4min chapter

How to Be a Better Human cover image

How to keep house while drowning (w/ KC Davis)

How to Be a Better Human

CHAPTER

The Pros and Cons of Care Tasks

"There are these loads of care tasks that are almost invisible labor," she says. "I will say that I felt a chill run up my spine when you said that doors needed to be oiled" For someone like her, who has ADHD, it's easier for her to do things with her hands if they're not in the kitchen or living room. She finds ways to introduce those elements into the care task she's doing.

00:00
Speaker 1
It's not true that, you
Speaker 2
know, if you don't have children, you don't have a valid excuse
Speaker 1
to be struggling with getting care tasks done. To your point about, you know, it's not just things
Speaker 2
in the home, there
Speaker 1
are these loads of care tasks that are almost invisible labor, right? Like remembering that Valentine's need to go to school on Friday or whatever, or remembering that there are bills to pay or thinking about,
Speaker 2
we had a house once with a door that faced the sun, and we were told like, okay, you have to like oil this door three times a year or it's going to like crack and break,
Speaker 1
and it's like, okay, but like, who's thinking about the wooden door? Who's oiling our doors? And although oiling the door takes maybe 60 seconds, the mental load of having to remember it, having to remember to buy the lemon oil, having to figure
Speaker 2
out if you have it or you stored it, having
Speaker 1
to plan it, having to put it in some sort of system so you don't forget it, like there's a lot that goes on mentally to prepare for a care task. And so the labor output is not just what you can see with your eyes. I will say that I felt a chill run up my spine when you said that doors needed to be oiled because I was like, oh, no, is that yet another thing that I did not know that you have to do and to make sure that your living space does not explode? I think it just speaks to different people have different strengths and different things that are overwhelming for us. Yeah, and they kind of have like their own pros and cons, right? Like the stuff that happens daily, I find much easier to create systems for, but the discouraging part of those is the like, every day, like if I don't want to do it one day, I have twice as much the next day. You know what I mean? There's like that aspect of it and then with the once in a while tasks, sometimes those tasks have a feeling of productivity to them. You know, projects are different than care tasks. They can sometimes be care tasks, but this idea that there's a beginning, a middle and end and then a product at the end, you never have to repeat it. It's like that famous kamoo quote, right? One must imagine Sisyphus happy. He keeps pushing that rock up and down and it keeps coming down. And you know what? That's life. That's the life that we all live is you got to just keep that boulder moving. It's not it's not going to get to the top and that's okay. I'm not entirely sure that's really what kamoo met, but that's what I'm interpreting it as right now. And that's why I think it's totally valid to go, I hate
Speaker 2
this
Speaker 1
task. So how can I make it easier or how can I make it more enjoyable? And for someone like me, like I have ADHD, which I know is a malfunction in the way that my brain processes a lot of things, but one of them is the regulation of dopamine, which is like the feel good chemical. So what happens for me is that while you might do something in your house and you feel motivated to do it, and then you tell yourself to do it, and then you do it, then afterwards you go,
Speaker 2
you know, I feel good that I did that.
Speaker 1
I don't experience any of that. Any of it.
Speaker 2
I want to do it.
Speaker 1
I cannot make myself move. If I make myself do it every moment that I'm experiencing sucks. And I don't feel accomplished afterwards. And so I have to find ways to introduce those elements into the care task I'm doing.
Speaker 2
I have to have a podcast or an
Speaker 1
audio book. I had to buy myself the
Speaker 2
like
Speaker 1
the little air buds that were wireless because if I have something in my brain happening, it's easier for me to do things with my hands that I would rather otherwise find boring. I have to come up with a systematic way to clean a room so it's the same every time.

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