The Lazy Genius Podcast - #307 - A More Helpful Way to Look at Spring Cleaning

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

Why “more helpful”? Because I think that most spring cleaning information I run across is not helpful, at least not how I need it to be. So today, we’re going to do what we often do: we’re going to tackle both perspective and practicality.   Helpful Companion Links How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis (I say KC Price in the episode, but it’s KC Davis!) Episode #298: How to Keep Up with Household Habits Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone 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

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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 307 a more helpful way to look at spring cleaning why more helpful because i think that most spring cleaning information i run across is not helpful at least in the way i need it to be so today we're going to do what we often do we're going to tackle both perspective and practicality seeing something in a new way It really matters. And then also after that paradigm shift, we need some small steps to move in a direction that is practically, tangibly helpful. So that is our plan for today. So let's jump in. All right. First, spring cleaning words, they're everywhere right now. I just opened my promotions

tab in my inbox and I'm shocked at how many brands that have nothing to do with the cleaning industry are using spring cleaning language. Beauty, skin care, shoes, apparel, home decor. Everyone is using this language right now. It's like spring clean your makeup bag, get your skin ready for spring, spring clean your closet and get a refresh. It's all over the place. And it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing, you know, like are all the brands and all the content creators talking about it because it's just in the air? Or is it in the air because all the brands and the content creators are talking about it? And I mean, let's be honest, I'm one of them. Like literally right now. Spring cleaning is in the title of this episode.

So I say that more with curiosity than with judgment, but it really is everywhere. And when something is everywhere, it presents to us a level of importance or urgency, whether we chose that urgency or not, right? Just because it's all around us. So first, let's say words about what to do with the presence of spring cleaning language and the pressure that likely follows. first, when you hear the phrase spring cleaning, what do you think about? Now, I'm guessing there are probably two big themes here. One is that it's huge. Like, you're thinking about having to deep

clean your entire house and everything in it, and that probably makes you want to cry. So there is some form of bigness to it, which automatically makes the idea overwhelming. Like it's so big, you know, it casts a shadow. And then the second thing, I feel like spring cleaning presents itself as something that you should do, right? It can definitely wreak of responsibility. It feels like a representation of being a good adult, that this is just what all like organized grownups do. and even though you are now less likely to stay in that judgmental should water for very long because of being familiar with the lazy genius way the should water it still splashes on you a little bit so it's something to manage even though maybe it's not as big as it used to be but it's still something

to manage which is annoying but also isn't it great that you don't have to like drown and shame all the time anymore so spring cleaning it feels flips the switch on bigness and on shoulds, neither of which exist for us as lazy genus. So that means we have to completely recalibrate our thinking about what spring cleaning really is. Now, for a lot of people, it is big and it is something you should do. But you do not have to subscribe to that way of thinking. You get to decide to let that widely accepted definition or perspective go. as something that is just not for you because no thank you we don't want that and you get to

decide what spring cleaning is for you new paradigm new definition new permission based on what you need okay last week i finished reading the book how to keep house while drowning by casey price which is for sure the lazy genius book on cleaning like holy moly it's so good but she talks a lot about how cleaning and care tasks are morally neutral. We talk about that a lot here, how so many things are not right or wrong. They just are. And that phrase morally neutral

is a really good one to latch onto, but she also says that from moral neutrality comes permission. From moral neutrality comes permission. I mean, is that not our whole vibe around here? when something becomes morally neutral, we can receive permission from others or from ourselves to let something go, to do it the way we need to, to release it for a season, to care deeply for something when it doesn't make sense to someone else. When something is morally neutral, permission springs up. And spring cleaning is for sure morally neutral. You're not a terrible person for not

cleaning your air filter or not even knowing where the thing is. So I was about to say, like, I'm going to confess something. But a confession means I did something wrong, and I have not. I have not. But I'm going to tell you something. My kids have never been to the dentist. Never once. Now, I have a lot of reasons why we couldn't afford dental insurance for a number of years.

We have one kid with some pretty major sensory issues where teeth. cleaning would like break his bones like turn his bones into ash because it's so uncomfortable there was a there was a pandemic you know we still have not gone we still have not gone now would it be a lovely thing for my kids to go to the dentist regularly to get their teeth cleaned yes would it be lovely for me too because I have not been in over a decade myself of course it would be it would be great but it's morally neutral I'm not not a bad person or a bad mother because my kids have never been to the dentist. Now, some people might feel that way.

But that also means that people that are all over the world are bad people because they don't have access to or even use dental care, which we all know is untrue. So it's morally neutral. Now, if one of my kids told me his tooth hurt and it seemed like something was probably wrong and I ignored it, that would leave the sphere of moral neutrality because it's now, it's not about going regularly to the dentist,

it's about caring for my kid who's in pain. You know, ignoring and dismissing his pain, whether in his tooth or in his soul, is neglect, which is wrong. But just the act of taking them to the dentist, it's morally neutral. It's good to do, but I'm not bad.

because it hasn't been done yet. And that is true of spring cleaning or cleaning of any kind. It is morally neutral. You're not a good person if you do it and you're not a bad person if you don't. Like Casey Price says, if you're struggling to clean and you are drowning in laundry and dirty dishes and hair that hasn't been washed in days, you are not bad. You're just having a difficult time. And there's kindness for you in that.

So morally neutral. And then from that comes permission. You have permission to hear other people talk about spring cleaning and then release it as something that is not for you. You have permission to redefine what spring cleaning is. You have permission to take the spring off the name completely and just see cleaning for what it is when it is. You can skip it all together. you get to decide what matters to you. I can hear you.

Some of y'all are still freaking out about the dentist thing. And some of you were like, oh, thank God. I thought I was the only one who had not yet taken my kids to the dentist. We're all okay. We're all okay. All right. So if we were to sort of set this episode up as like a series of doors that you can walk through, you might decide that this is as far as your journey will take you.

Walking through this door of permission is all you need. And that's great. I hope you have a lovely day. For those of you who want to keep walking, let's now talk about the different kinds of cleaning. We'll be right back. There's more to life than finding the perfect car. But finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life. Like the SUV that handles everything from drop off to off road and the car that hulls groceries and hockey teams. or the van that's gone from just practical to practically family. Whatever you want, wherever you're going, start your search at ototrater.ca, Canada's car marketplace.

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 Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. 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. So just a few weeks ago, you might have heard episode 298, How to Keep Up with Household Habits.

One important distinction from that episode that we will name again here is the difference between daily tasks and irregular maintenance tasks. There is a different process and energy. for doing something like cleaning off the kitchen counter at the end of every day and washing a bulky bed spread whenever you're like, oh, I should probably do that. But despite that huge difference in those two types of things, we tend to mentally treat them the same. Like anything that has to do with cleaning just is in one bucket. And we have a hard time recognizing that a daily rhythm for caring for our homes

and making it feel a certain way, that is so different. from figuring out if and when, you know, to delim the showerhead or something. Honestly, I don't even know if that's a thing, but we're going to pretend it is. But see, isn't that even part of the point? There are so many things we think we probably should be doing, but we don't even know what some of them are, let alone when we're going to do them. Okay. Now there's another distinction in cleaning that we're going to bring into the conversation

to help us figure out, you know, how many doors we want to walk through. during this traditional spring cleaning season. And that is, in fact, this season, the distinction of the season. There are seasons where our homes need different care than others. There are seasons when our bodies and our rhythms need different care than others. And then how much time and energy we spend on home things, it's going to contribute to that. Seasons matter, like big time. There's a whole chapter on living in the season.

season in my first book, The Lazy Genius Way. If you make decisions without first considering your season, you will likely be right back where you started or even further behind than you were before because you're going in the wrong order. Your season really, really matters. Now, let's talk about how seasons could impact your approach to cleaning now for sure and then any other time too. So I do this weekly live video for our paid community called The Neighborhood. And just last week, we were we were about this and one of the women said that she doesn't see as much of a need for spring cleaning as the season shifts but she does for fall she does for fall so she pays attention to what her home needs to transition into fall before it's closed up for the colder weather coming so you know

spring is not the only time to consider kind of a larger cleaning product not product project or approach. Now another person on that same video said that she's moving into a new house. And that feels like a different approach to cleaning too, right? She is spring cleaning, but in a season of getting her new home ready to move into. That also requires a different approach.

There was yet another woman who said that she chooses one category to focus on when spring comes around. For example, this year it's the air. so she's paying attention to changing air filters and cleaning like dehumidifiers so they're ready for next season and that's it she just she's just focusing on air i share those three examples as permission to see your season the way you need to right there are so many kinds of seasons if you have kids it's like going from having tini's at home to they're going to school or they move

out of the house altogether. There are seasons and transitions in your home where you go from working in an office to working at home, working at home to working at an office, working and not working at all, right? You're not walking through the door of like, should I do spring cleaning or not? You're deciding what season you are in on the calendar and in your life, and you're asking yourself. Is there something outside of my normal cleaning rhythm that I'd like to pay attention to in this season? Is there something that feels like a kindness to myself and the people who live here, if there are other people living there, to tend to this, either myself or by hiring it out to someone else? That is the question that we can ask. Now, I have used the phrase care task.

want to define that really quickly. So Casey Price, that's her word. That's her term, the author of this book, How to Keep House While Drowning. She does not use the word chore. She calls these kinds of things care tasks. We are caring for ourselves, our families, and our homes by the choices we make when we have the ability to make them. In some seasons, we don't have the ability to do very many care tasks at all. We're happy if everyone has clean underwear every day. And that is a beautiful thing. Again, morally neutral.

And then there are other seasons where we can invite more care tasks kind of into the fold than in the previous season or in the next one because of our energy and resources or whatever. Okay. So you have walked through the door of considering cleaning in the season that you're in and now we're all standing here together wondering what our next steps will be. Okay. The first thing to do is name the season that you're in, or really more specifically, all the seasons

you're in, like, legit. Like me just saying like, pay it to the season you're in. Like you need to, like, name it. Put words to it. For me, I am in the spring in the south. Okay, that's my actual like season. I am in a season of very active weeks and weekends. just because of like the nature of work and what's going on in our family, the age of our kids,

all those things, okay? So it's very active. Like we have a very busy life right now. And rest and play, they have to be prioritized. Things can sneak up. There's not a lot of space for much of anything. I am in a season where we have a toilet that has been running for about a month now. And I think the sound might drive me crazy before the actual toilet like stops functioning properly. And we're, in a season where we're about to go into a bathroom remodel of the main bathroom that our entire family uses. Those are all of our seasons and you can do that too. Name all your seasons. Okay. Now, once you see them all, named them all, I want you to see what rises to the surface. Is there anything right now in this season that you would like to pay attention to? Are there any care tasks that are

not part of your regular rhythm that you would like to tend to now that you've named kind of all these seasons together and seen where you are for me and making that list literally right now for this episode it's the bathrooms just like the woman in our community said she's focusing on the air in her house i think this spring not because it's spring but because of everything happening coincidentally in the spring around our bathrooms we need to focus on our bathrooms we need to make sure that the toilet that's running that it is functioning properly since we're about to lose access to another toilet. We also will be cleaning out and closing shop on our most used bathroom in the next few weeks. So like really cleaning and caring for the tiny kid bath that our whole family is

going to be using for the next two months. That is a kind choice for this upcoming season, right? And even though I hate cleaning bathrooms, you know this if you've been around for a while. making this choice of focusing on deep care of our bathrooms outside of the normal rhythm that matters right now this is a season where tending to our bathrooms is a kindness and it's a wise thing to do okay so name your seasons see what rises to the surface and then name if there's something that you would like to focus on that is outside of your regular home care rhythm. If there isn't, thank you for listening. I hope you have a beautiful day. If there is, then let's walk through that door. We'll be right back. Okay, you have put spring cleaning in its

proper context. You have now named what specific care tasks, that Casey Price term, you would like to pursue in the next few weeks. And now let's talk about how to make it happen. When we add something to our lives that does not already have a natural place. We have to give it one. We have to give it a place. Just like live in your season is a lazy genius principle, so is put everything in its place. That also has its own chapter in the book. Now if I say, I want to prioritize preparing our bathrooms for this upcoming renovation without figuring out what those tasks are and putting them in their place, they will not get done. They'll just be an intention floating around. Actually, there is, there's this quote from the novel, Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone, which is like a murder

spy thriller situation. It is not a place that you would expect to find like great quotes on time management, but I highlighted it because I was like, oh, wow, this is really great. And it has a lot of relevancy to what we're talking about. So I'm going to read this to you. And for reference, the names used here, Elaine and Ariel, Elaine is the mother and Ariel is the daughter, both adults, okay? I don't see how you can live like this. Elaine said this within five minutes of arriving at Ariel's house on Friday afternoon, barely half an hour before Ariel needed to leave for the airport. I really don't. Ariel's mom expresses some variation of this sentiment every time she visits. Looking around the yard, the house, there's always something being torn up, something replant. Something, to rebuilt, the downstairs washroom with an open patch of floor to access a burst pipe, the side porch with a half-built banister, the old maple pulled down next to the driveway and chainsawed

into large chunks, but not yet into manageable firewood. There's always a large category of non-critical projects that can persist for long periods in the non-specific future, awaiting attention. Ariel accepts this permanent state of demi-disrepair, but her mother adheres to the opposite operating principle. Everything must be perfect all the time, or at least appear that way, which is really the only sort of perfection, the apparent sort. Again, that's a murder domestic thriller, but that picture is like such a good one to help us frame almost everything we have talked about today. other people will see our choices differently than we do. They'll comment on it sometimes. And we can do the emotional labor of releasing that, of letting that go, and living with our morally neutral choices that are best for the season we're in. A lot of times we let that really

significantly impact us. And that's real. It makes sense. Other people's opinions are hard to get through. But we can do the emotional labor. And it is that. It is. It's work. But we can do it to make it on the other side of that. And also, that line about the non-critical projects that persist in the non-specific future. Now, there is nothing wrong with that with living in a constant state of, as Pavone says, demi-disrepair. But without those projects broken into smaller pieces, kind of like the the big maple tree that has gone somewhat down its path to firewood, but not completely. And then if we don't break those things down into smaller pieces and then put those smaller pieces in a place, they're just going to wait for us, okay?

Which is okay, but that's just the reality. We will not get to those things until either the situation becomes desperate or we do. And I'll say that most of the time when we live in some kind of disrepair, it becomes normalized and we just don't see it anymore. And there is nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying you should see it. I'm just saying that's kind of how it is, right? You'll grow to not seeing it, which means you won't get desperate to change it. Now the situation might become desperate, like our running toilet that if not tended to, it could start leaking and cause more problems, right? but I probably wouldn't become super desperate about it because the sound is like sort of normalized.

I don't love it, but like it's just there. In fact, if not for the sound of the toilet running and humming at me like every 17 minutes, I wouldn't even know there would be no reason to fix it. There's no momentum to do that. I would not feel desperate at all, which is okay. It is okay. But desperate things force their way in. It's not that they have a place.

They displace other things. When something becomes urgent, it displaces what was already there, which also throws things into a bit of a tizzy. That is why one of my essential mindsets for lazy genius time management is to tend to the necessary before it becomes urgent. You give the necessary a place before it displaces everything else. So that's what we do here in this part of our room, having walked through this door. You break down your tasks for whatever type of care you're wanting to do in this season.

And then you put those things in their place. You put it on the calendar. You put it in a routine. You put it on a to-do list to call a person and hire them to take care of it. Whatever it is, you put it in its place. And remember that breaking that thing down into small. smaller tasks, again, like that maple tree and the quote, is pretty essential. Because like I could block out a Saturday morning and write down take care of the bathroom.

But like I haven't called a plumber yet. The plumber doesn't have that morning blocked off, you know. I don't have, let's take the plumber out of it. If I just say like take care of the bathroom, I don't have containers that are necessary for our bathroom stuff to move into another bathroom that doesn't have the same storage. you know i don't have things in place to even put the big thing in its place so don't just stick your big project on a random saturday notice what the smaller pieces are because then you're going to get to that saturday and be like oh no oh no for that maple tree Ariel had to call a tree guy or get a chainsaw herself the tree had to be assessed and how it was going to be cut down it was cut into larger pieces and still remaining in that story are cutting those big chunks of tree into

manageable firewood pieces and then knowing where those pieces are going to go and then actually transporting the pieces to get there. You cannot just write on your Google calendar cut down the tree, right? So live in the season, name what matters, make it smaller and then put it in its place. And as you continue to hear these rumblings of spring cleaning in your inbox and on social media and on commercials and all over the place, just remember that spring cleaning is morally neutral. It is not one size fits all. It is actually quite enormous and understandably overwhelming. It doesn't really fit anyone. And therefore, it is not something that you can do to completion without a massive influx of time and resources.

So relax your shoulders, take a deep breath. You're doing great. And that is a more helpful and maybe even more hopeful way to look at spring cleaning. All right, before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it's Katie Haynes, who has a great tip that could be super helpful for those of you who are about to maybe do some spring break traveling. Katie writes this. I keep a note on my phone of essentials I take anytime I go anywhere, but I always make it a checklist. I check things off as I pack them, but then I use that list when I'm packing to come home and uncheck each item so I make sure I don't leave anything behind. I'd be embarrassed if you knew how many chargers I forgot to bring home.

No more. Katie, this is such a great idea. Anything that helps us not forget chargers and hotel rooms and Airbnb. is a really, really great thing. I also think it's really great for us to remember that things like a notes app and a checklist in that app. You can use the functionality of that checklist however you want to. I use the notes app for keeping track of stuff that I pack to, but differently. Like I have a notes app that has like almost everything that I've ever taken on a trip ever. And then when it's time to take a specific trip, I'll just go through real quick and like check off the things that I know.

I'm going to take on the trip I'm about to go on and then use that to kind of inform my handwritten list because I always make a handwritten list. And then I just uncheck them again and it's over. So just remember that too. That's one thing that's really beautiful about being a lazy genius is that you can use something in a different way and for a different purpose than what other people do or even what the original purpose of that thing was for, right? You get to decide. So Katie, I love what you decided. Thank you for sharing it. And congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. Okay, y'all, that's it for today. Remember to sign up for the latest lazy listens email that goes out every other Friday. It has a robust summary of the last two

weeks' worth of episodes and then other resources too. So like in this next one, I will list out these three doors that we just walked through and the questions that you need to ask to walk through them as well as links to some specific cleaning related podcast episodes and favorite non-leasy genius resources too. So you can sign up for that in the link in the show notes. or go to the lazy genius collective.com slash listens. Thank you so much for being here with me today. 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.