The Lazy Genius Podcast - #298 - How to Keep Up with Household Habits

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

It’s easy to feel behind in our homes, like everything is at best a sneeze from falling apart. So today, we’re going to talk about how to choose the household habits that matter to you and how you might keep up with actually doing them.   Helpful Companion Links Recent episodes on habits: #297 - 5 Steps for More Ease at Work and #296 - How to Lazy Genius Your Habits Seasonal Home Maintenance Checklist from Better Homes & Gardens Episode #263 - How to Still Have a Weekend Episode #238 - How to Get Stuff Done When You Don’t Feel Like It Sign up for the Latest Lazy Listens email. Grab a copy of my book The Lazy Genius Kitchen or The Lazy Genius Way! Download a transcript of this episode.   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

Hi there. You are listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 298. How to Keep Up with Household Habits. This is a constant nag, isn't it? No matter who you are or where you live, there are household tasks that you want to keep up with consistently. And rarely do you feel like you do that well. It's just easy to feel behind in our homes. Like everything is at best. a sneeze away from falling apart. So today we're going to talk about how to choose the household habits that matter to you and how you might keep up with actually doing them. After this episode is over, I really think you're going to feel revived when it comes to your own home and how you see the tasks that you want to do. So let's jump in. First, I want us to talk about how to choose the household habits that matter to you. The list of things that we can do in our homes to keep it clean and tidy and well-maintained and organized and all those responsibility words. It's a very long list.

There are so many things that you could be doing every day to make your home function in a specific way, that you are a person. You are a person with many responsibilities outside of your home that take up a lot of your time. You are also a person who wants to enjoy their weekend, not to spend the whole time on house projects and cleaning tasks. So the point here is that you do have a lot. to do and it is unlikely that you can do all the things for your home that you think you should

or it's unlikely that you can do all the things for your home that you even want to do without some kind of effort that's the kicker right house stuff is not super fun they're chores it's cleaning bathrooms and paying bills and organizing closets and figuring out what to do with a big pile of clothes that your kid doesn't fit into you anymore. I think that's one of the biggest challenges actually. Most of these things, they just aren't super fun. You don't look forward to them. They don't offer huge dividends outside of, you know, satisfaction or enjoying a cleaner, cleaner or tidier room, which, I mean, that is an important dividend, but you're not being paid to do this stuff. You have to do it because you're a grown up. It's kind of a drag.

when I was newly married and in my in my early twenties I just cringe thinking about this I had this dry erase calendar on my fridge that it was for an entire year right it was likely in like 2006 I think it was in that range because that's when I first met Emily P Freeman and she saw this calendar on my fridge when she and her husband John came over for dinner for the first time it is a wonder that she stayed my friend after seeing this calendar because it was the most unhinged genius thing I could possibly do. I was so worried about getting it wrong in my home, especially as a young, new wife,

that I gathered as much information as humanly possible from many, many sources, namely real simple and Martha Stewart, to collect the entirety of housekeeping knowledge so that I could organize it and not miss a thing. So I bought this dry erase annual calendar and every single day of that calendar. No breaks, no breaks. I put down the household tasks that I needed to do.

And then like the frequency with which I should do them. So, you know, every three months, I had it on my calendar to dust the baseboards because that's how often you're supposed to dust your baseboards is every three months, according to Martha. I had, you know, cleaning theme days sketched out, like every Thursday was bathroom day. I would know when I was going to vacuum the lint thing

in the dryer and wash my draer. tapes, all those things I thought I was supposed to do. That calendar, it stayed on my fridge, large and in charge. That thing was huge. It was a year long. It stayed on my fridge for like pretty much the entire year. And you guys, I maybe completed the cleaning tasks written on whatever appropriate day for like 10 of those 365 days. That's my best guess. But do you know how often I thought of that calendar and what I was supposed to do from it? All 365 days. And probably more than once a day on many of those because I passed by all the time and it made me feel bad. It is so easy to put pressure on ourselves to do everything that everyone else says we should do. Now, if you have been listening for a while,

you are in a much better posture towards that idea than you once were, right? This is a place that preaches doing what matters to you in the season that you are in, no matter what someone else in a different season with different priorities might say. So I'm guessing not many of you are like gripping baseboard cleaning frequency now the way that you might have it one time, but it's still an important thing to bring up. It's really easy to swing from lazy to genius and back again in our homes especially, simply because on paper, there really is, or could be so much to do. And when there is so much to do, we panic. We either grip it tighter or we're like, screw it, I don't care anymore. You're allowed to care. You're allowed to enjoy a

kept house. You are allowed to let certain tasks go for so long that you don't remember the last time you did them. You are allowed to remember your season of life and that it's not a season well suited for a lot of housekeeping tasks that were once important to you or that you just had margin for. Our household habits, possibly more than most other categories of life, are full of landmines that swing us to the extremes of lazy and genius. But of course, there is a lazy genius way. So let's break it down. We'll be right back. RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and counting. Your story could be next.

If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics. Let's see what you've got. Sign up for free at rbc trainingground.ca. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dacker Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. join me for cities of awe 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.

Our goal today is not to figure out how to fit in every household tasks and your already full schedule. It's also not to be like, yeah, whatever. Like you can live however you want, no one cares. Because I think you care. Like we've watched enough episodes of Horstores. orders and fix her up or to know that if you don't take care of your home, it will deteriorate. Like entropy is a thing. We cannot ignore entropy. And while you do get to define what clean is for you, it is highly likely that if you're listening, you do care about your home feeling peaceful or comfortable and you want it to be responsibly maintained enough that you won't have to sink thousands of dollars into its upkeep later because you haven't had anything serviced since you

moved in 20 years ago. Remember, it's not all or nothing. here. You can find your middle ground of naming what matters to you about your household habits and kindly find ways to support those habits over time. So I have a couple of questions for you to figure this out. First, in this season of life with your schedule and your obligations outside of your home, with your physical and mental health, and all the things that can cause emotional labor, with the number of humans you are caring for on any given day, when you think about your home in this season of life, what are two to three words that describe how you want your home to feel? Based on your life right now, how do you want your home to feel? I want you to think about it.

I want you to write those words down. If you have a lot more, that's fine, but narrow it to two or three so you know how to best focus your energy. That's the first question. How do you want your home to feel. The second question is what household tasks, if done mostly every day, will make your home feel that way? Make the list as long as you want for now, but ultimately, I want you to focus on no more than three at a time. Originally, I was going to ask specifically, like what two to three tasks, if done every day, will make your home feel that way, but you might feel initially contained and restricted by that number, and it's better to just get out more than that at first. But I also think it's important to name what tasks you already do

that contribute to your home feeling that way if you want it to. That also helps you see the additional tasks in perspective. You're probably already doing a lot more than you realize. Now, I hear you. I changed furnace filter is not going to make your home feel welcoming, right? Like certain household habits, especially in the upkeep and maintenance. department, they do not comprehensively contribute to, you know, coziness or whatever. But I would also

say those things aren't habits. Those are scheduled tasks. So often with our homes, we get the two mixed up. We think that every household task needs to be thought about and handled in the same way. Maybe you already have a habit of cleaning the kitchen before the day is over. And it's just part of your rhythm now. It would be weird and almost uncomfortable to not clean the kitchen at the end of the day. Remember from our habit episode, that is the literal definition of a habit. It's something so regular that it would be hard giving it up. But we often have the expectation that every household task should have the same rhythm that a habit does, that it's all part of the same bucket. You should just be able to easily remember to change the furnace filter or replace the batteries in the

smoke detectors or trim the hedges or whatever. as you do cleaning the kitchen, which you do habitually and automatically, or whatever habit it is you already do. Those kinds of tasks are not the same. Those rhythms are not the same. Your household habits that things done every day, they should contribute to how your home feels because your daily choices will most concretely impact how your home feels, not if you ran your dishwasher through a cycle with vinegar or whatever. So remember that separation.

It's super, super important. So how do you want your home to feel? And what are some household habits that would contribute to that? Now you can put those things into an existing routine, something you already do. You know, you can listen to that habits episode from a couple weeks ago,

and you can remember how to apply those principles to the household habits you're wanting to add. You can do things like put reminders on your phone or delegate or habit stack or whatever you would like to do. But ultimately, you will feel more at home at home when you prioritize how your home feels and why it's pleasant for you specifically to be in in this season of your life. that path forward, the path of household habits to support that feeling, it is different than the path of upkeep things and maintenance things that happen outside of a daily or sort of daily basis. For those kinds of tasks, for the, I don't want my house to fall apart tasks, your path for that is to just name your upkeep tasks, know the frequent.

and schedule them. I used to think that I could create a rhythm where at the same time every week I would do some sort of upkeep task, but I didn't have a list of those tasks or an adequate understanding of what needed to be done when. I was applying habit making to scheduling. And they're just two different things. So you and any other grownups who live in your house, sit down and write down the home maintenance tasks that can easily be forgotten. And you don't have to come up with this from scratch.

We'll link to something that's broken down by seasons. There's this like Better Homes and Gardens, you know, ultimate list that you can look at. But you can also Google home maintenance checklist or something and get lots of options. So you don't have to just like pull it out of your own brain. But here's the thing. I am not asking you to take that list that exists on the internet or whatever and schedule everything on it. You can. But I don't think that's the answer. nor is it always doable for everyone in certain seasons of life. What I want you to do from that list is name what matters for your home's upkeep and maintenance this year, just this year, just for 2023 or whatever year you're listening to this. And then from that,

name what matters for the next couple of months. It could be that you're like, nope, I am not going to clean my faucets of mineral deposits in 2023. You know, that's like on a list. And you can let that go. Maybe you hate the way your yard looks, but you do not have the time, energy, or money to tend to it. It's okay if it stays that way in 2023. It doesn't have to be done up.

You are choosing what matters to you about your home right now. That doesn't mean you'll never clean your faucets or you'll never plant shrubs or you'll never power wash your house or beat your area rugs with a broom handle outside or whatever. It just means you're not going to do it this year. We'll be right back. The point here is we want to enjoy where we live, right? We know that caring for where we live, wherever it is, whatever kind of home we live in, we know that caring, it's a valuable practice on both physical and emotional levels. It's very fulfilling and also we're being responsible. We also tend to throw both of those things out of the window because it feels

like too much. Caring for our home and even enjoying our home, trying to make it happen. It just feels like too much. Our mindset towards household chores is often just such a losing battle. We don't have a system for everything. And frankly, we just don't like it. It's just not fun. I don't like mopping. I don't know where the furnace is. I mean, do we have one? I know that raking is important for the grass to grow, like to get the leaves off the grass, but like can it all just sort of wither and be fine? Isn't it like fertilizer or something?

I think it's likely that we often take our attitude toward our least favorite part of household chores, and we assign it to the whole thing. How you feel about mopping sort of becomes how you feel about everything, if you hate mopping. Our overwhelm, our low-wheres. thing, our insecurity because we don't know how to do something, all of those often impact every single other household chore. It's like it's all or nothing energy and usually quite big. It's too big really to handle with any sort of consistency or kindness, right? So let's create a new way of thinking about taking care of our homes. First, I think gratitude is key here. When we move

through our homes with discontentment or frustration or something else that saps us dry, we lose the threat on what matters. So I think starting with gratitude is an important beginning step. You have a home. It might not be what you ideally want, but you have a home. A lot of people can't say that. It's not to guilt you into being grateful. It's perspective. And it's a reminder that good is here right now. Remember that episode? Good is here right now. So look for it, value it in your home. It really helps. Next, remember that there's a different approach to household habits than there is to

maintenance things that happen weekly or monthly or seasonally or annually. Or there are just things that come up, right? Don't apply the same tactics to all the tasks. Instead, see your daily habits separately from all those maintenance things. the habits are meant to create an environment that matters to you so do those do those things name how you want your home to feel right now in this season and then name what household habits support that and slowly ease them into existing routines or schedule for non-daily things that are easily forgotten look at one of those maintenance lists and decide what matters for your home this year release

the pressure to do everything. I have never de-mineralized a faucet in my life, but I have also lived in relatively new construction in all my homes thus far. It's really never mattered as much as other things have. You can make those choices too. What tasks matter now? Then schedule them. Space them out appropriately and put them on the calendar to either delegate or to do yourself. A couple of additional episodes that could be helpful in this process are how to still have a and how to get stuff done when you don't feel like it. Leah will put links to those things in the show notes for you. Thank you, Leah.

And this is a great place to remind you about the biweekly latest lazy listens email. The latest lazy listens email is an email that goes out every other Friday with summaries, points, bonus resources, and extra words from me about our most recent podcast episodes. It's like a podcast digest, kind of, and it's so helpful. So in this next one, I'll share some additional companion episodes that are good for this process, as well as a couple of apps that could be helpful in tracking those hard-to-remember tasks and schedule them. I'll also share how I personally handle household tasks that like snake up on me that I see need to be done and my approach to making sure that they get done. Lots of goodness in that email. So if you are interested in getting it, you can click the link in the show notes or go to the lazy genius collective.com slash listens.

Okay, before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it's Quincy Wyatt, which is like the raddest name. Quincy Wyatt? Like, can you solve crimes for me and then make me homemade bread after? Like, holy moly, such a good name. Okay, anyway, here is Quincy's message. Kendra, I just wanted to let you know a great way your book, The Lazy Genius Kitchen, has helped me immensely do what matters to me.

Two things matter to me in the kitchen, making new things and not wasting food. enter soup sunday with your latest book every sunday i clean out my fridge of old veggies half open bags of grains and beans etc whatever i have then i turn to the staple ingredients of nine different cuisines section of your book that is like a it's like two pages of ingredients from different cuisines it's like pretty great okay back to quincy back to quincy wyatt i look at what i have left over and pick the cuisine that best matches. I then add in things for my pantry to support that cuisine. Then I follow your How to Make Soup Guide that's in the book and mix up a big bat of some new soup for the week. I love that this helps me be creative as well as not waste, both of which matter

to me. Thank you. Holy moly. Quincy, I am obsessed with this so much. What an amazing idea to support these two things that matter to you. I also love that you are using the lazy genius kitchen in the exact way I hoped. That it's a resource that is versatile and can help you in lots of situations that you pull from, like on a weekly basis. It's a reference for you. I just love that. I'm also so interested in all the soups you've made and how different they all might be.

Like, this is such a fantastic idea, and I'm just thrilled you shared it. So congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. Y'all, if you have not explored the lazy genius kitchen, it is a book that can really transform your life in the kitchen. It really can. It helps you cook. It helps you organize. It helps you plan. It helps you gather. Namely, it just helps you name what matters to you in multiple areas in your kitchen. And then it provides a path to figuring out a solution.

Plus the whole back third is full of single pages like the staple ingredients of nine different cuisines and how to make soup and how to feed a crowd and the liquid index that helps you code break recipes and adjust them to fit your own life. It is just, it's so good. It's such a great book. So if you have not picked it up, I encourage you to check it out. You can grab it at the library and see if it's for you. And if it is, then you want your own copy. You can look at it every week like Quincy Wyatt does after she solves crimes in rural Maine. Okay, that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra. I'll see you next week.

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.