Edit Your Life | Simplify + Declutter Your Home, Time, and Mental Space

The tension between getting more stuff done and slowing down enough to savor and appreciate what’s happening around you is an ongoing challenge. Christine and Asha share simple ideas for how to be present in daily life when you’ve got a long to-do list hovering over your shoulder. They talk about communication and scheduling tweaks, device-free tactics, boundary setting, and more. Edit Your Life is an award-winning podcast that shares practical ideas for decluttering your home, schedule, and mental space without getting bogged down by perfection. Visit edityourlifeshow.com for show notes and to connect with host Christine Koh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you’ve listened to our media and entertainment review episodes, you’ve heard Christine rave about the Gimlet Media shows Homecoming, Science Vs., and The Habitat. Today we want to introduce you to a new Gimlet Media podcast we think you’ll love: Motherhood Sessions. On Motherhood Sessions, psychiatrist Dr. Alexandra Sacks works with women who are struggling with the massive life and identity shifts that accompany motherhood. In the first episode, you’ll hear from Zoe, a woman who’s grappling with low self-esteem, a difficult ex- who isn’t carrying his co-parenting weight, the challenge of asking for help, and how to deal with her anger over what she now sees as a path filled with red flags that she chose to ignore. We hope this honest, compelling conversation resonates with you. (Note that Motherhood Sessions covers sensitive topics and includes some profanity.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's always a good time for kids to learn real-world life skills, no matter how old they are. And judging by the viral popularity of our recent “100 Life Skills You Can Teach Your Kids in 5 Minutes or Less” list, people want to get started. Christine and Asha follow up on their list with practical tips for how to teach kids life skills. They talk about the importance of frustration tolerance, how to nudge to reluctant kids to learn, the reality that kids sometimes learn more readily from other adults, and the welcome reminder that it’s never too late to start.Edit Your Life is an award-winning podcast that shares practical ideas for decluttering your home, schedule, and mental space without getting bogged down by perfection. Visit edityourlifeshow.com for show notes and to connect with host Christine Koh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Language evolves over time; we need to evolve with it. Christine interviews Casey Brown about gender identity, language, and parenting. They talk about Casey’s gender identity journey over the last 17 years, the importance of giving kids room around gender identity, how kids are often more comfortable than adults when talking about gender, “pronouns 101,” and how compassionately communicating with other human beings boils down to some really, really simple universals and actions.Edit Your Life is an award-winning podcast that shares practical ideas for decluttering your home, schedule, and mental space without getting bogged down by perfection. Visit edityourlifeshow.com for show notes and to connect with host Christine Koh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This podcast offers 8 tips for parents to help kids handle disappointment while not hovering. It discusses the importance of experiencing discomfort and disappointment for growth. It also highlights the value of reframing disappointments as a normal part of life and shares practical tips for empathetically acknowledging frustration and finding distractions.

Cooking = essential life skill. Christine and Asha talk about 10 tips for teaching kids to find inspiration in the kitchen and get cooking -- notably, in a low stress way spanning toddler through teens. Because hello, move-out skills.Edit Your Life is an award-winning podcast that shares practical ideas for decluttering your home, schedule, and mental space without getting bogged down by perfection. Visit edityourlifeshow.com for show notes and to connect with host Christine Koh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Parenting is all about trial and error. You make the best decisions you can in the moment and often times don’t know how things will play out. Also, some things you think are a huge deal end up not being a big deal, while other things you didn’t notice or pay much attention to turn out to be really important. Christine and Asha talk about 8 lessons they have learned (and do-overs they wish they could have!) over their years parenting kids who now range in ages from 6 to 17. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Change can be hard and scary -- the uncertainty, the letting go of security, the need to trust in the act of trying. In this episode, Christine and Asha talk about and share Christine’s interview with actor Dr. Ken Jeong (of The Hangover and Dr. Ken fame) about making leaps. In this candid interview, Jeong shares about leaving medicine for acting, dealing with fear of failure and other people’s expectations, letting go of control, how his experience has impacted his parenting, and why his wife was the missing link and the catalyst for his success.Edit Your Life is an award-winning podcast that shares practical ideas for decluttering your home, schedule, and mental space without getting bogged down by perfection. Visit edityourlifeshow.com for show notes and to connect with host Christine Koh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Protecting our kids is the most basic of parenting jobs, but how much is too much? When we shield kids from anything that’s remotely risky, we erase a valuable learning opportunity. In Episode 32 of Edit Your Life, Christine and Asha discuss the importance of exposing kids to reasonable risk and danger, how “reasonable” differs from parent-to-parent (even in the same family), and how knowing-- and trusting -- ourselves is crucial as we navigate risky territory with our kids. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The never-ending nature of paper clutter -- incoming mail, bills, and school papers -- is both irritating and anxiety-provoking, and yet most of it can go straight into the recycle bin. In this episode, Asha interviews Erin Doland, Real Simple’s organizing columnist and author of the new book, Never Too Busy to Cure Clutter. Asha and Erin discuss the wisdom of handling paper clutter in small bits, note the energy difference between mindful and mindless organizing, and share practical tips for both handling incoming paper and busting through the paper clutter already filling your house.Edit Your Life is an award-winning podcast that shares practical ideas for decluttering your home, schedule, and mental space without getting bogged down by perfection. Visit edityourlifeshow.com for show notes and to connect with host Christine Koh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices