The Lazy Genius Podcast - #17: The Lazy Genius Cleans the House

Episode Date: April 10, 2017

1. Read this week's Lazy Genius post! One of my favorite things I've ever written: Who's Your Cleaning Spirit Animal? 2. Check out the stuff mentioned! A Loving Home Doesn't Have to Be a Clean One The Simple Path to Beating Frustration How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind by Dana K. White The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo FlyLady's website 3. The Ten Principles of Keeping a Home freebie is undergoing a brand refresh, but it’ll be back soon. How about a download of the Lazy Genius principles instead? Grab it here. This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Defender. With the towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms and a waiting depth of 900 millimeters, the Defender 110 pushes what's possible. Learn more at landrover.ca. Amazon presents Laura versus fruit flies. Swarming your fruit and terrorizing your kitchen. These little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say, yo. Chill.

But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies. Your baby boom ends here. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Hey guys, I'm Kendra. Welcome to the lazy genius podcast. Here I'm going to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today's episode, The Lazy Genius cleans the house. Okay, so usually I have a pitch. trying to, you know, kind of set you up for what's coming, convince you of something.

Today I'm doing that for myself because the pitch is, I don't have one because I'm trying to convince myself to clean the house. So we'll have a little therapy session together. In the playbook today, it's pretty simple. We're going to talk about why cleaning is the worst and then the 10 principles of keeping a home. All right. So why is cleaning the house so stupid lame? Some of you really actually like to clean your house and I wish I could be you but I have a pretty negative relationship with it and I know that a lot of you do too I think for the most part it comes down to I would rather spend my time doing other things but we could say that about just about anything everybody this is one of the hardest places for me to be a responsible mature human being

is to say, okay, I can spend 20 minutes sweeping my floor or whatever the task might be, but it just feels like such a chore, such a drudgery, that getting the motivation and the momentum going to do it feels gross. And perhaps one of the bigger components of that problem is what happens when we fail, right? What happens if we have the cleaning schedule and we don't follow through with it regularly. What happens if we start to create a rhythm of keeping our house clean and tidy and welcoming to the people who come in its doors? But then we have a spell where we don't do that. And we feel like we're failing those people who are coming through our doors. There is a lot of value and self-worth attached, I think, for some of us, to having a clean house. And so rather than

having that clean house and then failing, we just say, you know what? I'm just not. I'm just not. one of those people. I just don't keep my house clean. I've said that so many times. I have said when people are coming over, they're like, oh, don't clean up for me. Like, I'm not going to clean up for you. But deep down, I really want to. It's not because of cleanliness necessarily, but I know how I feel when I come into my house and it's picked up and the floors are a little bit shiny. Maybe some candles were lit and it smells really good. It fills me up. It makes me so happy. why would it not do the same for people who enter my house? And so I want those people to feel that way really deep down. But above that are these really gnarly layers of, well, if I do it once, I have to do it

forever. So here is what we're going to do today. I'm not going to share with you tips on how to clean your house better. That, the internet was made for that kind of stuff. What I am going to do is share with you my own personal 10 principles of keeping. a home. Not cleaning it. Not cleaning her house, but keeping a home. I feel like there's a difference. So much of life, so much of the difficulty that we experience in life is all about our mindset. Honestly, if you think about things differently, it changes. If you expect, for example, I wrote a post about this a while ago. I had been struggling with a non-sleeping child. I've had a few of those. And every night I would go to bed hoping that tonight was the night

that he would sleep through the night. And every night. it was not. And I just kept getting more discouraged and more discouraged and more discouraged. And finally, I was talking to one of my sisters about it and she said, you know, I think maybe what you should do is expect him to wake up. Just go to bed, expecting him to wake up when he usually does. Don't have the hope and just expect it and see how that changes things for you. And it drastically changed things for me because I didn't resent him for waking up. I expected it to happen. And so it was more okay. Nothing changed in terms of the tangible circumstances. My kid was still waking up the same amount of time.

I was still getting out of bed to go take care of him. All that changed was my mindset. I've seen that happen in my life multiple times. How we think about things, 100% affects how we interact with those things and do with those things. So today we're going to talk about a mind shift in keeping our home. and there's a difference in cleaning your house and keeping your home. And I'm really trying to embrace that shift because I want to keep a home. I want my home to be well kept for the people who live in it and the people who visit it.

Cleaning your house just feels like a job and it's gross and I just smell ammonia in my brain, you know? So we're going to do a mindset shift and we're going to talk about the 10 principles of keeping a home. If you want these principles when we're finished, if you want these, like, print it out just to kind of tack in your planner or on your kitchen cabinet or something, just to kind of be a reminder for you. You can go to the lazy genius collective.com slash 017.17. That's the number of this episode. And you can download that file to just print out and put somewhere. Because these are really good principles for me to remember, and I hope they are for you to. All right. So let's jump into them. Number one of the 10 principles of keeping a home. Number one, you decide what clean means. Okay, comparison is the worst. We've talked about that before. I've written about that before. We have wallowed in that grief on Instagram before.

Comparison is the worst. And if you compare the way you keep your house, the way you clean your house and what your definition of clean is to anyone else's, whether in real life or imagine, magazines, whatever it is, you're going to be unhappy with your own choices each time. So if we can hold on to, we get to decide what clean means. We get to decide what that means for our home and for the people who live in it. So an example here is my kids play in their rooms a lot. My boys build tracks and they have hot wheels and trains like I'm drowning in hot wheels and trains, but they're obsessed with them. They love them. They play with them every single day. And so I have sort of, my husband and I have decided, all right, sometimes the rooms get out of hand. I mean, sometimes if you can't walk to your bed, then there's a problem. And sometimes

they need to clean their room in order to remember what they have. Those are two really valuable things. However, every day we do not make them clean their room because they play until they go to bed and then they wake up and they kind of keep playing. And so that is an area that I have decided the way their rooms are right now. They don't need to look as clean or look clean at all compared to what another kid's room might look like if I visit their house or see it on television or read an article in real simple about seven tricks to clean your kids room. That is not relevant for me. And the sooner that I make that choice, which honestly I have, that's actually one that I have sort of, I've already resolved in my head. My kids are not going to

have clean rooms all the time. And I'm okay with that because I've made that choice. I have decided what clean means for my family and my boys in their room. And so I don't. I don't. I don't. have any trouble when that whisper of comparison starts to come in like you should you should make your boys clean their rooms more they should learn responsibility we try to teach responsibility in other ways that's i mean that's really what it comes down to so it's not even an issue for me now there are many other areas of my home where i haven't yet decided what clean means for me and that's why i'm like running like a little hamster in its stupid wheel trying to be a genius about something that honestly does not matter there are areas

of my home where the level of cleanliness does not matter. There are others that it matters more. So as soon as we choose those things, as soon as we decide what clean means for us and our own home, then half of the work is done, right? Our mindset already begins to shift. We're not comparing with other people. We're making the choice for ourselves. And then we can make actual tangible choices on when we clean those things, what we use to do at the tools and the tricks on all those things, the smell, you know, really good smelly cleaners. We can choose those things based on what is important to us. But until we decide what clean means for us, we will continue to compare. So the first principle, you decide what clean means. The second principle,

housekeeping is regularly filling your home with good things that have run out. Think about it like this. What are the good things? Like when your house, is at its peak of being kept, right, of not even just clean. But when do you feel the most at home and comfortable and happy in your house? Honestly, for me, it is not when it is dirty. And when there's stuff everywhere, when I can see a million dust bunnies everywhere. And I'm like, oh, maybe that's why my kid keeps sneezing or whatever it is. Get the swim for everybody. I don't feel that, that sense of calm in my home when it's crazy. If you think about what makes you feel comfortable in your own home, what are the good things

in your home? For me, it's like when I get into my bed at night and if my sheets are clean, I make noises of happiness. Like, I am so happy and I don't even realize how much I love it until I'm doing it. I don't light candles regularly. And that is something that I wish I did more of because when they're lit and the house smells beautiful, are you kidding? Even when you blow out the candle, you know, that smell of a blown out candle?

they should make a candle called blown out candle because that smells almost better than the actual candle. But there are things in my life, in my home, that are such good things. And if we think about keeping house as regularly filling those good things, like having clean clothes, having clean sheets on the bed, having a couch that might not be covered in crumbs anymore that you can sit in with the pillows kind of fluffy and you're not looking at a bunch of junk everywhere. You know, these are, obviously these are luxuries that we get to experience because of where we live and how we live. I've had several friends who have gone with Compassion International to different countries to visit the kids that Compassion works with and feeds and educates and takes care of. And I remember

multiple stories of how these people are living in poverty. I mean, they have nothing. They're living in dirt. They're living in dirt huts. And yet these women, they're sweeping their floor. They're taking such good care of the things that are there. They are keeping their home. I want to feel that way about my home. I want to feel that way when people walk in, not as look what I have.

Look how well I'm doing. Look how comfortable this house is. I want someone to walk in and feel comfort, not necessarily being able to pinpoint like, wow, your books are alphabetized. Or, oh, I can tell you cleaned your baseboards recently. Like this is not about a checklist life. This is about communicating feelings of warmth and welcome.

And even people who have nothing do that far better than we often do. And so the second principle of housekeeping being regularly filling your home with the good things. Think about what that feels like for you, what that means for you and the people who live in your home, whether it is the smell of a clean bathroom, whether it's when you step into a clean shower that's shiny and how full. It is to take a shower and a shiny shower. Like, it's such a weird thing. But it's really oddly life-giving, right? And so maybe something that we can do, like a step that you can take even right now, is to think of just two or three things that are good things in your home that you love about your home,

that you love when they happen in your home. And put into practice regularly replenishing those good things. Okay, so number three. caring for your home isn't old fashioned. This is definitely something that I feel, especially on my like hardcore feminist days, which I have, where I'm like, man, just get a house cleaner, which is totally a wonderful, wonderful thing. We hire a house cleaner once every six months or something just because I'm like, I can't,

I don't want to do the deep stuff. Let's just hire someone else to do it. On Instagram, I posted a picture a few days ago asking you, like, how, what are your, how do you survive cleaning your house and a lot of you are like I hire somebody without question it's the best money I spend and high five on that you can still keep a home you can still follow these principles and hire a house cleaner because how many times friends of mine who do have regular a regular house cleaner come they're like I need to go clean you know pick up the house because the house cleaner's coming like it's not that you get to put your feet up all the time it's just those actual the

cleaning part the house cleaning part you can hire out but the home keeping part You cannot. So caring for your home isn't old fashioned. It's not about this idea that, well, the woman stays home in her apron and her rag and she's just going to tend to everybody's needs at the expense of her own. There's actually a lot of love in that and creating a place where people feel safe and clean and care for. But it's not an old fashioned concept.

We can be really strong, feminist and believe in a quality. and work outside the home and be creative and do the side hustles and all the things that you might feel like you're doing and still keep a home. It's not an old fashioned concept. It's a human concept. And I get in trouble with that sometimes. And so the third principle is caring for your home isn't old fashioned. Number four, hating housework, hand raised on this one. Hating housework doesn't mean you don't have time to do it. Okay. So I do this all the time. I'm like, oh, I hate. mopping the floors. And I do. I hate it. I hate it. But that doesn't mean I don't have time to do it. But in my brain, a lot of times I equate those two things. If I hate something, well, I'm just not going to do it.

Or I don't have time to do that. Now, the truth is, we do make time for the things that we care about. We've heard that so many times in so many contexts. If you care about it, you make time for it. I don't care about mopping my floor. As a singular task, I don't care about it. Now, as a task of walking around barefoot in my kitchen and not having my feet stick to the floor, I do kind of care about that a little bit because that happens sometimes. If I find myself in my kitchen barefoot and thinking, I'm going to put some shoes on. I'm not enjoying walking around. It's like, oh, maybe I should mop.

Maybe it's time to mop or at least sweep. You know, like, it's not about the singular task necessarily. You can hate the singular task, but that doesn't mean that you don't make time to do it. and if you want to spin this as a, you know, you make time for the things that you care about, maybe you care about walking on your floor without feeling gross. But if I start to think about my family walking around in my house barefoot and having to keep rubbing the bottoms of their feet on their pants, you know, because they're getting so many crumbs or whatever it is stuck to their pants, it's like, oh, yeah, I don't want us to do that.

That matters to me. That is something that is a value to me. And I'll make time to prevent that from happening for my family to feel. comfortable walking around in the house without their shoes on, it's okay for me to still hate the mopping. The distinction matters. And I'm trying to remember that too. All right. So that's number four. Number five. Okay, stuff is the enemy of clean. I'm not saying get rid of all your stuff, but I am saying back to what I said just a second ago about getting a housekeeper or someone to come clean your house, when someone says, I need to go clean the house because the house cleaner is coming. What they mean is I need to put

all the stuff away. When my house is crazy, if I think, oh, I need to mop the floor, but then I look at the floor and the floor is covered in several pairs of shoes, the kids book bags that have been left there, you know, all the toys, the laundry, like all the things that cover all those surfaces. Cleaning feels so daunting because I have to take care of the stuff first. I have a stuff problem before I have a clean problem. And I don't have time to do it both, right? So the principle, stuff is the enemy of cleaning is true. Now how you execute that principle, how you create change in your home based on that principle is really up to you. It could be that you have less stuff. It could be that you do kind of become a bit of a minimalist. There was actually someone on that Instagram post I mentioned

who said, I decided to get rid of my stuff. I hate cleaning. And, well, maybe she didn't say, hey, maybe I'm projecting that. But she did say, I don't like to clean. And I realize that I clean better if I have less stuff in the house. And I think that makes so much sense. Now, you don't have to get rid of all your stuff, that maybe you have more of a process of putting it away or having a space for it. The thing, I'm sure, I'm sure a lot of you have read the, oh, what is it, the magic of, the magic something of tidying up, but the Conmari, the Marie condo thing, the Conno method. If you don't know what I'm talking about, props to you for not falling into, That really huge pop culture pit because everybody was con marring everything.

You remember when Emily Gilmore con marred her house? Oh, that was so brilliant. Oh, my gosh. Now, I own that book. There were a lot of things that I absolutely love about that book. Yes, I went through my closet and I held every single item to see if it brought me joy. I did do that. Not everything.

It doesn't work for everything for me, but that's okay. But the point is she actually has a really great perspective on stuff. clutter that there are two reasons why you look at stuff and you get overwhelmed and you don't do anything with it. Number one is it's just there's too much of it. It's just too overwhelming to put it away. And then the second is there's no clear place for it to go. So it could be that it has accumulated and it's about mass. It's about volume. It's about looking at this pile and thinking, saying, I don't have time to put all of that away. And then the other side is, I don't know where that goes.

I don't have a clear place for where that goes. So maybe rather than getting rid of stuff, maybe you just think more intentionally about where it goes. There is a book called How to Clean Your House Without Losing Your Mind by Dana K. White. She is the creator of the blog, A Slob Comes Clean. It's a great book. Really enjoyed it. There are a lot of really good tips in there for cleaning your own. house. But one of the things that she says about putting things away, especially when you're decluttering,

is to ask yourself the question, if I went to look for this, where would I look? I mean, it blew my mind when I read that, because what you end up doing, what I end up doing is thinking about where should this go. Where's the best place for this to go? And sometimes the best place is not the place I would look for at first. And then I get frustrated and I don't know where anything is and, you know, then it becomes a stuff problem again. So if you're thinking, you're thinking, you know, it's not the place. thinking about maybe not decluttering, maybe not getting rid of a bunch of things, but you're thinking about putting those things in a better locations. Rather than thinking about where's the best place for this, ask yourself, where would I go look for this and put it there?

Just put it there and see what happens. It's pretty magical to me. But stuff is the enemy of claim. So if we can have perhaps a better outlook and some unique systems for us based on how we live. Think about how you live and how you interact with the stuff in your home. If you can have a place for that stuff to go, if you don't get overwhelmed by stuff, cleaning is not going to be quite as hard because you can move into it quickly without having to deal with your stuff problem before. It's something else here now. Something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now.

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Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Okay, so number five, stuff is the enemy of clean. Number six, there are ten of these. Did I tell you that? There are ten of these. Number six, cleaning doesn't have to be reactionary. At first I said cleaning shouldn't be reactionary, but sometimes it is.

Sometimes we have someone coming over. So many people on Insta. It was the best. I said, what's your favorite tip for cleaning? So many of you were like, invite somebody over. And then I'll clean the house. Love that. Love that so much.

But cleaning doesn't have to be reactionary. It can be, but it doesn't have to be all the time. If we can see our home as full of daily tasks and rituals, and we'll get to that, then it's not about reacting to. a mess that has become so bad that you can do nothing but take care of it. And then it becomes like this big epic situation, right? If we see cleaning as only reactionary, then we're not really keeping our home. We're kind of surviving in it until we can't take it anymore. And granted, your life may be that that's how it is right now, you know? But that mindset shift

of thinking like, okay, how can I keep my home without reacting to things that are being depleted or in such a terrible state that I have to take care of it now? Even if it's just one area, where's one area in your home that you can handle preemptively, that you can handle daily so that when that moment of reactionary cleaning has to happen for whatever reason, whether a kid gets sick and throws up everywhere. or someone is coming over or your husband calls and is like, I'm bringing the boss home for dinner and you freak out or whatever, you can actually move into reactionary cleaning because you have been handling it preemptively. So it's not as big of a deal. So thinking about cleaning as non-reactionary,

at least most of the time, could be a really nice principle to carry in your home. Number seven, daily, tasks matter. Now this is one that we know that we've heard have your routine, you know, do things every day, clean your kitchen every day, do a load of laundry every day, like whatever it is. I don't do a load of laundry every day. I have one laundry day, Monday. It's the best. Well, not the best, because I don't enjoy laundry, but I don't forget it. I don't leave clothes in the washer to rot. I don't have to fold laundry and put it away every day. That's my least favorite part.

And to think about doing that every single day makes me want to die. So I have a laundry day and that works for me and I don't do anything else that day, in terms of the house at least. But my point is the daily tasks and you have them. You do have them. We all have them. But perhaps being more intentional about them will help. I look at like for example, right now I'm sitting in my living room recording this. And underneath my TV console thing is a lot of dust because the vacuum doesn't get under there.

right and I sweep I use a broom most of the time on our hardwoods but I don't put the broom under there because I just sweep what's visible but if I don't take care of underneath there then that dust accumulates and it gets kind of gross and then I notice it like oh man I need to swiffer under there but I don't have swiffering built into my routine I have sweeping built into my routine I sweep at the end of the day after I've cleaned the kitchen that's another thing that's in my routine but I don't have swiffering built into it. So if there are things that you notice that it's like, man, if I had a routine for that, sure would help, create one or add it to something that already exists or perhaps

remove something from a morning or evening routine that might not be as important or delegate it to someone else or whatever the case may be. But if there are things in your home and keeping your home that you're not doing, it could very much be that they're just not part of a daily routine or that you just don't have a method to handle them. And so it's not just about like, man, I need to, I need to swiffer under that thing. Then I have to think, when am I going to swiffer? Do I have any swiffer pads? I actually don't know. And then it becomes like a million decisions you have to make. So if you can have a routine, if you can have a loose plan of things that happen every day, I'm not saying you need to

swiffer every day. This is just what needs to happen in your own home for your own soul to keep your own home warm and welcoming. If you can think about those things and plan them, I've read in many iterations of this phrase, but a plan is basically a decision you've already made. And that's really what it is. And isn't that so nice when a decision is made? You don't have to turn your brain on. You just do it.

And so having some decisions made about how you're going to handle certain areas of your home, it really helps a lot. So number seven, we know this to be true, but it is such a principle of keeping your home that daily tasks matter. Just create the ones that matter the most to you. Number eight, you must have an end. Oh my gosh. This one is so huge because if we see, I hate cleaning because I'm like, when is it ever going to stop? Like you start wiping something down and then you notice dirt somewhere else. And then you're like, well, I might as well move into this room. And then it just becomes this cyclone of craziness. And then you love having the feeling perhaps of a post-cyclone clean house. But then those feelings of guilt might creep in again of like, oh, we'll have to do this all the time. That took all day. no thank you okay if we go into any sort of cleaning task not assigning what the end is we are in

major trouble so the end could be as simple as setting a timer so many of you do that when you're like 15 minutes once that 15 minutes is up I'm done it could be having a category of of an activity like the floors but you just do perhaps whatever you can do on the floors that day. So it might just be sweeping. Maybe one day you have more time and you do sweeping and mopping. But ultimately, it's not like, well, I sweep and then I see dust on that dresser that I just swept under. Nope. That's not part of your task today because it will never be over otherwise. So create limits for yourself, whatever those look like so that you can have an end. Otherwise, you'll go insane. So number eight, you must have an end. Number nine, start with the kitchen. I think this one is so

important. If you have a clean kitchen, the rest of your house feels so much cleaner. It's just the way it goes. So Dana White, the slop comes clean that I mentioned, her thing is, the first thing is to do the dishes. Just always do the dishes. If you have time, do the dishes. I know fly lady, her thing is a clean sink, right? You have a shiny sink at the end of the day. That means that you've washed the dishes. That means that a lot of things have been put away in the kitchen. Really, the kitchen is where it starts. So if you are feeling overwhelmed in every other room, but perhaps you don't spend as much time in the kitchen or you're dividing your attention amongst all these rooms and it never feels like anything's done, maybe just start with the kitchen and see what happens. Create rhythm and routine

and keeping of your kitchen with this mindset shift of these principles and see what happens. So number nine, very simple. Start with the kitchen. And then finally, this is my favorite principle of keeping a home. remember why it's good to be home we hear that sentence we say that sentence it's good to be home why why is it good to be home i used to go on my husband and i used to go on these trips with our church high school group we used to volunteer with high school kids and we would take a summer trip like a mission trip every summer for a week or two and i remember one of the first times that we were married and we went on the trip and i didn't really pick up the house or do anything we kind of left in that whirlwind of packing and you just put the breakfast dishes in the sink and it's fine and

the suitcase that we didn't end up taking was on the floor and when we got home it it was good to be home but it wasn't like super good to be home because the house felt crazy and ever since then I thought okay when I leave my home for a long time I'm going to make sure that when I walk in it does feel good to be home now that could be true not just coming home from a long trip it can be true coming home from just a day of work or running errands or whatever what what is it about coming home that makes it good to be home and I think a lot of that is having the home feel warm that you can look at your home you can look at the things that you have filled it with that are make something make a difference to you that means something to you the decorations the pictures on the wall

the flowers in the vase the candle that was burning right before you left and now your home smells like burnt out candle hooray, whatever that is, think about why it's good to be home. And then you can move into tasks and perhaps routines and you can start to look for those specific tips and tricks and whatever to get those things done in order to make your home feel like home where it's good to be home. This is not about performing. This is not about perfection. This is not about comparing our homes with other people. It's just about keeping our homes. caring for our home and the people that are in it.

And this mindset shift is something that can, man, I'm having trouble saying mindset shift. This is something that can really help us move into the tasks of cleaning that we potentially really hate and make it much easier to do because our purpose is different. Our purpose is not just, oh, I need to mop the floor. Oh, I need to clean the bathroom. Oh, that toilet is so gross. Oh, the laundry. It's not about that.

It's about, I want my kids. to walk around on the floor and not feel gross or say, oh, like the thing that happened this morning where my kids stepped, I actually stepped an egg that I dropped on the floor and didn't pick up. That was cool. And then my son stepped in like, it was orange juice that had spilled that none of us cleaned up. And it was sticky on his foot. And then we had to like go get the wet paper towel and clean off his foot and then clean off the floor. No, no, no.

If I had just picked up the dang juice when it spilled or rather than getting angry at him for doing it being like, no problem. buddy go get a paper towel and clean it up you know like if i just moved into it not out of annoyance of oh this house it's never ever going to be clean and just been like this is our home and things happen in our home and we are a team in our home and we're all going to work together to make it a home that's good to come home to that's so different it's so different so different so i hope that these principles encourage you they do me if i think about them if i actually take the time to think about them they do make a difference. So I'm going to print this out and put it in my house too. So if you want these 10 principles printed out for your home, you can go to the lazy genius

collective.com slash 017-017 and get yours too. So that is how the lazy genius cleans the house. And the payoff for this really is just a regularly cared for home that feeds the souls of the people who live there. Whether it's you, whether it's 10 of you, it doesn't matter. when we care for our home, it is a warm and welcoming place, and there is no shame in that. There's no guilt in doing it a certain way. It's not an old-fashioned concept. There is a lot of life in that. And I want to peel away those gnarly layers that are keeping me from seeing it as a positive thing and seeing it as just a chore and something that's annoying that I wish that I didn't have to do.

I don't want to feel that way about my home. I'm so blessed where I live. I have been given so much. And I know so many of us have. If you're listening to a podcast, you have a lot. You have a lot. And I want to remember that. And I want to be grateful and care for what I have.

So I hope that this episode has encouraged you. It's a bit longer than usual. But just for 10 things, there's a lot to talk about. So, all right. So that is the end of this episode. You can go to the show notes. I'll list a couple of the posts that I mentioned. And links to Dana's website and Fly Lady.

if you want some actual tips at the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy slash clean house. That's where the show notes are today. All right. So before we go, I want to share the lazy genius tip of the week, as we usually do. This is one of the tips from that Instagram post I mentioned. If you want to go to my Instagram, it's at the lazy genius. And the picture is of my baby girls. She's face down looking a little bit exasperated.

That is the post with all these cleaning tips. you can go read them all and there's some really, really great ones. But one of my favorite ones that I just hadn't really thought about was from Stephanie B. And she says, I save my favorite podcast. Now this is something you guys say a lot. This first half is a great idea and not super unusual. The second half is. She says, I save my favorite podcast, plug in my earbuds and speed through the house.

Of course. That's such a good tip. And I always forget like cleaning playlist, like make a cleaning playlist and save things that are really fun for you. you and then maybe it'll be more motivating. But the second part I love, she says, oh, and I love how it's like, oh, afterthought. And I light candles so it starts to smell clean immediately. That's motivating to me. When I read that, I was like, oh, that's so good. That might be diffusing oil if you're an essential oil user or yeah, just lighting a candle. But before you start, it's almost like setting your intention, right? It's, there's a liturgy to that of when I clean my house

every time I'm going to light a candle. There's something really beautiful and regular and even spiritual about that. And it makes your house smell good. Plus, you still get the bonus, blow the candle out smell. Which, again, if somebody finds a candle that is that smell, tell me about it so I can buy one. All right, that does it for this episode. Thanks for listening. Thanks for sticking with me this long.

I am so, so grateful that you listen. You can find out more about me, mostly on Instagram. That's where I hang out at The Lazy Genius. the blog as the lazy genius collective.com. And the show notes for this episode, the lazygeenosecollective.com slash lazy slash clean house. Remember, guys, let's be a genius

about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'll see you next time. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life?

Because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A-plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.