The Lazy Genius Podcast - #337 - How to Lazy Genius Division of Labor

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

I get asked about how to split the work load at home fairly often, especially in Instagram AMAs. I’m glad we get the chance to dive deep into it today.   Helpful Companion Links Fair Play by Eve Rodsky Fair Play cards How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis Struggle Care podcast @samkelly_world posted the reel about teaching your kids to notice Sign up for the Latest Lazy Listens email. Grab a copy of my book The Lazy Genius Kitchen or The Lazy Genius Way! (Affiliate links) 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

Amazon presents Laura versus Fruitflies. 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 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 337, How to Lazy Genius Division of Labor. I get asked about this topic fairly often, especially in Instagram AMAs, and I am so glad that we get the chance to deep dive into this today. So first, let me share who this episode is for. We are going to talk about

division of labor in a home. And that mostly involves some kind of adult partner, whether it's a spouse, a committed partner, or even a roommate. Most of what I'm going to have you think about will involve another adult. Now, if you live alone or you're a single parent, or you live with an aging parent who is no longer capable of contributing to the running of a home or any scenario where you live with someone, but it's not really a partnership of some kind, I don't want to say that this episode is not for you because I think it actually can be. But you definitely need a different set of approaches when you're the only person. There's a good chance that some of the things I share in this episode, they might be helpful to you, but I'm not going to gloss over the fact that

this challenge looks very different for single adults. So if that's you, this topic might be kind of frustrating because there is no division of labor. You are all the labor. So as I begin this episode, I just want you to know up front that I see you in that. And if you would rather spend your time doing something else right now, then listen to this episode, I am so here for that choice. Regardless, I'm glad you're here. Now, some of you listening might not be single, but feel a little bit like you are because your partner does not participate in pretty much any of the physical and emotional labor of the family and household, let alone a fair amount. I've had friends go through divorces. And when I've asked the women, like how it's going, being the only adult to take care of things. It's always so

sad when someone says, you know, that part isn't much different. Like I pretty much did it all anyway. That's a lot to hold. And you might be holding something similar. This topic has emotional, relational, seasonal, cultural, and practical layers to it. And some of those layers will be way more tender for some of you than for others. If this is a really tender topic for you, one that needs a lot more help than, you know, a 25-minute podcast episode can give, I'm going to recommend the book Fair Play by Eve Rodsky. If you feel like you are at a standstill or at the very beginning of this journey that feels really hard of even talking about what it means to have an even division of labor with your partner, listen to this episode for sure. But,

maybe also read that book. It is far more thorough and researched and specific than I could ever be. I've only read the first quarter of it and I found the content and the writing style to be engaging and hopeful and very good. And it has a ton of really great reviews. So I will finish the book. I stopped reading it though. And I won't pick it up again until, you know, after this episode is out. Because honestly, I didn't want to unknowingly co-opt any of Vrodski's ideas as my own. And I also want to look at this with fresh lazy genius eyes, you know, without any other ideas or strategies. How would we lazy genius this challenge?

So let's talk about it. But after this episode, if you want more specific help, look into Fair Play by Eve Rodsky. Okay. Whenever we talk about lazy geniusing something, we have to start with the problem. What problem or challenge are we actually trying to solve when it comes to the division of household labor. Well, when I listed out the possible problems, there were quite a few, and they were all, like, kind of heavy. And I think there are seven main problems that we're dealing with here. They are. One, uneven labor. Two, un or underappreciated labor. Three, unnamed labor.

Four, uneven value. Five, uneven rest. Six, uneven expectations. And seven. an unending cycle. Okay, I'm going to go through all of these, and I want you to pay attention to which one resonates with you the most. It doesn't mean that none of the others matter, right? But I just want you to notice if there's one that hits the hardest or feels the most true of you and your situation as we talk about this. Okay, so number one, uneven labor. You feel like what you do and what your partner does are out of balance. It's unfair. It's uneven. Basically, you do. You do. do way more than your fair share. Okay. That's what uneven labor is. Two, un or underappreciated labor. This is when you do what you do and maybe you don't mind it so much, but the lack of acknowledgement

and appreciation of that labor makes it hard to keep it up. Three, unnamed labor. This is when you're in a bit of a fog and you don't even realize how much you're actually doing. You don't see any disparity in what you do and what your partner does because you're just so neck deep in what you're doing that you couldn't even articulate what it is anymore. It's just how you live. It's just the way it is. For uneven value. Let's say your partner does paid labor and you're at home doing the unpaid, caring for kids, tending to the home, you know, keeping the house from running out of important stuff, figuring out and making and cleaning up after what everybody's going to eat. If you or your partner see your work and your time spent as any less valuable

than his, that is a problem of uneven value. What you're doing is just as important as what he's doing. In fact, I just want to stop here for a second. There is an attitude that in a household with a male-female partnership where the man works and the woman doesn't, that the man is providing the life that the woman has. It might not be explicitly said, but for a lot of people, that is kind of an implicit idea, right? She is able to stay home and not have to work because of him, because of what he provides. Therefore, a generally accepted idea is that a woman doesn't have as much of a right to complain about her day and definitely shouldn't require as much from her husband, if that's the situation because he's working hard to provide the life that she has. Now, while that might be

somewhat true on paper, so is the opposite. A woman provides the lifestyle, comfort, readiness, and rhythms of a man's life and home that would absolutely fall apart without her. She provides the life that he has just as much as he provides for hers. And that value should not be uneven just because one is financially tangible and one is not. And I think the reality for some of you is that you not only provide that home that I just described, but you also work your own paid job on top of that. The uneven labor and the uneven value is not just true of people who stay at home. It can be for those of you who work as well. Now I'm not saying that that is true of everyone listening that if you are married to a man and he is working and you primarily stay at home,

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The goal should not be to make the work equal, but to ensure the rest is fair. She compares the work of a coal miner and a stay-at-home parent. You might say that an hour of coal mining is harder than an hour of taking care of tiny humans, right? but if you get into an argument of like who works harder, that's a really hard conversation to quantify. That's why she pursues equal rest instead of equal labor. This is more of what she wrote. The coal miner and the stay-at-home parent can argue until they are blue in the face about who works harder. The truth is that both are tired.

Both want their labor appreciated and both deserve rest. So maybe you don't resent or get frustrated by what you're doing or even if you're appreciated for it. Maybe the rubber meets the road when your partner gets home and chills out while you're still going at it. And you're just as tired. That feels like a sign of uneven rest. Six, uneven expectations. You might get riled up because of what you feel like is expected of you, despite how willing or skilled you are at doing it. Maybe you do make all the meals and you fill out all the school paperwork and you clean most of the things.

And honestly, it's not that big of a deal. But what really gets up in your craw is the idea that you're expected to do all of that without having any agency in that decision. Maybe your frustration is aimed at society. Maybe a parent or an in-law or maybe even your partner. I remember an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Ray and Deborah, the main married couple in that show, they were arguing over who was going to take a suitcase full of dirty clothes from a trip up the stairs. it's like such a great episode. The male argument in this episode was that because the suitcase had dirty laundry in it, it was, and I quote, all womany now.

So you might do the laundry and kind of like it as much as a person might enjoy laundry or don't mind it, you know, but the idea that laundry is seen as womany or that the expectations fall along stereotypical gender lines in such a way that makes you want to burn everything down, that could be your specific challenge in this division of labor conversation is the uneven expectations. And then finally, the seventh likely challenge you have around this topic is an unending cycle. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago in an episode about the cycles and rhythms of a home. Some of the work just never ends. It is never done.

You can go and go and go. But unless you choose to be done, there's always something else to do. So maybe as you think about the division of labor in your home, you're mostly fine with the split or how you feel about it, but the hamster wheel at all makes you extra tired or in need of longer breaks. And if you're not getting that rest or those breaks, you're going to run out of steam pretty quickly. So those are the seven challenges that I see is the most common. uneven labor, un or underappreciated labor, unnamed labor, uneven value, uneven rest, uneven expectations, and an unending cycle. Which of those resonates the most with you? What feels like it hits the closest to home? Naring in on something a little more specific

is a really great place to start as we keep going. Now, no matter what your specific challenge is, or even if what you struggle with changes from week to week, which is a thing. I'm going to name four ways that those struggles come out. I call this the four tired tears, not tears like crying, although being tired makes us cry. I mean, like tears like levels. So we got the tired tears. All of these have the word tired in them because frankly, we're always going to be a little tired. Unless you just have like a mess of disposable income and are able to luxuriate in your own free time,

which I am grateful for on your behalf, honestly, you're going to be tired. It's just kind of part of things. When you live a full life of responsibilities and relationships and recreation and anything else that starts with the letter R, you are going to be tired at the end of the day. That's why we schedule rest, y'all. If that tiredness builds up, it turns into something nasty. But tiredness on its own is not bad. So we're not necessarily trying to avoid being tired.

you probably will be at least a little bit on a decent number of days. Tired is not bad. Okay? So let's talk about the four tired tears. The first is tired and resigned. Your situation is what it is. I mean, yeah, you do most everything in your house and the division of labor is very uneven or underappreciated or undervalued in a way that you disagree with.

But because of the nature of your marriage or your partnership, because of the nature of your season of life, because of the nature of your own personality. you're just resigned to it. To use a phrase I hate, it is what it is. And trying to change something doesn't really factor in to your situation. Maybe one day you'll be able to have some space for yourself, but today is not that day. That's what you tell yourself. This is a person who likely does not know how to feel like themselves. That question comes up a lot, actually. When I talk about doing things that help you feel like yourself, inevitably someone asked me how to figure that out. what do you do when you don't know?

I've lost myself in all of this. I don't even know what I like anymore. That is an episode for a different day, but I'm pretty sure being tired and resigned is how you got there. You lost your fight for yourself a long time ago, and you're not sure how to get it back. And that's even if you had the energy

to figure out how to get it back at all. So if you are tired and resigned, I encourage you to apply a couple of lacy genius principles to your situation. First, be kind to yourself. If you are struggling with this and you feel hit hard by what I'm saying, chances are decent that you feel a little ashamed. And I don't want that to happen. Be kind and compassionate as you process your own relationship with your labor and your life.

There's nothing to be ashamed of. The other principle I would encourage for, for you is start small. You don't have to change everything overnight or figure it all out right now. Start small. Read a book about this topic. Listen to a podcast episode about your Enneagram number to help you understand yourself better. Make an appointment to see your therapist. Tell yourself every day that you're allowed to care about something that is not connected to being a mother or taking care of your home. You don't have to be complacent and resigned to how things are. You're allowed to say what you need. So start small.

even thinking about that. Just even today, if that's all you have the margin for. Just think about it today. So that's the first tired tier, tired and resigned. The second is tired and resentful. This one doesn't need a lot of explanation. You know that you do a lot and you have resentment building and building because of how much you do or how little it's appreciated or valued. You resent your partner for not getting it, for not seeing it, for not even caring, for not helping. And every single dish you wash or sock you pick up or fire you put out while he sits there on his phone or leaves to go for a run or gets ready in the morning without a single kid responsibility or interruption, that fuels your fire. You just get deeper into that resentment. Now is a great time to introduce you to

what I call the noticing loop. The noticing loop is something I figured out after sitting with the word notice for a while. That's been a word I've been paying attention to like all year long. And then someone sent me a reel, which I cannot find now from an account I do not follow. Therefore, I cannot find the person who did this or the person who sent it to me. I'm so sorry. But the reel was of a mom who is teaching her kids not to pick up after themselves or to tidy or whatever, not the tangible part, but to notice what needs doing. She's trying to teach them to notice because so much of what we do is noticing. But it's also not just noticing. It's a few things that come after. So this is the made up noticing loop. First you notice, you know,

something needs doing. If that something is yours to do, you either do it or you set up some kind of reminder to help you remember to do it later, right? Now, if that thing you notice is not yours to do, You might remind someone else that they need to do it or ask them right then, which takes energy. You might also have to remember to follow up with them to see if they did it, which takes energy. You then have to wait for it to get done and possibly not even get done in the way you would like, which takes energy. The final step is that the thing gets done. But here's what happens.

If you notice something that is someone else's to do, you might realize that it's, If you do not remind that person to do it, it's not going to get done. So you might as well just do it. Or maybe you know that the thing will take forever or it won't be done in the way that you would like or you asked for. So you have to help out with it anyway, which means you might as well just do it. Basically, in this noticing loop, if you are involved in those middle steps of either reminding, remembering, or waiting for something to get done, involving a task that's technically not yours to do, you'll often just skip those. middle steps, you'll notice it and then you'll do it. And that is where you keep score.

You're doing the things that other people say they're going to do because the energy required of you to remember and remind them is almost more trouble than actually doing the thing. And that is why the noticing loop exists here in this tired and resentful tier. Every time you skip those middle steps and you just go from noticing to doing, you're likely adding to your resentment. People aren't doing their fair share. You have to do everything and you just get madder and matter about it. So what do you do here? If this is where you are, what do you do? You also start small, just like in tired and resigned. You start small. Maybe you let one thing go. Like you don't remember or remind. You just notice and move on. Maybe you practice breathing, like legit breathing when you walk past a task that belongs to someone

else. Just take a deep breath and keep going. It's not going to break anybody. Maybe you accept that you're going to have to remind people of things. And you are going to practice being patient as you get used to that expectation. That's part of it. You're going to have to remind them. Maybe you have a conversation with your partner where you say, you know, it matters to me that I don't resent you all the time and right now I do. I want us to work together and be partners in this and I need your help in figuring out how to do this where we both feel seen and we both get to rest and we both care. There's a way out, but it's in real small steps. And when you're resentful, you're not thinking small. Resentful is big black trash bag energy where you're just going to burn everything down.

So start small. Notice where you are. Notice where you are. noticing and naming is half of it. So that's tired and resentful. The third tier is tired and trying. This is where you're having those conversations with your partner. You are learning how to move past those small frustrations without them building on each other. You're learning to let go of the dishwasher being loaded a certain way so that someone else will actually do it. I also think an important principle to remember here is to live in the season.

tired and trying is often dependent on the season you're in what are you trying at what is reasonable in your current situation what practices are best suited for where you are right now live in the season you're in when you're tired and trying i think a big priority is to practice letting go let go of expectations of another person that you know are unreasonable let go of your way to things if you're expecting someone else to take ownership of that thing. Let go of your need to have things done on the exact rhythm that you would personally choose if you were doing it on your own. When you involve other people and you do have a division of labor, we can't just bring our own priorities to the table. Everybody gets a say. If you don't want to give someone

a say, I don't think you can expect an equal partnership. So tired and trying is a hard but worthwhile a place to be. It won't always work right away. It won't always be clear. It won't always be easy. But I do think it's always beneficial because you're talking about it. You're trying. You're both trying to make this work in really, really small daily ways because you care about each other. You care about your partner more than you care about your own comfort in the living room or whatever. And then finally, the fourth tired tier is tired and content. You found a groove. You're talking about things when you get out of your groove. You learn to enjoy your rest and the rest of your partner. You find that things don't always have to be just so in order to work. You're content with

how you've established a division of labor. But you're not complacent. You're not complacent. Contentment is not the same thing as complacency. So continue to notice what's working and what's not. Talk to your partner when you feel one of those seven challenges kind of creeping up and invite your partner to do the same to you? I do believe it is possible to reach tired and content, but you start with tired and trying. It takes time to find your way in this equal division of labor and rest. And it takes time to trust that you and your partner can talk about this regularly without it becoming a burden or an argument. You learn to trust each other, appreciate each other and value each other's time just as much as you value your own. Now, as we close, I'm not going to

share a system of dividing up the labor, you can try the fair play cards for that or just make your own list. But here are a couple of rapid fire ideas that might get you thinking. First, you could literally write out all the tasks, mark who currently does what and talk about a plan forward, you know, small steps with that. Second, you could choose categories that are yours, categories that are your partners, and then categories that you share. Not everything has to be split exactly. Three, for some of the daily tasks that can wear a person, person down, you could swap, like alternating who's in charge of kid lunches every week or every month. Four, you can make a rest plan where you take turns being on like weekend morning

duty with kids or responsibility so the other person can do whatever they want until lunch or something. Doesn't that sound like a lovely thing? Or five, you can simply tell your partner, like I realize that I want to do with mine, that you don't mind having this one task, but that you would just appreciate being acknowledged for it. For example, we have two weddings we're going to in the next couple of weeks. And I realized in the process of doing this episode, I realized that I was the one to RSVP. I was the one who got child care. I got the gifts.

I wrapped the gifts. I even had to remind Codd to make sure his suit fits. I will also plan dinner for the kids while we're gone. I will get together the info for the babysitter. basically I will do and have done everything required to get us out of the house. Now, do my mind? I actually don't. I actually don't.

But that is an area where cause doesn't really notice what I do, especially if it's like a one-off sort of thing. But any time we have a social event, I take care of all the details, all of them. Now, I can ask him for help with things and he will happily do them. Like he's a really lovely, helpful person. But if I don't ask, he doesn't even really know that those things are happening. And it would make me feel better towards him if he did know. So I'm going to ask him to appreciate me for doing those things. That might sound silly.

But sometimes those are the things that keep us on the tired and trying or tired and content paths. I'm actually pretty content taking care of those things, as long as I'm also getting what I need, which is appreciation and acknowledgement for doing those kinds of tasks. ask, so I'm just going to tell him. Your next step for this episode might just be that. It might be a single exchange about a single thing. You don't have to blow up your life to make this work. In fact, please don't. Please don't do that. As is the case with pretty much everything, we don't want to blow up things. We don't want to blow up our lives for something to work. Start small. And you're doing that today

by listening to this episode and simply naming where you are. That alone is hugely helpful and hopeful as you move in a direction of having more fairness in your home. As I was thinking through this episode with Leah, the director of content on my team, she said, she said something that feels like a great way to close this episode. She said, you're on the same team. Why keep score? So I'm going to leave you with that. We're not here to keep score. We're here to both feel like we're on the same team. If you have a partner, you want to be on the same team. Maybe you need some perspective shifts. Maybe you need some tangible ideas to help you get there. But ultimately, I think this idea of

keeping score is a good one to hold on to. So notice which of the seven challenges you resonate the most with and which tired tier are you at. And how can you start small in moving away from that? Or staying there in a more helpful way if you're staying in a place that's tired and content. And that's how to lazy genius the division of labor. Okay, before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it's Michelle Miller, and y'all are not ready. Y'all are not ready for how magical this is. Here's what Michelle writes.

Each Halloween, I love trick-or-treating with my kids, and every year I freak out about the amount of candy that we get. So on my target run to grab the candy that we hand out, I also grab a pinata. after trick-or-treat wraps up, the kids each get a Ziploc bag to fill up with their favorites. The rest of the candy goes into the pinata for a random winter day when we need some excitement. And then some goes into a bag into the freezer to decorate gingerbread houses. This has been a wonderful compromise and a gift that keeps on giving. You guys, is this not the greatest thing you've ever heard?

I am undone by the brilliance of this on multiple levels. This is peak magic question and just like utter brilliance all around. There's going to be a run on pinatas and gingerbreadhouse kits at Target everywhere. Like I could not love this more. So thank you for sharing this incredible idea, Michelle, and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. Okay, y'all, that is it for today. Thanks 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 bee? 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.