pleasant. I still hadn’t had this homemaking thing figured out, but, as my family would say, I was 200% better. I no longer hear “you are just not domestic.”
Getting intentional about it and setting a routine
Even after becoming more domestic and cooking meals almost daily, the house was still frequently messy. Perhaps this time, the baby was my excuse. But I needed to do some deliberate planning to get myself to do the thing.
🧩This is key for autistic people; take time to plan it out. Write it down. I prefer paper, but an app or Google Docs could work too. When I first planned things out, I started in Microsoft OneNote, where I could easily erase and move things, then copied it all down in a composition book. I keep composition books for various projects. My cosplays, Twitch channel, and this blog all have their designated notebooks.
First, I needed to identify which chores needed to be done daily. There were the obvious ones, dishes and laundry. But surely there were chores and simple tasks I had never heard of, like airing out the bed, or tasks I just didn’t think about often enough, like wiping the counters. I turned to Pinterest and looked up daily chore routines, which led me to vintage housewife routines and vintage housewife content on homemaking blogs.
I loved the vintage housewife stories. As I collected stories, tips, and lists on my Pin board, I felt inspired to be a retro housewife.
I wrote a list of all tasks that needed to be done to keep the house looking good and the people fed. I broke the tasks into daily, weekly, and monthly tasks. I tried to live this way every day. I lasted two weeks. But I have been doing essential chores more often since writing the list and save my “perfect day” for once a week.
In this process, I identified heavily with full-time homemakers. Reading about homemakers of the past motivated me. And, like I do with my other interests, I saw it develop into a fandom. By pouring my energy into being a homemaker, I was more motivated than ever, and chores became… fun.
I am an entirely different person than I was six years ago. I take pleasure in cleaning my home because I get to look at my pretty home. I make dinner daily and even look forward to it. Cooking dinner is one of my favorite parts of the day, and I find it most fun and motivating when I make a production out of dinner by trying a new recipe.
Don’t get me wrong; my house still gets messy, especially as my children play with toys ~everywhere.~ I don’t do my weekly chores as often as I should, so the floor really needs a mopping by the time I do it. At least I do it. I let the laundry pile up pretty high before I purge and do it all in two days. But, in general, my house is far more presentable than it was in the beginning. I do dishes daily, and if the sink piles up, I rationalize, “These are new dishes.” I keep clean laundry in everyone’s drawers; my husband no longer runs out of work pants. And I prefer cooking at home over eating out.
How to make homemaking fun
So, how did I get to loving homemaking? I found new ways to look at it. I made it fun and creative. I made homemaking one of my special interests. As an autistic person, I love my special interests! They are my primary sources of motivation. Moving something I need to do into special interest territory, I’m going to be a lot more likely to follow through. Here are some steps I took to love, and actually do, homemaking:
Make a list:
Make a plan for what you need to do every week. There are different ways you can arrange your weekly and daily to-dos. I like to have one day a week be my “perfect day,” where I get all basic housework done. Not needing to live the perfect day every day leaves flexibility for outings and errands throughout the week
Keep your to-do list in flux. Knowing what needs to be done every week, set out “weeklies,” one of each gets done every day of the week, so each task is done roughly weekly. You can assign and rotate your weeklies as you like every week.
Do the same with “monthlies,” except assign one monthly per week. These are bigger tasks that you don’t want to do all the time.
Make it a fandom
…or, special interest. Spend some time preparing yourself by reading and watching other homemakers. Read blogs and watch aesthetic YouTube videos, and you will want to do what they are doing. Also, read some classics with famous homemakers, like the Little Women series and Little House on the Prairie.
Gamify the process and role-play a homemaker
The internet loves aesthetics and styles that end in -core. Those trends are inspiring because they make us want to live the fantasy. In some cases, like in cottagecore and Midcentury vintage homemaking, the lifestyle is attainable, at least in a way that you can turn it on and off. I mean, even if you decorate your house like a cottage in the French countryside, you still may live in the city, drive a car, and not have to fetch your water in a pail every morning. But, depending on the zone you live in, you could raise chickens or other livestock. You can plant wildflowers, even in pots on your patio, and bake themed food even in the city.
To roleplay a homemaker, first choose a character. I’m going to use cottagecore homemaker, mid century American housewife, and Viking housewife as my examples. Remember, this is roleplay for motivation and fun. You can turn it on and off whenever you need.
Dress in the fashion
How you dress affects how you present yourself to your family, so dressing well is part of good homemaking. Dressing like a homemaker persona will make you feel more like a homemaker and more ready to take on your day. You could simplify your costume by just wearing an apron, or you can be eccentric and make it a full cosplay.
Here is a link to my retro homemaker capsule wardrobe on Amazon:
Play whatever character or persona motivates you to do your work. If channeling your inner Morticia Addams or Roseanne Connor gets you through your day, do it. Whatever floats your boat, ya know?
Why does Mama Malkavian not play a vampire? To start, I do my work during daylight hours. And, nothing in my headcannon about vampires aligns with effective homemaking. Vampires are tragic people who have had everything I know and love about my life taken away from them. So, they stay under the covers all day, roam around at night, and eat people. None of that fits in with caring for children and cooking dinner. If I want to play my inner vampire persona (which I totally have), I’ll use it for a day of rest. Maybe I’ll lie around, drink red wine or Kool-Aid, and play video games with the shades drawn.
Listen to theme music, podcasts, or radio dramas
Set the ambiance with a playlist that your character would have listened to, and play it while you do your housework. A homemaker would have listened to radio dramas during the 40s. A Viking homemaker probably wouldn’t have listened to music, but I included a Viking playlist below.
What is a cottagecore housewife called? A country wife? Cottagecore is an internet trend, so it is up to your interpretation where she lived and what kind of music she enjoyed. Cottagecore was first coined on Tumblr and mostly uses the European aesthetic (Cottagecore – Wikipedia). Spotify users seem to have their ideas about what kind of music is considered “cottagecore.”
Decorate your house like her house
This is a bigger commitment than a wardrobe that you can take on and off. But if you love a historical style, bring it into your home. It is my homemaking goal to decorate my house in a “grandma-core” style, and hand-make some of my housewares, such as curtains and throw pillows. Maybe you just want to add some small touches, like throw pillows or wall art.
Cook theme recipes
Make a production out of meals. Use old-fashioned recipes. Watch https://www.youtube.com/@BDylanHollis for historical baking. Look for vintage cookbooks online and second-hand. Pinterest is full of recipes, even vintage recipes. Pick one new recipe a week or month, buy ingredients just for that, and try something new.
Take on a relevant hobby
Take on a hobby that your character would have done. If you’re going cottagecore, you could try an herb garden on your windowsill, growing and drying tea, knitting or crochet, or needlepoint. A retro housewife may have grown a victory garden, listened to radio dramas, watched soap operas, or made crafts like embroidery or quilting. Viking wives were responsible for taking care of the home, caring for children and the elderly, cooking, and farming. Viking women were known to be excellent crafters and businesswomen. Consider trying textile crafts like spinning, tablet weaving, and Scandinavian embroidery techniques.
Write a blog! Document your homemaking journey online. It’s fun and trendy. There are a lot of other content makers to get inspiration from. That’s exactly why I have this website: to drive my homemaking.
In your free time, absorb more homemaking ideas. Read books such as vintage homemaking guides, watch aesthetic cooking and a day in the life videos on YouTube, and read blogs like this one.
Gamify with actual games
I have five apps on my phone that I use to keep track of my homemaking assignments. Some of them are designed for house cleaning, other are self improvement habit builder apps that I apply to homemaking tasks. I reviewed and ranked them below:
- SuperBetter is a fun, easy-to-use self-improvement app. I included it in this list because it was the first gamifying app I had heard of. But, when I redownloaded and used it, I found that most of my gameplay is guided by the app and not relevant to homemaking. In order to set custom Bad Guys and Powerups in SuperBetter, you need a Hero account (read: premium.)
- So, playing the free version of SuperBetter is not customizable for homemaking. The premium version could be fun and effective though. It is 24.99 a year.
- 4. Do It Now
- I ranked this one fourth because I find it hard to use. I input a few tasks and found it tedious. I think the real problem is that it doesn’t suggest tasks; you build it all yourself. The scoring system is very technical. You can customize how much power a task is worth, which is cool if you want that kind of control. For me I found that this app required too much brain power and didn’t get very far with it.
- 3. Habit Quest: RPG Tracker
- I find Habit Quest fun and easy to figure out. I like how habits and one-time to-do items are split into separate lists. The gamifying aspect of the app is checking off tasks earns gold, which can buy items for your avatar.
- Another fun thing about Habit Quest is its Quest feature. These quests are customizable to which habits you want to build and tell an interesting story. The game uses role-playing strategy by allowing the player to build different attributes in order to achieve the quest. The gaming aspect of Habit Quest is really cool. I think serious gamers would enjoy this app.
- But this app is focused on building a habit, then no longer playing it in the app after the habit is achieved. I want a lifelong to-do list and to track my dishes forever. So, I don’t find this app wholly relevant to homemaking, although it is usable and fun.
- 2. Sweepy
- I really enjoy Sweepy. My favorite feature is that it suggests tasks based on the rooms of your house. The app is customizable. You can add and remove tasks and rooms. While the app is centered around house cleaning, my hack to get around it is to create a custom room, call it whatever I want (“grocery list”), and it becomes very versatile.
- The gameplay is not as fantastical as Habitica and Habit Quest. In Sweepy, you earn gold and use it to buy home decor. I enjoy furnishing my digital home, but my favorite thing about it is the intrinsic reward of checking off the tasks before their due date.
- My favorite feature on Sweepy is that you set how often you need to do your chores. So, it turns due tasks red and done tasks green every X days.
- Habitica
- Habitica has the best combination of task listing and gaming. It takes a little longer to set up than Sweepy because it’s all custom, but it’s a lot simpler than Do It Now. The gaming is based on achieving quests and decorating your avatar and mount (pet) with clothes and equipment.
- Your achievements are broken down into three lists: habits, dailies, and to-dos, so it covers all types of achievements, making it versatile enough to apply to homemaking.
- The best feature of Habitica is that it not only allows you to reward yourself by checking off a good habit, but it also allows you to punish yourself by losing gold for doing a bad habit. I love that it acknowledges that habit building goes both ways, as well as restraining from destructive behavior.
Don’t forget to be yourself. You can turn the roleplay on and off. Most days, you’re probably going to be pretty ordinary. That’s okay. Some days are going to feel like drudgery. That’s okay. Rejoice in the Lord. Be grateful for this awesome, fulfilling job taking care of your home and family.
