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When you first move into a new property, maintaining it feels like an actual part of life, wanting to look after your new investment. After you've been there for several years, it turns into a chore and eventually something that annoys you. Why can't everything just work the way you wanted to? The way to stop home maintenance from being annoying is to shift your perspectives and attitude. Here's some of the things you can try. 

Shift to preventative maintenance

Experts like www.dentechvac.com who deal with broken-down AC units, recommend switching to preventative maintenance. The idea here is to stop things from building up so that you're always on top of everything and your home systems continue working the way you want them to. If you don't do this, you'll sometimes be saddled with large bills, which is obviously something you’ll want to avoid. 

The best preventative maintenance schedules are broken down into monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks.

• Every month, you'll want to do things like check for leaks underneath your sinks and change your HVAC filters.

• Then, quarterly or seasonally, you'll have to trim overhanging tree branches and clean gutters.

• Annual services are more intense. For example, you might want to hire someone to inspect your roof or flush your hot water system.

Build systems and routines to make home maintenance less overwhelming

Another helpful piece of advice is to build systems and routines that make home maintenance less overwhelming. Eventually, looking after your home can lead to decision fatigue because you're constantly having to make choices about how to take care of it.

The best way to deal with this is to tie tasks to existing habits. For example, you might want to change your filters when you pay your heating bills. Doing this allows you to compartmentalize maintenance tasks instead of having them hang over you. It also allows the decision-making for when you perform maintenance to fall on somebody else, for example the billing company that sends you the bill.

If you can break big jobs into smaller weekly chunks, then that's also useful. For example, just doing 5 to 10 minutes of cleaning per day prevents massive cleaning marathons at weekends when you're tired that lead to burnout. 

Make home maintenance tasks less miserable

Another pro tip is to make home maintenance tasks less miserable. This might seem like a challenge, but it's easier than you might think.

• You could start by pairing home maintenance with something that you like to do, such as listening to audiobooks or podcasts.

• You could also batch your home maintenance time to specific periods of the day and set a timer so that whatever you're doing is time limited or use lists at plantoorganize.com/home-maintenance-checklist/

• If you don't get everything done in the 20 minutes you allocate to it today, then you can always leave it for tomorrow.

• Finally, fixing annoying home maintenance issues immediately is a good idea. For example, if your home has a squeaky hinge, spray it with some light oil.