To Dos or Projects?

Maintaining and improving your home has a wide variety of tasks required to keep things running smoothly. Do you call these tasks to dos or projects or something else?  It doesn’t really matter what you call them, but perhaps what is more important is to categorized them to help you run your home smoothly.

To Dos are usually smaller in scope and the homeowner typically has the skill to accomplish these on their own. They are often more related to routine annual maintenance tasks or small fix it types of tasks. Budget, design, and product selection are also usually not relevant to to-dos around the home. What is most important is to remember what time of the year or in what season these to dos need to get done. It is also important to remember how often these to dos need to be completed.

To dos around the home also typically fall into regular maintenance on equipment and the home building materials and structure. To dos are also applicable to outdoor landscaping to dos or even special non-routine cleaning tasks like vacuuming the coils on your refrigerator so it continues with a high degree of cooling efficiency.

Projects on the other hand start to get a bit more involved, even if they are relatively small projects like painting a room. With projects, you have to start thinking about what you want and what you can afford. Deciding on a style, design and product selections become more important with projects.

Projects can also fall into “have to” and “nice to have.” Replacing failing equipment or building materials that cause the home to be unsafe or unhealthy become immediate projects that need to be done.  Aesthetic projects that improve the quality of life in the home become more discretionary when funds become available to move forward with these.

What ways do you categorize all the tasks around your home that either need to get done or you would like to do?