Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to divide and conquer streamline household and
Speaker 1: family tasks by deciding once who handles whole areas of responsibility.
Speaker 1: Then you can do your jobs as you best see fit,
Speaker 1: and you can stop worrying about other people's fears of influence.
Speaker 1: Maintaining a home and raising a family are huge jobs
Speaker 1: that encompass myriad responsibilities. Lawn care, home maintenance, cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning,
Speaker 1: check ups and the like for you and your kids.
Speaker 1: Managing children's special needs or therapies, pet care, birthday gifts
Speaker 1: and celebrations, car maintenance, financial management, arranging child care either
Speaker 1: full time or after school and in the summers. Keeping
Speaker 1: up with what's happening in your neighborhood or your religious
Speaker 1: community or your kids schools. Troubleshooting cable and internet issues,
Speaker 1: taking out the trash and recycling. I bet you could
Speaker 1: list at least a dozen more areas of ongoing responsibility.
Speaker 1: We all feel like we are doing a lot, and
Speaker 1: when we do, it is easy to feel that maybe
Speaker 1: other people aren't doing a lot. Such is the stuff
Speaker 1: of so many household arguments. This is especially true because
Speaker 1: sometimes labor isn't immediately visible. One party might resent spending
Speaker 1: time cooking dinner if he or she just signed a
Speaker 1: bunch of kids up for summer camps. But how is
Speaker 1: any one else in the household supposed to know that
Speaker 1: this project just consumed the last two hours. So here
Speaker 1: is one approach to making the logistics run more smoothly
Speaker 1: and to limit everyone's mental load. Divide and conquer list
Speaker 1: household responsibilities and then assign full responsibility for these tasks
Speaker 1: to adults and older children in the household. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: one person might be in charge of grocery shopping. One
Speaker 1: person could be in charge of trash and recycling. One
Speaker 1: person could be in charge of bill paying. One person
Speaker 1: could be in charge of all veterinary care. You get
Speaker 1: this idea. The division of labor is efficient because people
Speaker 1: develop expertise. When the sink springs a leak, there is
Speaker 1: one person in charge of plumbing who knows exactly which
Speaker 1: plumber to call and what is a reasonable amount to
Speaker 1: pay for this service. The party in charge of summer
Speaker 1: camp planning knows exactly how to fill out all the forms,
Speaker 1: and when the deadlines are people can relax about the
Speaker 1: areas that aren't their jobs as well they aren't their jobs.
Speaker 1: No need to worry about whether the trash that normally
Speaker 1: goes out on Mondays needs to go out on a
Speaker 1: different night because of an upcoming holiday. The person in
Speaker 1: charge of trash and recycling, we'll deal with that now.
Speaker 1: Of course, this might not all run completely smoothly. Perhaps
Speaker 1: one sphere becomes utterly overwhelming, in which case roles might
Speaker 1: need to be renegotiated. Certain spheres are probably best split
Speaker 1: for emotional and relationship building reasons, such as taking care
Speaker 1: of small kids during non school and work hours. All
Speaker 1: parties should know at least something about family finances, even
Speaker 1: if one person handles the logistics. So not everything is
Speaker 1: going to be completely divided and conquered. And of course
Speaker 1: there's this common question what do you do when someone
Speaker 1: appears to just not do their stuff every and suffers
Speaker 1: if the trash doesn't go out to the curb on
Speaker 1: trash Day in the garage reeks for the entire next week.
Speaker 1: Someone once left a comment on my blog mentioning that
Speaker 1: in the two parents in this family had decided that
Speaker 1: Party A would always bring the kids to school since
Speaker 1: Party b's jobs started at the crack of dawn. Net result,
Speaker 1: the children had fifty tardies in the course of a year. Yikes.
Speaker 1: It is hard to know what's going on in any
Speaker 1: given situation. I mean there may need to be some
Speaker 1: tough conversations, though in general it's best for people to
Speaker 1: select the jobs that they are most drawn to, or
Speaker 1: that they care most about or have the highest standards for.
Speaker 1: If one party barely loves cooking and the other doesn't,
Speaker 1: the non cooking party is best off being assigned to, say,
Speaker 1: dish duty, rather than having constant fights over a meal
Speaker 1: rotation involving frozen pizzas or take out. There should also
Speaker 1: be a con or station about what constitutes done. In
Speaker 1: an upcoming episode, I'll talk about how there is a
Speaker 1: difference between doing something yourself and making it happen. Even
Speaker 1: if one party loves cooking, general household standards need not
Speaker 1: require a cooked from scratch dinner every single night. There
Speaker 1: also needs to be some grace and no micromanaging. Fifty
Speaker 1: tardis does seem a bit much to me. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, if one party agrees to do children's baths,
Speaker 1: and that party thinks three times a week is just
Speaker 1: fine for children too young to wash themselves. The other
Speaker 1: party's belief that five times a week is right is
Speaker 1: not really relevant. The stakes about this are low so
Speaker 1: but out in general, though, most people who choose to
Speaker 1: share a household want to make things run smoothly. If
Speaker 1: someone who hates grocery shopping knows that taking out the
Speaker 1: trash mean he or she is never going to have
Speaker 1: to visit a grocery store again, well this can make
Speaker 1: for a very attractive trade off. So if you are
Speaker 1: looking for ways to reduce the mental load, consider listing
Speaker 1: out duties and divvying them up, assigning full responsibility for completion.
Speaker 1: You just might make everyone a little happier in the meantime.
Speaker 1: This is Laura, Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the
Speaker 1: number four then Breakfast p o D. You can also
Speaker 1: shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcast at iHeart
Speaker 1: media dot com. Before breakfast is spelled out with all
Speaker 1: the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying
Speaker 1: in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio.
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