When doing chores around the house, I always felt overwhelmed. The dust was always quite thick, and the cloth I used to wipe the furniture and my work desk would turn blackened and very difficult to wash.

I didn’t really like cleaning the house when I was a kid. It was tiring and boring. While I enjoyed a nice, clean room, I certainly didn’t enjoy cleaning it. I used to think cleaning the house was a total waste of time. Playing games or studying felt like much better activities. Life is short anyway—why should we spend our time sweeping, wiping, and scrubbing? There were so many better things to do, or so I believed.

I often wondered why older people seemed so obsessed with cleanliness and tidiness. If your desk was messed up, it was because you were actually working, right? Even if you cleaned and tidied it up, you were just going to mess it up again another day. So why bother?

If I am not mistaken, my view began to shift when I was learning yoga from Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. He wasn’t just teaching yoga poses; he also taught the correct mindset behind them. He explained that yoga poses were meant to train not only the body, but the mind as well. A disciplined and focused mind can overcome any hurdle in life. That was his message. He also mentioned that when your environment is clean and tidy, your mind is too. Back then, I didn’t really understand what the use of a tidy mind was.

That was the last time I questioned it. Before long, I found myself in charge of my sister’s store. It was messy, the dust was thick, and there was no system to collect and organize data. Every day, I heard staff shouting at each other just to find a piece of invoice data or payment record. I realized that if the store had a tidy information system, it would be much easier to track information and gather feedback to improve the business.

I wondered how I could help, or where I should start. After a few days of observation, I decided to start with a very simple place: my own mind.

I needed to organize my thoughts first. There was a lot to do, so I made a mind map, set priorities, and created improvement tasks. Then I cleaned up my physical table, organized my notes, and started recording what happened every day in the store. I streamlined the recording process, built a retrieval system, created workflows, and organized the staff.

After three months, the store was in great standing and could run smoothly without anyone shouting. Data became easy to retrieve and utilize.

Today, my belief has completely changed. Cleaning and tidying every day isn’t just about making things look nice and beautiful—it is an exercise for the mind to stay organized. And an organized mind makes it effortless to retrieve memories and create high-quality plans.

So, is doing chores still burdensome? Not anymore. It is a daily practice of mental clarity.