May 4, 2026 • 11 mins
The Secret to Making Chores So Fun...a WaPo article about getting thing done!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'd rather be lit on fire. It's one more thing.
I'm strong and getty. One more thing then what you're
probably wondering, then do that stack of paperwork I've got
sitting on my counter in my kitchen. Oh, I don't
know why that is. I wish I was one of
those people. I wish I was married to one of
(00:20):
those people that, Oh they love that challenge. Oh, I
can't wait to tear into that, start knocking those off,
checking those boxes, getting that taken care of. I've known
people like that. What a great way to go through life.
If you're one of those people that you look at
a stack of paperwork or a cluttered room and just think,
oh my god, I can't wait to get started. You
(00:41):
get you're obviously built different than me, and I don't.
It's not a character thing, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Are there people who revel in it?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh? Absolutely, I've done several, done several just oh. Think
it's such a feeling of accomplishment of tearing into that
stuff and getting it done.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
And I dread it so much anyway. The reason I
brought this up and particular stuff, if you told me
on a Sunday morning, need you to dig a hole
ten feet by ten feet by five feet. I think, well,
I'd rather not, But okay, you tell me I got
to do that stack of paperwork. I'm gonna fake an
(01:20):
illness or step in front of a bus or anything
I've got to do to get out of that for
whatever reason. Anyway, The Washington Post with a piece today
the secret to making chores so fun that you look
forward to them, Strategies to getting things you don't want.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
To do done, Yes, please, And.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
They go through a bunch of them. Some of them
are pretty decent, some of them seem pretty stupid to me.
It's called gamification, and it's exactly what it sounds like,
making those often dreaded tasks of daily life into a
game that comes close to resembling actual fun. And we
rounded up some of the best examples out there. This
one I wouldn't do in my current lifestyle, but I
(02:01):
could see it being a thing back when I was single,
particularly administration night parties. When I first thought that, I
saw that, I thought that's dumb. But this writer said,
administration night party is the lamest party ever. It sounds like,
but it adds a dad of dash of.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Slow down.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
It adds a dash of social fund to tedious but
unavoidable tasks of paying bills filling out school forms. I
got a bunch of those to do today. That's what's
on my mind doing this. I got enrollment stuff. It's
just like, why we've been at the school for years.
You know who I am, you know where we are,
you know the do you know all of this stuff?
(02:41):
Why do I have to fill all this out again?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Anyway, anyway back to this, him and his friends came
up with this idea of administration parties and they would
get some beer and they would meet at somebody's house
and they'd drink beer and talk while they went through
all the stuff. And it turned into something that everybody
enjoys and they do once a week or once a
month or whatever's going on.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
That's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I could actually see that.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yeah, look, we're gonna do paperwork for an hour and
a half. We can shoot the ship while we do
it and have a couple of bruise and then we'll
do something fun.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah. Wow, Wow, that's clever.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
This one I'd never thought of. I don't know if
I'll ever think of it again. The poop rule hmm.
People have trouble getting rid of things, throwing things out
when decluttering.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Oh that's me yep.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Ask yourself if this item was covered in poop, would
I still keep it?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Wow? That's creative.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Behave is to simplify the decision making process. Obviously, the
poop rule helps you decide whether it's something you really
need to keep. Her mind, there's not a lot i'd
keep with poop on it. Well, your spare set of
car keys, you'd clean the poop off and keep them.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Right right, right right.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I'm trying to I'm willing to entertain this notion since
the first one was so good. Oh gosh, Cause it's clothes.
I you know, I'm really bad at Look. I got
this long sleeved golf shirt. I haven't worn it in
five years. Why do I still on it? Well, it
might come in handy if But clothes covered with excrement
(04:20):
is a different, different question than.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I feel like I would get hung up on who
came into my house and pooped in my T shirt drawer.
I feel like we need to get the ring cam
data and figure this out before we worry about decluttering.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
We simply save simply Safe dot Com slish Armstrong.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
We have a bigger problem on our hands than a
little clutter around the house. Somebody came into the house
and pooped in my T shirt drawer.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
The point is not the T shirt.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
There's some sort of rogue shitter hitter home.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Oh sleep my god.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Anyway, this one's less fun and would just not work
on me. Points system assigned points to yours based on
difficulty to see who can get the most points. Making
the bed might be one point. Emptying the dishwasher might
be three. I actually they could be the other way around.
I hate making the bed. Well, do I have a
fitted sheet to put on it? Making the bed? I'm
(05:14):
fine starting with no sheets on the bed at all,
including getting that fitted sheet on there.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I'd rather fight a chimp.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Oh man, Oh, it just takes a long then it
doesn't fit.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Right anyway, and then you have prizes for the end
or your reward. It is a dumb One time to
challenge is this is not a bad idea. I've actually
kind of done this before the ten minute tidy or
whatever time how long, I'm only gonna do this for
fifteen minutes. I'm gonna do paperwork for fifteen minutes. And
then I'm gonna stop. What happens almost always is if
(05:48):
you can get going, because if you're a certain sort
of person, the getting going is the whole ball game.
Once you get going, you blow past the time and
you keep going. But for some reason, it's your trick
in the mind because the getting started. I don't know
what personality type that is, but I've got it like
as bad as anybody has ever had it on earth.
(06:09):
The getting started geez.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Well, right, And it can be like positive stuff too,
whether it's going to the gym, which is arguably positive
that Look, I'm going to go in there for five minutes,
and if I'm not digging it, I'm going to go
home again or stop working out or whatever. I do
that For writing, I know I should write. But what's
the opposite of a journey of a thousand miles begins
with a single step. There's a personality type that I'm
(06:35):
more than familiar with that all that you can see
is the thousand miles, and those first steps seem like
too much to ask. But yeah, if I say, all right,
I'm going to sit down and write for five minutes,
it always turns into a lot more than that.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I wish here was the paperwork equivalent of this. One
of the reasons that I'm able to get to the
gym practically every day is that it's just the perfect
distance from my house and I can make myself walk there,
and there's something about walking there and gets my blood
flowing and everything like that. By the time I get there,
I have no problem being motivated to do it, whereas
if I drove there, I might sit in my car
(07:08):
and think not today and go home. But I wish
there was a paperwork equivalent of that that kind of
got you warmed up and your brain going to where
it's fine.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
But I don't know what that would be.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Oh you just warm up by filling out your name
and address twice and then you're write down your phone
number once.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And oh man, yeah, there we go. I don't know
why those tax forms. I don't know why AI hasn't
taken care of this, and maybe it hasn't for you
smarter people. Why I ever have to type my name, address,
phone number or anything into anything ever again in my life?
It is amazing to me my computer, how many times
have I typed my address into my phone? A million times?
(07:46):
How is it not have that stored somewhere and we'll
always fill it into everything. Some sites are set up
for that, but not all of them. I just I
don't understand how we haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, you have to deal with more crap like that
than me because your kids are still kids. But yeah,
the auto fill my address and phone number happens pretty
automatically with most things I deal with.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Not enough, not enough. It should all be filled in
all the time.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
But an institution that already knows who you are, including
the government. We've talked about this before. There are like
seven different departments of the federal government that have every
bit of information that's humanly available. Why are you asking
me to give it to you for the eighth time.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
What kind of a system is that? Right?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, almost anything that involves a government, which your public
school is. Can I just write the same as the
last eight times you ask me for who the doctor
is and the address and the phone number for the hospital.
What anyway? And then finally another dumb one in my mind,
apps that gamified chores. There are a bunch of different
apps out there. Hubiteka, habit Hunter, and Nipto help organize
(08:55):
household chores, Family Task and personal goals, and an easy
to use app that lend structure rewards, and yes, can
make jobs that are seem like drudgery into fun. I'm
guessing that wouldn't work on me. The first two I
like the best.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I like the.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Getting together and kind of making a party out of
the paperwork. I could see doing that. And then I'm
going to go around my house pooping on things I
want to get rid of because that I wasn't paying attention.
Is that what it was all about?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Well, that helps make it more real.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
I think, you know, I'm just having so much difficulty
picturing this old golf trophy with feces all over it.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Let me, it's a It's one of those things that
if you're the sort of person that this stuff isn't
hard for, you don't understand why you just don't get
off your ass and do it. You're lazy. If you're
the sort of person that it's easy for, you don't
understand what sort of weird mental block it is for
(09:51):
some of us.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
And if I got like points for various you know,
check boxes being checked and if they're you know, I
got like ten points, I got a like nice bottle
of Scotch or something like that. I could see thinking, oh, shoot,
if I just clean out to this and file to that.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I'll get my bottle, but just go buy it.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, well that is the example they actually used on
that one, the points system. If it's for yourself, something
you know of a medium or small price that you've
been wanting to buy, make the rule in your own
mind if I get this room cleaned out, then I
will buy X.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
You can freak yourself that way. Fantastic. I wonder I
have spent my entire adult life with paperwork that I
needed to get done, and I admire people that I've known.
I've been in relationships with women, for instance, that always
have all their paperwork done, and so you get new
stuff coming to mail, but they get that done, so
(10:50):
they never have anything. I've always had stuff that needs
to be done, and I wonder, iful, on my deathbed,
I'm gonna think, why didn't you at some point just
get it done so you could have a day, a week,
a month where you didn't have this hanging over your
head instead of spending your entire freaking life thinking about
this shit. I am going to wonder that on my deathbed.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, bottom line at Michael, I think my favorite golf shoes,
I would go ahead and have cleaned my favorite cereal bowl.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah yeah, probably not.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Well, something do you eat off of my high school diploma?
I probably don't need to clean the LEAs.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, cereal bowls are cheap at Target, Joe, you can
get those.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
You know. In fact, I might go home and crap
on my high school diploma. Well, I guess that's it.
I'd rather be lit on fire. It's one more thing.
I'm strong and getty. One more thing then what you're
probably wondering, then do that stack of paperwork I've got
sitting on my counter in my kitchen. Oh, I don't
know why that is. I wish I was one of
those people. I wish I was married to one of
(00:20):
those people that, Oh they love that challenge. Oh, I
can't wait to tear into that, start knocking those off,
checking those boxes, getting that taken care of. I've known
people like that. What a great way to go through life.
If you're one of those people that you look at
a stack of paperwork or a cluttered room and just think,
oh my god, I can't wait to get started. You
(00:41):
get you're obviously built different than me, and I don't.
It's not a character thing, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Are there people who revel in it?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh? Absolutely, I've done several, done several just oh. Think
it's such a feeling of accomplishment of tearing into that
stuff and getting it done.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
And I dread it so much anyway. The reason I
brought this up and particular stuff, if you told me
on a Sunday morning, need you to dig a hole
ten feet by ten feet by five feet. I think, well,
I'd rather not, But okay, you tell me I got
to do that stack of paperwork. I'm gonna fake an
(01:20):
illness or step in front of a bus or anything
I've got to do to get out of that for
whatever reason. Anyway, The Washington Post with a piece today
the secret to making chores so fun that you look
forward to them, Strategies to getting things you don't want.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
To do done, Yes, please, And.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
They go through a bunch of them. Some of them
are pretty decent, some of them seem pretty stupid to me.
It's called gamification, and it's exactly what it sounds like,
making those often dreaded tasks of daily life into a
game that comes close to resembling actual fun. And we
rounded up some of the best examples out there. This
one I wouldn't do in my current lifestyle, but I
(02:01):
could see it being a thing back when I was single,
particularly administration night parties. When I first thought that, I
saw that, I thought that's dumb. But this writer said,
administration night party is the lamest party ever. It sounds like,
but it adds a dad of dash of.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Slow down.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
It adds a dash of social fund to tedious but
unavoidable tasks of paying bills filling out school forms. I
got a bunch of those to do today. That's what's
on my mind doing this. I got enrollment stuff. It's
just like, why we've been at the school for years.
You know who I am, you know where we are,
you know the do you know all of this stuff?
(02:41):
Why do I have to fill all this out again?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Anyway, anyway back to this, him and his friends came
up with this idea of administration parties and they would
get some beer and they would meet at somebody's house
and they'd drink beer and talk while they went through
all the stuff. And it turned into something that everybody
enjoys and they do once a week or once a
month or whatever's going on.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
That's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I could actually see that.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yeah, look, we're gonna do paperwork for an hour and
a half. We can shoot the ship while we do
it and have a couple of bruise and then we'll
do something fun.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah. Wow, Wow, that's clever.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
This one I'd never thought of. I don't know if
I'll ever think of it again. The poop rule hmm.
People have trouble getting rid of things, throwing things out
when decluttering.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Oh that's me yep.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Ask yourself if this item was covered in poop, would
I still keep it?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Wow? That's creative.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Behave is to simplify the decision making process. Obviously, the
poop rule helps you decide whether it's something you really
need to keep. Her mind, there's not a lot i'd
keep with poop on it. Well, your spare set of
car keys, you'd clean the poop off and keep them.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Right right, right right.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I'm trying to I'm willing to entertain this notion since
the first one was so good. Oh gosh, Cause it's clothes.
I you know, I'm really bad at Look. I got
this long sleeved golf shirt. I haven't worn it in
five years. Why do I still on it? Well, it
might come in handy if But clothes covered with excrement
(04:20):
is a different, different question than.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I feel like I would get hung up on who
came into my house and pooped in my T shirt drawer.
I feel like we need to get the ring cam
data and figure this out before we worry about decluttering.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
We simply save simply Safe dot Com slish Armstrong.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
We have a bigger problem on our hands than a
little clutter around the house. Somebody came into the house
and pooped in my T shirt drawer.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
The point is not the T shirt.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
There's some sort of rogue shitter hitter home.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Oh sleep my god.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Anyway, this one's less fun and would just not work
on me. Points system assigned points to yours based on
difficulty to see who can get the most points. Making
the bed might be one point. Emptying the dishwasher might
be three. I actually they could be the other way around.
I hate making the bed. Well, do I have a
fitted sheet to put on it? Making the bed? I'm
(05:14):
fine starting with no sheets on the bed at all,
including getting that fitted sheet on there.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I'd rather fight a chimp.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Oh man, Oh, it just takes a long then it
doesn't fit.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Right anyway, and then you have prizes for the end
or your reward. It is a dumb One time to
challenge is this is not a bad idea. I've actually
kind of done this before the ten minute tidy or
whatever time how long, I'm only gonna do this for
fifteen minutes. I'm gonna do paperwork for fifteen minutes. And
then I'm gonna stop. What happens almost always is if
(05:48):
you can get going, because if you're a certain sort
of person, the getting going is the whole ball game.
Once you get going, you blow past the time and
you keep going. But for some reason, it's your trick
in the mind because the getting started. I don't know
what personality type that is, but I've got it like
as bad as anybody has ever had it on earth.
(06:09):
The getting started geez.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Well, right, And it can be like positive stuff too,
whether it's going to the gym, which is arguably positive
that Look, I'm going to go in there for five minutes,
and if I'm not digging it, I'm going to go
home again or stop working out or whatever. I do
that For writing, I know I should write. But what's
the opposite of a journey of a thousand miles begins
with a single step. There's a personality type that I'm
(06:35):
more than familiar with that all that you can see
is the thousand miles, and those first steps seem like
too much to ask. But yeah, if I say, all right,
I'm going to sit down and write for five minutes,
it always turns into a lot more than that.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I wish here was the paperwork equivalent of this. One
of the reasons that I'm able to get to the
gym practically every day is that it's just the perfect
distance from my house and I can make myself walk there,
and there's something about walking there and gets my blood
flowing and everything like that. By the time I get there,
I have no problem being motivated to do it, whereas
if I drove there, I might sit in my car
(07:08):
and think not today and go home. But I wish
there was a paperwork equivalent of that that kind of
got you warmed up and your brain going to where
it's fine.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
But I don't know what that would be.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Oh you just warm up by filling out your name
and address twice and then you're write down your phone
number once.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And oh man, yeah, there we go. I don't know
why those tax forms. I don't know why AI hasn't
taken care of this, and maybe it hasn't for you
smarter people. Why I ever have to type my name, address,
phone number or anything into anything ever again in my life?
It is amazing to me my computer, how many times
have I typed my address into my phone? A million times?
(07:46):
How is it not have that stored somewhere and we'll
always fill it into everything. Some sites are set up
for that, but not all of them. I just I
don't understand how we haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, you have to deal with more crap like that
than me because your kids are still kids. But yeah,
the auto fill my address and phone number happens pretty
automatically with most things I deal with.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Not enough, not enough. It should all be filled in
all the time.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
But an institution that already knows who you are, including
the government. We've talked about this before. There are like
seven different departments of the federal government that have every
bit of information that's humanly available. Why are you asking
me to give it to you for the eighth time.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
What kind of a system is that? Right?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, almost anything that involves a government, which your public
school is. Can I just write the same as the
last eight times you ask me for who the doctor
is and the address and the phone number for the hospital.
What anyway? And then finally another dumb one in my mind,
apps that gamified chores. There are a bunch of different
apps out there. Hubiteka, habit Hunter, and Nipto help organize
(08:55):
household chores, Family Task and personal goals, and an easy
to use app that lend structure rewards, and yes, can
make jobs that are seem like drudgery into fun. I'm
guessing that wouldn't work on me. The first two I
like the best.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I like the.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Getting together and kind of making a party out of
the paperwork. I could see doing that. And then I'm
going to go around my house pooping on things I
want to get rid of because that I wasn't paying attention.
Is that what it was all about?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Well, that helps make it more real.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
I think, you know, I'm just having so much difficulty
picturing this old golf trophy with feces all over it.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Let me, it's a It's one of those things that
if you're the sort of person that this stuff isn't
hard for, you don't understand why you just don't get
off your ass and do it. You're lazy. If you're
the sort of person that it's easy for, you don't
understand what sort of weird mental block it is for
(09:51):
some of us.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
And if I got like points for various you know,
check boxes being checked and if they're you know, I
got like ten points, I got a like nice bottle
of Scotch or something like that. I could see thinking, oh, shoot,
if I just clean out to this and file to that.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I'll get my bottle, but just go buy it.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, well that is the example they actually used on
that one, the points system. If it's for yourself, something
you know of a medium or small price that you've
been wanting to buy, make the rule in your own
mind if I get this room cleaned out, then I
will buy X.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
You can freak yourself that way. Fantastic. I wonder I
have spent my entire adult life with paperwork that I
needed to get done, and I admire people that I've known.
I've been in relationships with women, for instance, that always
have all their paperwork done, and so you get new
stuff coming to mail, but they get that done, so
(10:50):
they never have anything. I've always had stuff that needs
to be done, and I wonder, iful, on my deathbed,
I'm gonna think, why didn't you at some point just
get it done so you could have a day, a week,
a month where you didn't have this hanging over your
head instead of spending your entire freaking life thinking about
this shit. I am going to wonder that on my deathbed.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, bottom line at Michael, I think my favorite golf shoes,
I would go ahead and have cleaned my favorite cereal bowl.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah yeah, probably not.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Well, something do you eat off of my high school diploma?
I probably don't need to clean the LEAs.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, cereal bowls are cheap at Target, Joe, you can
get those.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
You know. In fact, I might go home and crap
on my high school diploma. Well, I guess that's it.
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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