What menial tasks do you enjoy?

[WouldYouKindly]

Breaking things... Just anything. It doesn't take skill, and normally not even that much physical effort, but it's just like a reverse puzzle. You take a whole thing and turn it into pieces. If you want to make my day, show me some old shelves that you want broken down, hand me a crowbar, and let me get to it.

 

[Mr Fixit]

I find sweeping the floor where I work to be very relaxing, it's a big shop floor with way too much machinery to sweep around, but I still love it.

Fixing or just tinkering with cars. Taking something broken & making it work again is so satisfying.

I love walking & would do it more if I didn't live 30 miles from everything. Driving those 30 miles can be quite nice too, but I usually get annoyed by some other idiot driver.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I actually like cooking my own food since the food taste great knowing that I was the one who cooked it. In saying so I haven't cooked anything complex just yet (I just making fried rices with veggie and meats).

 

[Euryalus]

None of them. It's pretty hard for me to sit still, mentally at least. I've been able to get the physical part down.

If I had to choose, I don't mind walking places.

 

[klaynexas3]

Cutting wood is nice, though I have no strength so I can't exactly do it for long.

I also like digging. I could dig for hours. There is something euphoric about it, it's hard to explain, but I guess you could say I really dig it...sorry, that was uncalled for, I'll just walk away before I dig my own hole. But before I go, don't forget to have your pets spade or neutered.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

Software QA

Give me a dev or staging environment, a list of acceptance criteria and a little exploratory freedom and I'm actually pretty damn content.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

I don't think I enjoy any kind of menial task.
I find cleaning to be annoying and only do it when necessary, any kind of manual labor usually ends up causing me extreme pain after a short while, I enjoy food I cooked myself but the process of preparing and cooking it I find tedious, walking causes me extreme ankle, knee and back pain after around half an hour of it.
I used to enjoy grinding in video games but even that bothers me now.
:c

 

[Alcamonic]

Re-arranging things in a more optimized order so you (well, mostly me) can find things easier.
Surprisingly relaxing and nice. Just let the mind wander and only focus on patterns, size and usefulness of things...

Cleaning can also be pretty nice. The feeling afterwards more than makes up for the feeling of "oh god... I'll just do it tomorrow..." beforehand.

 

[shootthebandit]

Biking to work over the airfield?

Someone else who works on an airfield, high five!

Driving is my menial task. Give me morgan freeman's job in driving miss daisy and ill be set for life. Driving is just so relaxing unless its an auto (referencing other threads like a boss)

 

[SirDerpy]

Breaking things... Just anything. It doesn't take skill, and normally not even that much physical effort, but it's just like a reverse puzzle. You take a whole thing and turn it into pieces. If you want to make my day, show me some old shelves that you want broken down, hand me a crowbar, and let me get to it.

This so hard. Breaking things is an absolute joy. Something about the feeling of things crumbling into pieces by my own hand really just makes for a huge sense of satisfaction. The harder it is to break, the better it feels. I wanted to dig up this huge rock in the yard the other day, since we're making a terraced garden (our backyard slopes down at a steep angle, so we want to turn it into something useful), and the rock was in the way of our creation of ledges, but unfortunately, it was too big to remove without being a pain in the ass to fill in later. So instead I got to use a pickaxe and whaled on it until huge pieces started breaking off.

Well, that's not exactly menial, so I'd have to go with watering said terraced garden (which has since been completed). There's something relaxing about watching the water cascade down and paint the cracked soil a rich brown color.

 

[lacktheknack]

Cooking, all day e'rey day.

I'd probably end up cooking non-stop some days, if it wasn't for the mess I have to clean up afterwards.

Also, if I have nothing pressing to do, completely cleaning and re-arranging databases and spreadsheets is pretty satisfying.

 

[J.V]

I thoroughly enjoy digging. Most of my friends think I'm insane when I just decide to dig holes out in the paddock for no real purpose.

 

[jademunky]

I'll second cooking. Just love the sound of veggies when they hit the oil in the wok. That and the feeling you get when everything is timed just right to serve at the same time. Also grocery shopping for a special meal.

 

[War Penguin]

I don't know if this counts but I love walking. I will pick walking to my destination over public transport or driving any day, if the journey is feasible. My walk to and from work takes me an hour each-way but I enjoy just putting on my headphones and getting there on foot, even if it means getting up earlier and getting home a bit later in the evenings.

I can sympathize. The same pretty much applies to my life as well. Especially the headphones aspect. I dunno about you, but they keep me in a meditative rhythm if the song is just right. Hell, night walks can be the most amazing and calming thing ever [small](if you get over the fact that you're walking alone at night in the middle of Los Angeles, but whatever)[/small].

Splitting firewood.

That.... that's just badass.

I have no idea what you look like, but all I can picture you now is as some dude with a red denim button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a big beard, and an axe over your shoulders. Please tell me this description holds some truth.

 

[Weaver]

For me it's vacuuming. Everything just feel so clean after a good suck.

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

Sorting. I like to sort things. It's not my favourite thing in the world, but if I've got nothing else to do, sorting keeps both my mind and hands busy while being simple and relatively quick and varied, and sometimes I end up with something that's better than a mess, practically speaking.

I used to sort my trading cards all the time. I'd usually sort them based on type or colour, but also sometimes by other attributes. Nowadays, I sort the dishes as I empty the dishwasher for my parents and I organize my games alphabetically by console. It makes it easy to find what I'm looking for.

EDIT: Cooking is considered a menial task, too? I love cooking, especially since it lets me try stuff and learn new things, and I get to enjoy the results of my work.

 

[FPLOON]

Walking and cleaning, of course...

I rarely drive anywhere that I can easily just walk to most of the time, anyway... Add a walkman (or, I guess, my PSP) and some headphones and I might start dance-walking from place to place...

In terms of cleaning, it's usually if it involves dusting in general or if it involves cleaning the bathroom in general... Add some music from a boombox (or in this case my Laptop + mini-speakers with headphone jack) and I might start dance-cleaning all over the place...

Other than that... Dancing in general? That what my body keeps telling me, even when there's no music to be found...

Edit: Dammit! How could I forget about de-weeding the yard?! I could do that for HOURS on end, despite my allergies and asthma...

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Plenty of stuff. De-weeding the garden, hoovering, cooking, driving. I'm not necessarily good at any of those things, but they're all enjoyable in their own way.

 

[Zhukov]

Splitting firewood.

That.... that's just badass.

I have no idea what you look like, but all I can picture you now is as some dude with a red denim button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a big beard, and an axe over your shoulders. Please tell me this description holds some truth.

Mmm... only about 40% accurate I'm afraid.

Dude - yes
Red denim shirt - no
Sleeves rolled up - yes, usually
Big beard - occasionally
Axe over shoulder - occasionally

 

[solemnwar]

Do menial tasks in video games count? Because I find clearing out a large area for building in Minecraft strangely calming.