What happens to an area when a beaver comes to build its dam? It changes the whole dam/n? [also, apologies in advance for how many times this pun appears in this post] ecosystem around it—
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There’s a podcast called “How Did This Get Made?” which features several comedic actors dissecting terrible movies and bantering over why and/or how exactly these ridiculously awful and seemingly implausible projects get greenlit. The same is true about house remodeling.
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The “Cleaning Alpha” is the person in your household who cares the most about how things look and/or how tasks are done. This person sets the standard for “how we do here,” and anything short of this standard, for any given task, will not be tolerated—either implicitly or explicitly.
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In honor of my recently-celebrated* 18th wedding anniversary, I thought I’d share my and my husband’s tradition of what we fondly—as non-corporate-style people—refer to as the “The McGee Corporate Retreat.”
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again* WHAT IS THE LEAST AMOUNT OF WORK I CAN DO RIGHT NOW TO MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR MY FUTURE SELF?
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“Passive-aggressive Chicken” is a phenomenon that happens when there is a chore that obviously needs doing, but nobody does it. The obviousness of the chore increases exponentially over time because people keep contributing to its need to be done.
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See what I did there? New year, new you? New year, CUE YOU? GET IT? OK so I haaate that patriarchal, women’s magazine bullshit saying, as it is designed to get women to buy things to make themselves physically and energetically smaller, but this post is all about how to set up your to-do list in a visual way (in other words, how to get your environment to cue you to do things) AND THE WHOLE THING IS A PUN AND I CAN’T RESIST A PUN.
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Happy (Gregorian) new year! In light of the proverbial “fresh start” that people crave at this time of the calendar, I thought I’d share my current scheduling framework for my otherwise unstructured pandemic L-I-V-I-N’, in case it is helpful to those who are looking for ideas for their own daily frameworks. More importantly, I will describe how I have tricked myself into doing them regularly! by which I mean how I have connected my doing them to WHY I’m doing them.
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OK so instead of sitting down to write this post, I cleaned the bathroom. Two of them! So I’m going to make an example of myself in order to tell you about that sneaky little so-and-so, the patriarchy!
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As you likely know, I supremely enjoy thinking about how we shape our environments and subsequently how they shape our behavior—that it’s this ongoing feedback loop that spills over into how we think and how we feel in everyday living.
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For a couple of years, I volunteered at my daughter’s school helping to organize [the immeasurably disgusting] lost and found. Which sometimes? resulted in me passive-aggressively ranting at parents on our school’s social media page and/or at parent group meetings, wherein I urged them to come and collect their children’s [muddy/moldy/lice-y/gross] belongings as well as talk to their offspring about taking responsibility for their things.
(Yes. I’m fun. It’s true.)
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One of my many catchphrases is BE IN INTEGRITY WITH YOUR STUFF. Sounds lofty, but what does it mean?
Integrity is about knowing where you stand, morally/ethically/spiritually/wholeheartedly, on a continuum of anything, and then consciously adhering to that stance.
What does it mean related to your stuff? It means your home is full of items that you have an active stance on—things that, as Gretchen Rubin says, you need, use, and/or love—and only those things.
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OK, so yes. I’m THAT PERSON who cleans their house. Thoroughly. Regularly. In the corners. Because genetics. Or internalized bullying. Either way.
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Well, even though we may not know each other, let’s get personal—I really hate small talk anyway.
I’m speaking to those of you who may be looking right now at a full sink of dishes, markers strewn about the table, a pile of shoes on the rug, a complete “floordrobe,” etc., and scratching your head, wondering HOW DID THIS HAPPEN and more importantly, WHY?
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Here in the northern hemisphere, we’re plummeting into the time of year that PNWers call “The Big Dark,”* wherein 3:45pm is basically bedtime-level dark outside. It’s a lot.
*Another nickname for 2020, perhaps?
Luckily, there are things you can do to make your home feel brighter.
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A friend who loves to take notes and make notes asked me this morning how to manage her beloved scraps of important insights, so that she doesn’t feel like she is living in a well-lined birdcage. Good question—and, with universal implications (i.e., not just papers). I even came up with a new catchphrase to answer it! Are you ready? (Spoiler alert: It’s in the title itself.) ACCUMULATE, THEN CURATE.
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