Modern Wisdom - #224 - Erin Zammett Ruddy - All The Adulting Skills You Were Never Taught

Episode Date: September 26, 2020

Erin Zammett Ruddy is an author. Life doesn't come with an instruction manual, and yet we're all meant to muddle through it anyway without setting ourselves on fire or blowing up the vacuum cleaner. Expect to learn how to wake up in the morning, how to never lose your keys, how to properly load a dishwasher, how to sit properly in your chair, how to tidy a room in 10 minutes or less and much more... Sponsor: Check out everything I use from The Protein Works at https://www.theproteinworks.com/modernwisdom/ (35% off everything with the code MODERN35) Extra Stuff: Buy The Little Book Of Life Skills - https://amzn.to/3cgQR0A  Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, hello friends in podcast land. Welcome back. My guest today is Erin Zimett, Rudy. And we're talking about how to adult today. It's weird, right? You get sort of thrown into life at like 18 or 21 or something and you just get popped out the door and it's like, all right, good luck. Remember that you need to be able to iron clothes

and make a cheese board and reply to all your emails and wash the kitchen floor and fold a bed sheet and do like a million other things. But no one ever really teaches you how. You just kind of learn by doing. And today we go through Aaron's favorite tips for a bunch of the biggest challenges that you face in your adult life. So today, expect to learn how to wake up in the morning, how to never lose your keys, how to properly load a dishwasher, how to sit upright in the morning, how to never lose your keys, how to properly load a dishwasher, how to sit upright in your chair, how to tidy a room in 10 minutes or less and much more.

If any of you decide to do a life-changing turnaround because of the stuff that we give you today, or if you've got any ideas, then send them to me. At ChrisWillX, wherever you follow me, I also require massive amounts of help in making it through adult life without setting myself on fire. So yeah, I would appreciate that. But for now, it's time to learn how to adult with Erin Zomet ready. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I'm joined by Erin Zometrudi. Erin, welcome to the show.

Hi Chris, thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being here. Are you going to teach us how to adult today? Is this an adulting seminar? Hi Chris, thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being here. Are you going to teach us how to adult today? Is this an adulting seminar? A little bit. I hope I am almost an adult. That was sort of the plan when I fed out to write this book.

By the end, I might actually be an adult. So I'm getting there at 42. Well, this hope for us all yet then. Life doesn't come with an instruction manual. and upon reading your little book of life skills, I've realized how much of the stuff you realize kind of just emergently, it's like how to make your bed, or like how to properly load a dishwasher

and stuff like that. No one actually does teach you these things. So is it just a desire for you to seek some advice from smart people that have got the answers and then compile them for yourself. Like how to be erin.doc book? Yeah, I think I did, I realized that I wasn't doing these things as efficiently as possible.

And we all know those people who are super efficient and they just like plow through every task and they do it like my father is one of those people. And at, you know, when I started writing the book, I was 40 and I was like, I have three kids, I have like a job, I have all these things that make me seem like an adult, but I'm still a disaster and like a hot mask, like rolling around with like, I mean, you know, my car is at any way. I'm just like, I was a little bit of a mess and I thought, you know what? These people might be onto something, right? But I also knew that I didn't have it in me to like Marie Kondo my whole life because

I would dump the contents of my closet and probably leave it there for three weeks and get a divorce. So I was like, I need little things that I can do, small little step by step things that I can implement almost without noticing, right? Like just little things where I'm like, huh, this is a small thing and it has a huge impact on my day and my life. And so yeah, so I was like, let me set out to find best experts for each of these individual tasks, which range from waking up in the morning to making a great cheese board to sending a proper email

to helping a friend through a crisis. And then there's a ton of fun stuff, there's holding a fitted sheet of course, doing laundry, which I was terrible at. And just doing it in a way that felt like I would do it. You know what I mean? This is a book that I could read. Somebody like me, you don't have to go out and buy a million things to try to redo your life. It's just small little hacks, little things with big rewards. How hard is it to find a world expert in folding a fitted sheet? Well, you know, if there's a lot of them out there, there's a lot of different people. And sort of what I wanted everything collected in a book is because you can sit there and Google the Tattleful-Defited Sheet and then you wind up with like 400 videos

and thousands of different instructions and then you're in a wormhole on, you know, you're on Instagram and you're in Chrissy Teigen's comments and like four hours later you're like what was I thinking? You know, and that going to be fun. Trust me, I spend quite a bit of time in the comments, like, to not Instagram. But I just wanted something that was handy and just the facts. So for my laundry, when I went to somebody who started a business based on, like, sheets and bedding, and she has this company called Parachute Home,

and she's pretty cool. So she was my expert for that. So it was fun. That was a fun part of writing the book, like figuring out who the expert was for each one. So a perfect example of this. I keep coming back to it a lot to do with good podcasts is going to a museum or like an art gallery. So you don't necessarily go to the art gallery because the curator of the art gallery is a good artist. You go to the art gallery because the curator of the art gallery is a good artist. You go to the art gallery because the curator is able to select people who have particular skills and talents

and an ability to present something which you're going to find interesting. And you put your faith in the curator to select it appropriately, a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of east and a bit of west and a bit of modern, a bit of blah blah. I don't know what. But you know, you have your faith in them and it kind of seems a little bit like, as you say, take that top filtering. If you can get anywhere close to the top 5% in the world in anything, they're probably at least 50% better than you are. So like, you don't... I'm 100% there, definitely. Definitely. You don't? 100% definitely. Definitely.

What was the biggest hole in your adulting game before you started this book? What's the weakness? You know, like when you see your kids, they'll have like FIFA and the players will have like attack, defense, speed or whatever. What were you worst at out of the sections in your book? speed or whatever, what were you worst at out of the sections in your book? That's a really good question. I think other than just like really mundane stuff like doing laundry, which my mother never taught me, so that's her fault. My children will leave my house knowing how to do laundry. But I would say the thing that I love most, that I, that I, I, I was really implemented a lot

is like taking a deep breath, taking a beat and not plowing through everything. That was something that I just felt like I needed to like get stuff done, get stuff done. Instead of like, okay, like, let's calm down for one second and figure out the best way to do X, Y, or Z. So I think there's a lot in the book about taking a beat, just being mindful of how you're doing things, even if it's grocery shopping, right? Like, I would, there's a good example. Like, I am somebody who would maybe make a list,

go into the grocery store, definitely forget the list, walk through, decide I wanted to make something different for dinner and, oh, and then get home and realize I forgot half the things I went for and I'm an adult, you know, like I shouldn't be so fine when I was like in college and You know walking through the grocery store the bag of chips and a diet coke and like but It was that that idea that like come on like that's a waste of my time then right like I got I need to and I and we all could use more time to just or or, you know,

just being able to do these things properly gives you a sense of like peace and calm and also, you know, it doesn't stress you out then. Like you shouldn't, you shouldn't have to leave the grocery store like in a tiz, right? So that's something that I think was a big hole of mine. And just like slowing down a little bit and doing things more mindfully, even grocery shopping. It is weird that you dependent on your parents and then you start to get your independence, maybe sort of 13, 14, you want to maybe make breakfast for yourself and I want to spend time with my friends and no more, I don't need a lift after I've been at football, I'll get myself home

or whatever it might be. But then you're still perfectly allowed to not know how the oven works and like just all of the life skills that you really need. And then you arrive at 18 or 21, I guess, which is like the last bastion of some stuff to get over when you're in America. And you still not learned them. And then you're like, well, it's okay, I'm 21. No one really expects me to have my stuff together. And then you get to 30. I'm 32. You get to 30. And you're like, okay, this is, this is quite embarrassing now. Like, why is it so admission to everyone that's listening, well, no, my mom still does my washing. The 32 years old, and my mom still does my washing.

My argument is that it's a good excuse for me to make sure that I have to see her every week, and she does it better than me, and there's part of me that thinks, for fuck's sake, Christopher, you are three decades on this planet, and you're still not doing your own washing. No?

Yes, I do know and I will tell you that I'm 10 years older than you and I often will send my parents to this not far from me and when I have a particular tricky stain or something my mom because my mom loves it. She loves doing laundry. She just does and I will occasionally just be like, hey, mom, like my mom loves it. She loves doing laundry. She just does. And I will occasionally just be like, hey, mom, like, the says hand wash and I don't hand wash things like, can you do it? Aaron, I would love to do that. Yeah. But when are you going to become your mum? Because also, I can't do DIY. My dad like, but do you get my point? Like, there has to be a point at which you But you get my point. Like there has to be a point at which you look to your kids

the way your parents looked to you. And my mum and dad skill set, like maybe on technology stuff, they're a little bit more deficient than me, but in almost every other area of life, they wipe the floor with me. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I do think that they have less Distraction maybe

Right so but yeah, my parents are They have their stuff in order my dad is like no, but he does everything the right way You know, and he takes such pride and like whether it's rolling up a hose You know like I feel come over to my house and I will have just watered the garden and my hose will kind of be not properly put it. And he's like, oh my God, don't you try to do this? And he takes the time to online the whole hose, squeeze out all the water, make sure there's no kinks and then really do

it. And he just enjoys doing things properly. And it's such a nice thing to see and I do try now like Gretchen Ruben is one of the experts in my book and she has something called the one-minute rule and if a task takes one minute or less to do just do it right whether it's answering an annoying email or winding up a hose or you know putting that dish from the sink into the dishwasher. Just do it. And I'm trying really hard to do that because it does feel good to do things the right way.

So like when you eventually do your own laundry, like you're gonna feel like, wow, I did this. And I do my own laundry now. I have three children and a husband and myself and we all like play sports and work out. And so the laundry is insurmountable most days, but I do it, you know, and occasionally I am proud of myself for actually folding it and putting it away.

That's the hard part. And laundry trips everybody up. There's very few people on this earth who are like, I am. I am. I am alone for exactly laundry between. Yeah, yeah. My expert is an exactly laundry queen. Yeah, yeah. My expert is an amazing laundry queen.

Her name is Clean Mama and she's incredible. Her name is what? Clean Mama. Clean Mama. Clean Mama. Clean Mama. She has a huge Instagram following. And she believes that you should just do one load a day.

Like every day, just start your day by throwing a load in. And then you never have to have what I had behind me when we started this podcast, which was a mountain of laundry to put away. And it just becomes part of your morning routine. And that's sort of a big scene in the book is like, you know, having systems. Like that's something that I didn't have really. So let's get started. Chapter one, wake up and get ready for the day. What was some of the things that got you ready for the day that changed the most?

Like getting out of bed is quite hard. So that is one of my favorite pages in the whole book. And it's that idea of you're lying in bed and you just think like, I just want to lay here a little longer or I want to hit my shoes button. But this expert, Dr. Bruce, Michael Bruce, he says you have to just swing your legs over, just get your legs over the side of the bed, plant your feet on your floor and your halfway

home. If you can just do that, then you're supposed to take five deep breaths just to get your brain, like at the oxygen flowing to your brain and drink a full blast of water because, and this is kind of gross, but interesting, you lose a liter of water in the humidity in your breath during the night. So you want to rehydrate, and then this part has been huge, and it's been a game changer for me, is to get outside into the sunlight as quickly as you can after you wake up, like within the first 15 to 20 minutes.

And that's because we have this like melatonin faucet, he calls it in our brains, and the sunlight will stop that. And it'll wake you up and you'll feel less groggy for the rest of the day. And I try to do that as often as I can, like I did it this morning, I got up and I got outside and that was huge. And part of your morning, and another thing is to water your plants before the sun is really hot. So you can kind of combine the life skills, like you don't want to be watering your plants

in the middle of the day because the sun can, it'll evaporate that water and when it evaporates the water on the flowers, it can burn the flower. So you want to water before it's really hot. So I combine those two life skills. I go outside to get my sunlight and stop the millitone and drip in my brain, and then I also water my plants. And that has just like, has been a game changer, rather than just like laying about in your bed. And like as good as that feels, we've all done it. And then don't you feel like crap the rest of the day and like your eyes are puffy, and so it's always better as hard as it is to just get your ass out of bed as soon as you wake up.

The best thing that I've heard about hitting the snooze button is that pressing snooze is like saying, I hate waking up that I'm going to do it multiple times per day. I love that. That's so true, exactly. Exactly. Because it does. I mean, it's not always fun, but it's one of those things that definitely you know, you don't regret. Like, no one ever says like, oh, I really wish I would just hit the snooze button and lead in bed all morning and gotten up two hours later. I mean, no one ever said that. So yeah, I love that one. Blend the perfect smoothie. How do we make a perfect smoothie?

You're a smoothie person. I am a smoothie person. And what I love about this one is my expert, Catherine McCord, who has this awesome, we Lucius brand. She talks about using frozen stuff as like, it's just better than fresh. Like a lot of times, it means you can get really good organic frozen berries, like in the middle of winter, and not to be afraid of frozen, right? Like, you think, oh, I have to have all this fresh stuff.

I love she has this one hack of using frozen cauliflower in her smoothies. And it's because it has like really good protein, and it doesn't change the taste of this smoothie at all. And it makes it creamy. So it gives it like a nice consistency which I think is great. She also talks about using like little extras like collagen peptides which is really good for our skin and our nails and our hair but just this idea of she talks about a smoothie being like meditation in the morning,

like it helps you set your intention for the day. So if you start your day with this movie, even if you're going to wind up eating fried chicken later, you start as your day of this movie, right? But if you start your day with this movie, you also kind of feel like, all right, I just had like five servings of fruits and vegetables. But I love that. I love her. And I love trying to start my day with this movie. You never know where it's going to go from there, but at least you started your day with this movie. You've got a lot of undercum.

Past modern wisdom, guest, the happyologist. She was phenomenal when she came on. So how do we get out of the door in the morning calmly and without forgetting anything? Let me look at that chapter because that's a tough one for me. The funniest thing is after Laura and I spoke and she's a she's a friend I've worked with her for many years and I adore her. We did our interview and then I got in the car to take to go somewhere and I was like sitting in my car and I was like, oh wait, I don't have my keys for my wallet. And I was like, oh shoot, so clearly I'm a work in progress.

But I think this one is so important and there's no like great secret. It's basically just put shit where it belongs and leave it, like always have your things where they need to be, right? So if you're leaving the house You know that your wallet is always here and you know that the umbrellas are in this spot and you know that you know So you're not in a tizzy saying oh, yeah, where am I shoes or where is this or where is that so giving everything a home

Is really important and then taking again taking that time to put everything back in its home. And it's just that like closing that loop makes such a difference because I think part of what makes it so hard to get out the door in the morning is that we don't know where anything is, right? We're suddenly like, like, where is this? Where's that? But if it's always in the same place, and you designated this place, and you've told everyone who lives in your home, where these things are are and where they belong and help them put them back there, then you always know where things go, right? And the other thing that she says is,

and I love this, I'm just gonna read it, the space between putting on your shoes and backing out of your driveway is not zero. So many people think it is and that's why they're five minutes late everywhere. You know, we like, I'm often late because I think, oh, I have to, I take me 10 minutes to get there. So I'm going to leave here 10 minutes before I have to be there and walk out. But like, you know, and you always like walk outside and you realize you, you know, you see something

you have to pick up or whatever. So leaving five minutes early is like definitely key. And then in terms of forgetting something, which I love, if there's, you know, say you packed leftovers for lunch the next day, put something that you don't want to forget with that, you know, like put your keys or put your keys in the fridge next to your leftovers, right? Because if you took the time to pack up your leftovers and you want to bring lunch so that you're not buying crap or whatever, and in the morning, oh wait, we're my keys.

Oh yeah, they're in the refrigerator. Or you can make a note, you know, you can make a note to yourself. But like putting things together. And yeah, I just, I love her and I love those ideas, but it's again, it's just having a home for things and putting things back away, which is trips everybody up. But closing the loop is really important. Like, the zygonic effect is one hell of a drug man. If you leave that open loop for the rest of the day, there's just ambient anxiety, just paving the source code of whatever you're doing with the day. So yeah, I'm all a part of that. I've lost three sets of keys in the last 18 months and I have to change my front door lock today

or tomorrow. And I couldn't even get out my own house. So I lost my keys, but my two housemates didn't. So I've been using my own back door to get in and out of my house, because I couldn't. So I mean, that's, that's a, I just need to read. I need to ring Laura and say, hi, Laura, can you please for the love of Christ, can you help me? How about sitting properly in your chair, sitting as the new smoking Kelly Staretz says. So let's try and restrict how much damage we're doing. Oh, I love that. Sitting, yeah, sitting is an interesting one. I love what my expert says here, which is in order to sit properly, you have to stand properly first. So you actually

have to like get up and it's like stacking, it's like stacking blocks. So you get your feet kind of planted properly and then you want your hips over your feet. And then you're, you know, it's sort of like if you do like yoga or think something about those things and then your shoulders over that sitting back and then you sit down. But if you think about it and I'm not sitting properly right now and that's the other thing that he says, I was like, you know, you're going to forget throughout the day, right? But even a few times a day, you readjust and you kind of like sit there and, you know, pull the thing up from your head and sit like that. But it's really about thinking of your body, like stacking blocks and your feet, then your knees over your feet, then your hips over that, and then sit down and try to like hold it. And core, having the core muscles helps.

Our cores are all taken a hit during quarantine, but at least my ass, but having core muscles helps and just kind of like keeping them engaged throughout the day so that you're not slouched over. The idea is not to slouch over constantly or even like that, you know, so I love that one too. It is becoming conscious of your posture and you're right, you're not going to sit with like perfect buddhist meditation cross leg glow at this bullshit all day, but

every time that you know this, oh no hang on, I'm not, I'm not sat up straight. So if you're listening to this and you sat down somewhere, check your posture right now, please sit up straight. We are not, we are not a community of people who have slouchy backs. This is an upright, well-postured podcast audience that we got going on here. Make your point heard. How do you make your point heard? Oh, that is another, another really good one. Part of this that I found so interesting, my expert talks about having a point first. And so a few of us actually do. We're just talking to talk or we don't know what our point is.

So making your point heard, the first step is making sure you have a point. And yeah, I mean, who knew, right? And he talks about getting in and getting out, right? Like don't don't use something called badgatives where you're just like, oh this is a great idea. It's excellent. It's awesome, it's amazing. Like, those are all good things to describe something. Like, you wouldn't, you would wanna be affiliated with something that's awesome and excellent and amazing, but it's not really saying anything, right? And you're just kind of like filling the air.

And people, and also, when you're making your point, once you've made your point, point, just try not to just keep going because people remember what you've said at the end of, you know, they're going to remember the last few bits of things you've said, right? So it's like that idea of let it lie, let it sit there, let it land, don't fill the air. It's so we're so tempted to. Like I'm doing right now.

It's a big confidence thing, and I've noticed it in myself, especially upon doing the show, anyone that goes back and listens to like episode one or any of the first 50, which I can almost not bear to hear. I don't have the confidence to finish a question with a blunt point.

I say a thing, it's like setting off a firework, I set off the firework and then it goes bang and then goes like, and makes this sort of weird, this just, so this, this, this thing, isn't it? Do you not think about that? And what was that? What was that you asked the question? Like just fucking leave it. You don't need to say that you don't need this weird,

like, post-coital pillow talk after you've asked the question, like just say the thing. So I totally, totally get that. And obviously as well, having a point, like a lot of people want to feel like they need to contribute. Everyone that's been on Zoom this summer knows what that's like. I can't leave this conference call without saying something.

Like if you have nothing to say, you absolutely can leave this Zoom call. Don't say anything. Saying something which means nothing is worse than not saying anything at all. Absolutely. So I'm all in Joel, your expert for that is a... Joel Schwartzburg. He's incredible. And yeah, and we often dilute our points to what you were saying. Like we dilute them by saying things because people remember the last thing you said. So.

Zippe, Zippe, Zippe, organize your workday from Nicole Lapin who has seemed to recognize her name. I'm not too sure why. She is amazing. She's written a bunch of books, she's very cool, and this one I love what she says about procrastinating, she's like you have to procrastinate, like it's, we all, it gets a bad rap, but look at your workday and say, what do I really have to do?

Do I need to do these things? Because if you can push them off to tomorrow or even later, it frees you up to do the things that you really have to do today. And I like that idea of things that aren't time sensitive, push them off. She also talks about Mark Twain and like, eat the frog, the idea of like, you know, if you

have to eat a frog, it's best to eat it first thing in the morning. And if you have to eat too, it's best to eat the biggest one first, right? So just do the hard things early in the day when you have the energy and also like noticing when you have, we all have different rhythms, but like a lot of us are most focused in the morning. A lot of us feel kind of draggy in the afternoon. And also, which I love too, is like often people will put meetings on their calendar

for 30 minutes, 45 minutes or an hour. But if a meeting's only gonna take like 12 minutes, like just, you don't need to fill the rest of that time with chitchat or what people are watching on Netflix or whatever it may be. Now we're doing so many Zoom calls, it's very different, but she also talks about like walking meetings. You know, like, can it be solved in a phone call?

Like, do we really need to sit in this conference room and get our snacks and go to the bathroom? And, you know, there's so much wasted time throughout the day. But I think, you know, organizing, organizing your work day that benefits your own cycle is really huge. And it's something that I've learned. If I can get up and get emails out before 9 o'clock in the morning, if I can send 10 emails or whatever, I feel like a major, I feel like a superwoman. But if I don't, then it's like, that leads nicely into

how to stay on top of your email inbox. Everyone this summer will have had to play the hugely upregulated email communication game. So what's the best solution for staying on top of emails? This one's sort of like staying on top of the power curve, right? Like not getting behind. So you have 15 emails to respond to the second you wake up. So just my expert there is Justin Kerr. He's fantastic. And he talks about just finding little snippets throughout your day in between a meeting while someone's dealing with technical difficulties on a Zoom.

Like and fire off an email. Get it out of your inbox, you know? But I think the most important thing that he talked to me about is writing a proper email, and he says, the reason so many people work late, and too many hours, is because they don't have a right email. And he said, you should start with your conclusion, then say, you know, we're taught in school like intro, then supporting evidence, then our conclusion. Know like freely like, hey, how are you? It's like, so you know, all of that kind of stuff.

Like get right to the point. Use white space, use bullet points, use building. And remember that people are often gonna be, we might write it on our big laptop, but people are often gonna be looking at it on their little device. And so a subject line that is to the point, I think like seven words or less so that it doesn't go over, you know, what you can read. And reply all, which is like the death of everybody, right, in our email inboxes, like

nobody likes reply all. So I sit to him, I was like, oh, cool. So then because sometimes I won't reply all just like side text the person or I'll email just the person back. But he said, you actually do want to reply, if you're put on on a message, you do want to reply all because then everyone else is going to sit around and say, like, oh, Kristen, Kristen, chime in here. Like, I wonder what, oh, is he doing it? But what, you know, what's his deal? What's he gonna do? And then you're kind of making other people waste time. But that said, if you are the sender of the email,

think long and hard who you have to CC. Like, all the way people that need to be on that email should be on that email. And if something is going back and forth like way too many times, take it offline. Like, pick up the phone, walk to the person's desk, don't let it go on and on and on. But I like that idea of just finding like tiny pockets of productivity throughout the day and firing off some emails. Today I was on my way to physiotherapy session in Inuba and I did, I went from maybe 15 emails

to inbox zero in like 20 minutes, you know, like I got nothing else to do. I'm sat in the back of this Uber. I don't know whether you guys have it in America at the moment, but in the UK is plastic screens in between the driver and me. So I can't even, I like it. I like a silent Uber driver. I love it. A nice silent taxi ride. So I got a bit of Ben Shapiro podcast in my ears. And before I know it, I'm like, I've just done something that would have taken me 20 minutes of home time, and I've done it on the way to physio. So yeah, I'm all in for that. This one really intrigues me, creates secure passwords that you'll actually remember. Like this is

one of the most challenging things, even with a password manager. Like, because the challenge with a password manager, like one pass or last pass, is that every so often you'll be on a device where you don't have access to that thing. And if you can't remember, yet it's great to have a repository of them that are kept safe somewhere.

If you can't remember it, there's this low level anxiety that's like, what if I get logged out or what if I lose my access to my password manager? Like, I'm, that's a good my life in it. And then you have a breakdown. Yeah. I love this one too. I thought it was so interesting.

Coming up with one base password that you use for everything. One freeze, one word, whatever it is, and making that kind of like, there's things you shouldn't be able to find in an dictionary. It should contain special characters and numbers, a mix of uppercase and lowercase, at least 10 characters, and it can't be, you know, guessed based on who you are, you know, not a birthday or whatever. So once you come up with that, like say it's password and it's always the capital P and, you are, not a birthday or whatever. So once you come up with that, say it's password and it's always the capital P and an exclamation

but whatever it is, and you have to remember that. It could mean something meaningful to you. We all have one, right? I have one that I know. And then they talk about just tailoring it. So if you're getting on, I don't know, what do people get on? eBay would do password at the end, eBay, password,

you know, target, password, zoom, whatever it is. So whatever you're logging into, you're gonna use that same base password and just the little exchange for whatever it is that you're logging into. So you're only really having to remember the base password, because I have a different password for everything.

I swear, I think it takes up hours of my week, having to reset my password for everything. But if you can come up with one really solid password that you use for everything, and then you just tweak the end of it, whether it's whatever you're logging into, and you know that that's what you're gonna have at the end. And it really, I mean, it works. It's pretty cool, but you do still have to remember

that one, based password. So you gotta think of a good one. Yeah, no, I agree. It's password to such, I think that password managers have got it about right, but it doesn't feel like it's seamless of an experience as it should do. So there's definitely some work to be done with that. It's the same as Apple's I watch or the Apple watch or whatever.

It's all right, we're not quite there. So I'm excited for like password managers in five years' time. That's what I want to be in that world. What about getting organized at home? Like I'm pretty good at decluttering, I think, but it's something that can mount up pretty quickly. So is there a scientific method to decluttering or is there something else some sort of formalized process?

Well, I think, yes, there is. One thing that I love that a several experts mentioned is setting timers for some of this stuff. So I think we put off a lot of decluttering or cleaning or whatever because we think it's got to be some really long marathon cleaning session, right? But if we just say our junk drawer, for example, we all have that junk drawer that's just piled with like, can barely open it, right? If you say, set your timer for 15 minutes, and my junk drawer expert is Shira Gill She's out in San Francisco. She's awesome and she has these 15 minute wins

And you just jump the thing you sort it out and 90% of what's in a junk drawer is junk or doesn't belong there, right? It has another home so going back to that idea of Laura Vandercams of putting things in a home having a home for things so you can quickly sort through and get rid of the marker that doesn't work and the old band-aid, or I mean, I don't even know what's in my masks, so all sorts of weird stuff. And put it where it belongs, right?

Through the rest of the crap out, because most of it's junk, and get a couple of dividers, put things back in there. And she talks about rebranding the junk drawer as not calling it that, calling it a utility drawer and using it as a your own personal general store. So curating the things that are in there. So you might want a little screwdriver, a little hammer, some pandas, whatever it is, but rethinking it a little bit. And I love that one, and I have used that one, for sure. And then Peter Walsh is my tea cluttering guy.

He's fantastic. He's so cool. And he talks about when we're looking at our stuff, we have to not, we have to think it's about us, right? It's not about the stuff. It's about us. So we might look at something and say, like, oh, of course I have to keep X, Y, or Z because of what it's like, no, you don't.

You don't have to keep anything, really. You have to really kind of look at yourself and say, why do I want this thing? Why do I need to keep this thing? And he talks about two kinds of clutter. And one is memory clutter. That we hang on to an old trophy or an award or a pen that we got from a job and or a trinket our mom brought us back from Spain or whatever it is. And we hold onto that stuff because we feel like it connects us to that person or you know I had this little thing that my mom brought that

for me from Alaska and I couldn't keep it and it was just kind of in the way it was just a little I didn't know what it was I'm sure she got it at the airport. And I felt terrible. I love my mother. I don't want to throw it out or donate it, but it was driving me crazy. And it was always in the way. It had no place in my house. Anyway, don't tell my mother.

But I got rid of it, finally, after talking to Peter Walsh. But then this other type of clutter is, I'll use it one day, clutter, right? Like all the things we keep for some like imagined future, right? So it could be like skinny jeans that we may never fit into again, or you know, random piece of lumber that we think we're gonna like suddenly turn into like

a cool cheese board, like my dad saves scrap. Like he'll be at my house doing something and he's like, well, you can't throw that out, Aaron. I'm like, it's a half a brick. I mean, who am I? Who am I needed to, you know what I mean? They're like, it's like, no, that's clutter. Like, don't need that.

And so if your clutter causes you anxiety, if you're hanging onto it, and it's causing you anxiety, just get rid of it. And I think that's what's so interesting with him is like, it's not just about keeping your house clean and getting rid of stuff. It's really about looking inside and figuring out what you want for a space.

Is it supposed to be a really zen room? Is it supposed to be a creative space? And thinking about what you're gonna get out of it instead of what you're gonna put into the room in terms of pillows and curtains and ottoman. So that's changed my approach. And now I can like ruthlessly throw stuff out in my house. There's people out there who live this minimalist movement that's kind of quite big at the moment where I think the one of the approaches is to have

40 items, like 40 possessions, and that includes clothes, And that Elon Musk just sold all of his possessions because he thinks they're an attack vector. Like James Altichos, who's also been on this show, he literally lives out of the suitcase, sold all his houses, just rents places now, picks up a suitcase and like, unbelievable, like, you know, there's some smart people's. So I think, you know, if James Altichos

and Elon Musk can do it, then there's maybe a little bit of hope for us as well. Right, let's get into, this is like the meat for me, make chores easier. This is real adulting here. How, first off, how do you load an unload a dishwasher? And secondly, why did you have a different expert for loading it and a different expert for emptying it?

Were they specialized? Is that how specialized dishwasher technique has become? I guess so. I had consumer reports do how to load a dishwasher and they're like this organization in the US that like you know tests out products like they test it out I think I think they test something like let me say like 300 dishwashers and they send like hundreds of thousands of things through it during the year and coming up with what works and what doesn't and what do you have to rinse at, or do you not have to rinse at first?

And so I used them for how to load a dishwasher and loading a dishwasher, and a lot of us in quarantine who share homes with friends or spouses or whatever, have learned that everyone has a different way to load a dishwasher, right? And I mean, this morning our dishwasher didn't didn't run last night, a glitch, and so I woke up like dishwasher was full, but I took that my husband loaded the dishwasher

last night, but I took that opportunity this morning. I was like, well, there's like potatoes on forks and like, actually, like the smoothie glass was like caked with some of that. There's no way that was going to get clean, right? So I had to take it up and we rent it. But it's all about like loading things in a way that it's going to actually maximize getting it clean, right? So you're not supposed to put dishes touching really. You don't want that can create water marks. You want your glasses on the top,

you place on the bottom, you know, you don't want to put things kind of willy-nilly. And with your utensils, you obviously want to put the fork up. You probably know that, right? Nice down. And not putting, I always thought you should put, you could put all your forks together,

all your spoons together. But you don't want to do that because they can nest. They can wind up next to each other. Your spoons could spoon. And then they won't get clean. So you actually do want to kind of mix it up a little bit, which I think is really, it was kind of interesting. And then, you know, just kind of knowing your machine, but for emptying the dishwasher, I loved my, I love my expert names Rachel Hoffman, you should totally check her out. She has this movement called Unfuck Your Habitat, and it's basically

like for people who don't really like to clean, but we all have to do it, right? And so she has all of these great little hacks, and her, the first step for emptying the dishwasher is ask yourself what you're gonna do with the next four minutes of your life. Like, are you gonna cure cancer? Like, if you're not, you should probably just empty freaking dishwasher and get it over with, right? Because it'll hang over your head all day.

And then you wind up just using it as like a cabinet, right? You walk by and you're like, oh, not even a bowl. And like, that is so not adulting at all. Meanwhile, the sink is filling up, right? I mean, we've all done it, we all do it. And she says, again, set a timer, and you'll realize it doesn't take that long. And then with that, and I love this,

it's just take all the plates out and put them right on the counter next to the thing, take all the bowls out, get everything kind of stacked, neatly, and then take it to the cabinet. Rather than going back and forth and like, I had no system before this. And now I kind of look at it. But the other thing that I learned and I didn't know this is you're supposed to empty the bottom rack first, always pull out the bottom rack first. And it's because the top rack often has glasses

that are bowls that can flip and they have the gross dishwasher water on it, right? And so you open the top rack and all that water slashes out and gets on your clean plates. And I always used to find myself frustrated while I was opening it. I didn't even realize why, but it was because like, oh, it's already water.

But then if you have the bottom empty, pull up the top rack, you can just dump it, have a dish rag, dry it off, and put it away. So that's one that I think is kind of cool and Rachel Hoffman's awesome. But it's really just about like, just do it. You know, like do your future self with favor and get it done, right? And I don't always do it, but I try. I get it. Right. My mom's going to kill me if I don't ask this one. How do you do the washing? Well, that one again, we talked about clean mama and she's fantastic. But she wants you to just choose one loaded day, like do your darks or do your sports clothes or do your delicates. day, like do your darks or do your sports clothes or do your delegates. So that way you feel like you're conquering like one thing a day and you're getting it done, don't overstuff the wash or the dryer. So many of us do that. You should be able to put your hand in and kind of like move it around

because if we, you know, if you put too many things in the wash, it's going to, they're not going to get clean, same with the dryer. And I think one of the most important things for me and for a lot of people I know is forgetting that you put something in the wash and not moving it to the dryer. So, and then it's like, what do you do if they're rewashed? It's gonna be gross. So setting a timer if you have to,

so that you know to go back and get your washing and put it into the dryer is kind of important. And I love, like, talks about using baking soda as a hack, if you have like really kind of like stinky stuff or odor, like things that are not coming clean, and just using that in the wash before, using some of that right in the drum, washing it and then washing it again with your detergent

and not using fabric softener or dryer sheets or any of that kind of stuff because it really breaks down the clothing. But yeah, so I mean, it's like, again, it's taking a little bit of time shaking the stuff out, putting it in there. When you're doing sheets and towels, you shouldn't put your sheets and towels together because they're completely

different materials, right? And you should always, like often in the dryer, you wouldn't know this for us, but your mom knows, like the sheets get, like, wound up in the dryer, right? And you take them out of the dryer and they are twisted and weird and then they're not quite dry. So she says you just pop open the thing halfway through and kind of like do that with your hands and then when then it's done, you come out and you have dry clothes rather than things that are wound up into balls. So that is kind of good, but it's really, I mean, doing the laundry for most people what trips them up is putting it away, you know, it's really, I mean, doing the laundry for most people what trips them up is putting it away. It's actually, again, closing that loop.

You have the clean basket of laundry and now just quickly fold it and put it away. And that's about, put on music, put on a podcast, put on Netflix, make it more pleasurable, make it something you want to do. I have a lot of friends who only allow themselves to watch below deck on Brava or whatever it is, like some silly show if they're doing laundry. So then it becomes

something you can look forward to. If I had to watch below deck whilst I was doing laundry, the laundry would be done in three minutes flat because I absolutely hate that TV show. If you're doing your laundry while you're listening to this as well, drop me a DM because that will be really funny. Some of your photos of your laundry and I'll be able to pass it on to Aaron and say, look, we help some people through the laundry. How do you tidy a room in 10 minutes or less?

Because that sounds like the sort of thing that I want in my life. Okay, tidying a room in 10 minutes or less, you first you want to set a timer so that again, it's something you feel like anyone can use 10 minutes, right? Anyone can spare 10 minutes to do it. And you want to look for the things that will smell first. So like dirty dishes, garbage, laundry, and take those to the places where they belong. And you want to look at flat surfaces and clean flat surfaces first. So like your desk or your dresser or a countertop. And it's just because visually we are eyes go there

and if we see a lot of like crap on a counter, it just kind of stresses us out, right? And then you feel like, oh, that's a mess. I may as well just throw more. Like mess begets mess. And so cleaning one surface. And then, and this is Rachel Hoffman again from OnFuckYourHabitat. And she says, then leave the room and then come back in and look at it. And the first thing that catches your eye in a bad way, just deal with it. Just

go do it, you know? Like, I'm out of the corner of my eye. I see I have a palatone bike and I have two pillow shams that have been drying on it for longer than I care to admit, which means I haven't been on the palatone in a few days. But it's been bothered, it bothers me, you know, subconsciously at some, at a certain point, but still it's like I have two pillows on my bed that I could easily put them on. So when we hang up, I'm going to go do that. You can be in honor of tidying my room because it is. It just starts to like frustrate you. And then you can always do at another 10 minutes. If you've done really well, you can just be like, okay, that was easy.

I'm going to do 10 more minutes because you can realize that like these things don't have to be. I think that's why a lot of people avoid laundry or avoid cleaning because you think, oh, it's gonna take me all day. Like, I need to get in the right head space and I need to like put on my cute outfit and like my work stuff or whatever.

Like, that's how I used to be. Instead of just doing it, I would like put it on my to-do list and be like, okay, I'm gonna make a cup of coffee and then I'm gonna do it. It's like, no, just bang it out, get it done. One of the main reasons that people procrastinate is that they have a lack of information,

I.e., they don't know how to do something, or that what they're doing requires more information than they've got, so they need to ask someone how to hang up a picture or fold the laundry or do it, whatever. But hopefully, if people have managed to glean some of the skills that we've given them today, that they'll, they're getting over that inertia to go do the task, it's not daunting. When you, when you know the answer to the question, answering the question becomes

quite easy. So hopefully we'll have helped people to get past some of that inertia today. How about prepping for cooking dinner? Like cooking dinner is always going to be a little bit different based on what you eat. But preparing for cooking dinner seems pretty ubiquitous. How do you do that? It does. And this is Rachel Ray, who's a big big chef here in the US. And I'm sure you guys have heard of her as well. She's a big deal.

She has a show and she's does these like 30-minute meals. So she's like the perfect person for prepped for cooking dinner and she talks about always mentally running through what you're gonna make no matter what it is. So Walking yourself through the recipe from beginning to end because so often we'll get to the end of the recipe and realize Oh, we don't have, you know, cream or whatever it is, right? So, and that's where a lot of that

angst and frustration can come from. So get yourself through that relax, pour a cup of, pour a gauze to wine, pour a cup of tea, put on a TV show you really like, make it so it's a pleasurable experience, like prepping for dinner shouldn't be like just turning stuff out not really thinking about it. It should be something that you enjoy so that you want to do it again, right? And then getting everything out, getting everything out that you're gonna need. So that way you're not like dredging chicken, you have raw chicken on your hands and then you have to go into the refrigerator, right? We've all been there and then you have like a gross hand print on your refrigerator door and you're like, yeah,

finding all the pots and pans, setting it up. This doesn't take long either. And she had, she uses something called a garbage bowl, which I love, and just putting a big bowl out where you're prepping. And rather than having to go back and forth to the garbage can, you just use that for your scraps. Like, whatever vegetables you're chopping, put it, like put the, all the garbage in your garbage bowl and you can empty that for your scraps. Whatever vegetables you're chopping, put all the garbage in your garbage bowl and you can empty that as you go, but then you're not walking back and forth. She really talks about what you want to be. You don't want to move around a lot when you're prepping for dinner.

You really should just be in one spot. It's getting a big cutting board, getting your garbage bowl, having all your pots and pans out, having all your vegetables ready to chop or whatever you're making in the order that you're going to do it, whatever's going to take the longest you start there. And just like trying to enjoy the process a little bit and that's what a lot of this is about. It's not like that we want to rush through all of these mundane tasks so that we have more time to, you know, watch TV. It's learning how to do these things properly and taking our time with them because this is life, right? Our days are made up with sending emails and prepping for dinner

and tidying our rooms and doing a load of laundry. And if we can do those things with a little bit more confidence and skill, then we can kind of feel good and have these little winds throughout our day. And at the very least, you're not going to be good and have these little wins throughout our day. And at the very least, you're not going to be frustrated and start cursing while you're emptying a dishwasher, because you just dumped dirty water all over it. You know what I mean? So it's this idea of just setting yourself up, taking a beat to like set yourself up to do the thing properly. I really like that. I like the fact that you identified that life really is made up of these little things. It might look on Instagram like there are some people out there who are just

constantly in Santorini like having cocktails, but even they need to change the kids nappy and they need to go to the bathroom and I've got to dry my hair and you know there is a laundry list of shit that everyone needs to do each day and if you can work out the right way to do it the most optimal way to do it I think your dad's quote was something like do it right first time and you can't do it right first time if you don't know how to do it but if you do know how to do it the task actually becomes super easy you don't need any more information You don't need any more information. You don't need any more utensils, because you've done it a million times before in precisely

the same way. And you know where the utensils are because they've got their home and that's where they live and so on and so forth. But I'm looking down here at some of the stuff. Like thankfully, because still I'm like a man child, these aren't things that I need to do. Like plan a cocktail party, how do I set an impressive table, arrange flowers in a vase, ice a lake, arrange a cheese board, my business partner would love that. Um, uncork a bottle of wine and

taste a bottle of wine. Like this, it really is quite a, quite a guide to adulting. I'm going to try and pick one, one more of the end. Oh, in fact, is there anything toward the end, like, to finishing the day or upping your interpersonal game or your personal game? Are there any of those that really stood out to you that you've taken yourself, that you absolutely loved? Is there anything that you wanna finish on? I do love this idea of reviewing your day every day.

And it's like at night, you kind of go back and look through your day and see what did I do right, what did I do, you know, what could I have done better, I wish I hadn't, you know, sent that text or I wish I hadn't, you know, I wish I'd gotten to the gym, whatever it is. But this idea, this comes from patty moracy and she's just a really cool person who talks about being kinder to ourselves. That's really something we all can do, right? And especially during quarantine, just taking a minute and looking back at your day in a way that you have patients with yourself gratitude. We're not looking back to be like, oh, I screwed up.

I didn't do this properly. I didn't do that properly. But just saying, okay, like tomorrow, I want to try to do, you know, I want to try to get up out of bed this morning. Maybe I didn't tomorrow morning. I want to try to get up out of bed looking back on the way you did things and saying, okay, tomorrow's a new day. And I'm going to try a little harder to do this or that, but I try to do that a lot

because obviously, like I'm trying to implement all of these life skills and there are some days that I really crush it and other days when I really don't. And I think that's, hopefully that's why I wrote this book and why people will like this book because I'm not this perfect person who's sitting here saying like, well, this is how you do this. And this is how you do that.

I'm basically saying, look, I am figuring it all out too. But now we have all of these resources telling us exactly how to do these things in a really easy way that we can all do. Like this is none of this is, none of this is rocket science, right? It really is. I mean, even making the cheese board. That a game changer you should definitely try that it is incredible Marissa Mullen is my cheese board expert at that she's that cheese plate and she's phenomenal I mean my friends literally are it's a running joke

because I will make a cheese board for everything like if someone pops over for like five minutes I'm like oh I'm gonna make a G's board. Three-year-olds birthday, cheese board for the three-year-old. 100%. Yeah, yeah, it's so fun. But yeah, but looking back and just being kinder to ourselves and, you know, trying a little bit harder,

but because, you know, again, because it's our life and it's like, if you can have peace and calm and a sense of efficiency and like my dad says, like do it right the first time because then you're done. You know, like then you don't have to deal with going to find key and on the same way, I lose my keys all the time.

And then it's like, you know, oh, now I have to go deal with that. And we're adding things to where to do less when we don't actually do them properly the first time. Absolutely. If in a world where we've got too much stuff to do, adding moron is a sure-fire way to make life miserable. So yeah, I'm all I'm all for it. So the link to the little book of life skills will be in the show notes below. Of course, go and pick it up on Amazon. Anywhere else that you want

people to go? Are there any other stuff you want to plug online? Oh, yeah, they can follow me on Instagram. I'm doing all sorts of fun posts and trials of my attempted adulting. And I'm at Aaron Z. Ruddy on Instagram. And you can hashtag the little book of Blav skills if you want to try something yourself. And we'll see how we can all start adulting

a little bit better, because we can still learn even at 42 you know there's there's always new things to learn which I love. Awesome thank you so much for your time Aaron. Thank you so much Chris this was so fun. you