What are the best lifehacker you would recommend to someone about to live alone for the first time?

 I just realized that culture rules for how to do domestic chores, what appliances to buy, etc, are very outdated. And It can take SO much time to do things... So I wonder what life hacks to save times around the house people have found.

• Clean as you are making the mess, don’t leave it for the end, like cooking in the kitchen.
• The most obvious: when you start cleaning, start from top to bottom. Because let's say you clean the floors first, them there's still dust all around that will end up on the floor when you wipe counters etc.
• If you see something that needs doing, and it’ll take less than 5 minutes to do it, do it now. If it takes more than 5 minutes schedule it on my (Google) calendar. Don’t save everything for a big weekly cleaning day. It’s easier to do maintenance tasks as you go, and you’ll never feel overwhelmed by all of the things that need cleaning.

• Stock up on shelf stable food you can prepare quickly in case you end up ill and can't get to the store.

For those who hate this, you're the type like me who need to see these types of chores in a totally different light. We think of chores as an all or nothing event. There are or there are not dishes. Same with laundry, dirt on the carpet, everything.

Instead, think of chores as resetting something's cleanliness back to 100% (or however close to that feels efficient), and from there it slowly degrades over time forever downward. It's okay, that's what it does. It only feels defeating because we think we're supposed to maintain 100%. We're not. We're supposed to keep it from getting too low. If you stop to vacuum the floor every time it's a tiny bit dirty, say 90%, then you're using an entire chore just to refresh 10%. It's like topping off your gas tank between every single errand. No, you let it get a little low so you can bundle it up efficiently. Do you need to go all the way to 100%? No, not really.

The height of cleanliness goals only has three factors, with sanitation as the absolute minimum, functionality of the item/space as the soft maximum (no material benefit gained above that point), and lastly just personal taste, which should be mindfully aimed at or above the point of full functionality, but below 100%. Like, imagine playing a game and popping a health potion every time you get to 99%. It's absurd. It's a waste of resources. It's kind of obsessive and delusional, no? In a game you'd probably aim for maybe 70% health or something, unless there's a boss coming up (surprise visit from mom) and you don't wanna take chances.

Hopefully that view makes it easier to view chores as ongoing without it also feeling daunting.