like that sounds intuitive and vague but so much of the day is spent in a period of wait and if you struggle to motivate yourself to do things then this is the best time
waiting for your water to boil? bag up your garbage. waiting for your coffee to drip? wipe down your counters. roommate taking up the bathroom? scoop the cat box. waiting for your food to cook in the microwave? do however many dishes you can while it’s in there.
waiting is the perfect time to do a limited amount of something for yourself where you would be otherwise just standing around doing fuck-all
THIS IS REALLY HELPFUL!
I actually turn this into a game!
“How many chores can I do while the water is boiling for my tea?”
“Can I put away the dishes and wipe the counters before my lunch finishes reheating?”
“Can I sweep the floor AND change the laundry while the dogs are out back?”
You can totally do this! If you make it like a game, also, you will get better at it, and you can be like ‘yes, now I put away the dishes AND wiped out the sink before my water boiled, I am a level 2 Adult!’
It’s also helpful because it reminds you (me) how little time some of these things actually take. “Oh. I can do (X) in the 2 minutes it takes that to heat up in the microwave. I guess it’s not actually a huge overwhelming task that I need to psych myself up for and make Special Elaborate Preparations before I can do it. Huh.”
This is also a super good way to limit the amount of time you spend on something, if there are tasks you tend to over-do, or if like me you have a habit of spending too much time on one thing to avoid doing another thing. I used to help with a dog training class and one of the things we taught our students was in the beginning at least to only do training in short bursts… two or three minutes, high value treats and lots of praise, get the behavior you want once or twice and you’re DONE. People have a tendency when they keep at it for too long to really hammer the dog with the same behavior over and over and be really perfectionist about it and make the whole experience Not Fun At All for their dog, and if you do that over the long term that is super bad. So we’d tell people to only work on training with their dog during commercial breaks. That way there was a definite end time, the dog gets to chill and absorb what you’re teaching while you sit back down and watch your show, you leave them wanting more so they’re eager the next time you jump into it instead of being crabby and over the whole experience, and basically it’s just a win all around.
I can usually manage to clean up at least half of the mess from making food during the waiting parts of the food-making, which is really essential for those days when I’m not braining well enough to actually go back and finish cleaning up later. This way, I at least reduced the mess. I’ve also gotten into the habit of putting away each ingredient immediately after using it, for longer cooking projects, which is useful because it means there won’t be a big overwhelming pile of food to deal with later, and even if I never do any of the dishes at least food won’t be left out to spoil. The only pitfall is sometimes I accidentally engage autopilot and put away things I haven’t used yet and then I have to get them back out…. only on bad brain fog days though.
The other useful thing to do in waiting periods is minor exercise. Just warm-ups and light stretching, but if you’re like me and get bad body aches from sitting weird and not stretching enough, getting in the habit of doing those warm-ups and stretches while water boils or the microwave goes, is super helpful for pain reduction. You could also do a few sets of hand weights or bodyweight exercises in the longer gaps, if that’s your thing.
You could also train yourself to pay attention to your posture and breathing during these gaps. Basically, if you can turn it into the trigger for a healthy habit, like “I just put the kettle on = time to do The Thing”, it’s a good way to sort of trick yourself into self care that you usually forget to do.
“Don’t do any of this” - a bunch of things you totally should NOT do if adobe says what you’ve got is outdated and you should buy the newer worser version
Spotify Premium ad: “Imagine playing music without interruptions! Infinite skipping! Replay the song you want! And even do it offline? No ads! Whatever songs you want! For a small monthly payme-” Me: *nods, turns off Spotify and turns on my MP3 player and does all the things they offer, but for free and with songs they don’t even have*
For those of you who might not know how to do any of this:
To convert CD audio into mp3s, you just follow the steps here
To play mp3 files, you download an mp3 player like Winamp here and away you go
On mobile? There are plenty of free mp3 players for your phone available, too, so check them out
You don’t need to be tethered to an online streaming service for your music. Be free.
You can also rip audio files from youtube and find files all over the internet. It is far easier to come across great and lesser known music if you dont limit yourself to spotify.
Here’s a tutorial on how to get the music and playlists you like with unlimited listening/downloads. This is a free way to do it that I believe is a balance between cost, time, and pros & cons:
If you have the CDs, it will be easier to rip them. Most music managers include this feature and you will have all the track information loaded into the file. There are also pirate websites where you can download entire albums with their metadata attached, but there could be risks associated (I would worry more about viruses than lawsuits these days, though). Deciding a method for acquiring music is a balance of the required time, the alternative costs, and other pros/cons like supporting the artist or taking the risk of pirating sites.
1. Find the song on Youtube. YT has pretty much every song at this point, usually in comparable quality to what you would get on a streaming service.
This is great if you already listen to music on Youtube, but there might be a better method for going direct from Spotify, though this will work either way. The main downside to this method is that official music (and even lyric) videos sometimes have non-music portions so you might have to listen to the whole thing to be sure. SponsorBlock will highlight non-music sections for most artists, so if you have it installed you can tell at a glance if this is the case.
2. Download the audio from YT. There are many ways to download YT videos completely for free. It’s probably against the YT terms of service, but you’re not going to get sued.
I like y2mate for downloading YT videos (or their audio in mp3s) because it’s a simple, ad-free website. You just paste in the URL for the video you want to download. Sometimes it’s laggy and you have to come back later, but usually after a few moments the video loads, you select your download quality (the highest), and then save it. For easy file management, download everything in folders for the Artist, and then sub folders for the Album, and name the MP3 file the “song name”.mp3.
3. Upload to your music player/manager of choice. The file will currently be lacking metadata (Artist, Album, track number, etc) and will be added to the library as a song with its title set as the file name minus its .mp3 extension. Various music players/managers have different ways to add metadata (usually accessed by right-clicking the song) with varying ease.
iTunes is free and and logical if you have an iPhone, but limited in its capabilities. I do all my management/listening in MusicBee (free for Windows) because of its playlist and management features, as well as having a very customizable interface. You can set it to scan the folders you download music to so it will automatically load things into your library, or do so manually. Once loaded into MusicBee, you can batch edit an entire album’s metadata at once easily with Auto-Tagging. Auto-Tag can fetch the details from the internet and fill in artist, tracks, album artwork, etc and save that information to the mp3 file. You can edit this manually if needed too. Drag and drop the edited songs to any other player you may want to add them to so it can find the files.
4. Now you can use the player of your choice to listen endlessly, form playlists, etc. Some free music managers also have music discovery/recommendation features for expanding your collection.
MusicBee allows you to create playlists with folders, subfolders, and dynamic features. You can export these playlists for cross-platform play on other computers with MusicBee installed. I think the playlist features on MusicBee are better than what is on streaming services. You can create an auto-playlist of your recently-added music so you can easily find the ones that are new and might need need editing, adding to other playlists, etc. I have custom tags for music by LGBT artists, sapphic love songs, and more. I also drag-and-drop these playlists directly into iTunes so I have them on my phone too (you can do this to make a new playlist or just edit/add songs to a current one).
There are many music managers/players, including cross-platform ones with streaming, though they usually have fees for that feature. Because you aren’t streaming the music and rather storing it, you’ll need space on each device you want to play the music on, but memory is cheap these days.
You can buy a 2TB external harddrive for less than Spotify or Youtube Premium costs for six months, so having to store the songs isn’t much of a downside. Plus, the song will never “leave the service”, you can listen to it offline, etc.
I do encourage people to pay for art, especially from small, independent artists. You have to pay for art if you want to keep it alive, but there is debate over if streaming services are really “paying the artist”. Alternatives include buying and ripping CDs, purchasing merch or tour tickets (where artists make a lot of their money), etc to support them with something other than streaming views.
This is a big, giant list of Youtube tutorials that will teach you all the basic life skills you need to know in order to be a functional adult. There are a lot of important skills that aren’t included in this list, but this should be enough of a basic guide to get you started and prevent you from making a total mess of yourself. Happy adulting!
If there’s ever anything you want that isn’t on this list…youtube it. Everyone always comments on my handiness, but everything I know comes from an old guy and his iphone.
Not an adult yet but I got a feeling this’ll come in handy
Imagine you and your partner have been living together in the same apartment for a reasonably long period of time.
On the whole, your partner seems great. They’re smart, supportive, and totally on board with an even division of chores. But over time, you notice something odd - no matter how long you and your partner live in the same apartment with the same responsibilities, they just never seem to get the hang of any of the chores. Your partner can grasp complicated technical concepts for their job or hobby, but several months into living together, they still claim they don’t know how to properly operate the washing machine or dishwasher. They don’t know where you keep the toilet cleaner or what time they’re supposed to feed the dog. They have no idea what day the garbage gets picked up or how they’re supposed to sort the recycling.
When you do manage to wrangle them into doing chores, everything they manage to do is done poorly or with little effort. They put dishes back in the wrong spots when they unload the dishwasher and crumple up the laundry instead of folding it. They bring the wrong things back from the grocery store, even when you send them with a list, and do such a sloppy job of mopping that you can barely tell the floors have been mopped at all. They require so much assistance to do basic chores and do such a poor job that, eventually, you just stop asking them to do chores at all - since you end up re-doing all of their work, it’s easier for you to just do it right the first time.
But despite how it may appear, you don’t actually have an incompetent partner.
You have a partner who has learned to weaponize incompetence.
“Weaponized incompetence” - also called “strategic incompetence” or “performative incompetence” - is a manipulation tactic, where a person will purposefully feign incompetence to get out of doing tasks that they find unpleasant. The idea is to intentionally do tasks so badly and require so much help that you grind other people down; you convince other people that you simply aren’t capable of pulling your weight, or you make yourself so difficult to deal with that it’s simply less effort for others to just do your chores for you. It doesn’t matter if you work as a literal rocket scientist - you just keep insisting that you can’t figure out what to feed your children or when the electrical bill is due until other people feel they have no choice but to take over for you.
If you’re living with someone or dealing with someone who has mastered the use of weaponized incompetence, here are some quick things you should know:
This behaviour is an act. Let’s get one thing clear: your partner (or whoever else you are sharing chores with) knows how to wash dishes. They know how to vacuum the floors. They are capable of remembering that Thursday is garbage day. These are not complicated tasks. Even if a person is genuinely new to household chores, we live in a golden age of information; all of us have instant access to a wealth of blogs, articles and video tutorials that will teach us any household skill we need to know. If a person is genuinely making an effort, it does not take years to learn how to separate laundry or figure out which cupboard the plates are kept in. It’s true that most people will be better at certain chores, or prefer certain chores. But a partner (or anyone else) who claims to be hopelessly bad at everything they dislike is putting on a show.
This is a learned behaviour. Why would a grown adult pretend to be so incompetent that they can’t figure out how to make a simple dinner? Because it works. It gets them the outcome they desire, which is other people taking over their responsibilities for them. Having other people think you’re clueless is a small price to pay if it means you get to do whatever you want while others scramble to cover your responsibilities.
Weaponized incompetence is different than ADHD. There is a big difference between someone who wants to pull their weight but gets distracted halfway through a chore, and someone who does a bad job on purpose so no one will ever ask them to do chores again. A person with ADHD may need more reminders and take more time to do chores (or any other tasks), but they produce high-quality work. People with ADHD also tend to be aware of their issues with task management, and work on strategies to overcome it. People weaponizing incompetence will simply insist that they are hopeless and see no point in trying. It is possible for a person with ADHD to use weaponized incompetence intentionally, but this is different than their own inherent struggles with executive functioning.
There is a gendered component to weaponized incompetence. Anyone, of any gender, is capable of faking incompetence to wriggle out of chores, but there are some gendered differences in who actually does it - this is a tactic most often observed in men. In a world where women still do the majority of housework and childcare, even in households where both partners work full-time, this is one tactic that women are increasingly observing in male partners who want to get out of domestic work while still touting egalitarian ideas. Our culture has a much greater tolerance for incompetent men than it does incompetent women - the dad who drops his kid off at daycare with two mismatched shoes and three packs of cookies for lunch is an overwhelmed parent doing his best, but the mother who does the same thing is viewed as a shitty mom.
This is not limited to romantic partnerships. Anyone can weaponize their incompetence, not just partners - it could be friends, coworkers, roommates, teenage children, or just about anyone you have to share responsibilities with. That roommate who claims they don’t know how to pay the wi-fi bill or clean the bathroom wasn’t raised by wolves - there’s a good chance they’re simply choosing not to figure these things out because they know you’ll do it for them.
The only way to combat this behaviour is to not tolerate it. People use weaponized incompetence because it works - eventually, you break down and do the thing for them. The key to combatting it, then, is to make sure that it stops working. Don’t jump in to help. Don’t offer to do it for them. Don’t spend hours drawing handmade maps of the grocery store because your husband insists he’s incapable of buying toilet paper on his own. When someone insists they can’t possibly do a household task that they’ve been asked to do dozens of times before, resist the urge to take over and simply say “I’m sorry, I have my own work to do. You are capable of figuring it out.” Remind them that figuring out how to do the chore is, in fact, part of the chore - if they don’t know where the clean bowls go or what needs to be on this week’s grocery list, it is their responsibility to investigate and work it out for themselves.
I spent several years living with a (now-ex) partner who had mastered the use of weaponized incompetence to squirm his way out of everything he didn’t want to do in life. He got himself fired from numerous jobs so his parents would continue paying his rent and bills - eventually, they gave up on the idea of him working at all. Over and over again, he put the wrong soap in the dishwasher, over-loaded the washing machine until it flooded, and scraped non-stick pans with metal spoons. He quickly learned to use complex recording and sound equipment for his hobby, but scraped a Swiffer across the floor with no pad attached, claiming he just wasn’t capable of using one properly. I, inevitably, would get frustrated and take over for him, inadvertently teaching him exactly how to get out of his chores.
The incompetence only stopped when I did. I reached a point where I was tired of hounding a grown man to wipe up his own spilled juice or wash his own underwear. So I stopped picking up after him. And when the apartment finally got disgusting and he reached the absolute limits of how long he could re-use the same underwear, something miraculous happened - all of a sudden, he realized he did know how to do laundry and dishes after all.
Remember, there’s a point where you aren’t helping others by saving them from their responsibilities - you’re only hurting yourself.
reblogging here because i can see this being relevant to anyone who’s ever tried to get out of an abusive relationship
Reblogging because that last comment made me reread the whole thing in a new light and realize this could be vital information. So, putting it out there for everyone, and hoping no one ever really needsit.
Apot-in-pot refrigerator,clay pot cooler is an evaporative coolingrefrigeration device which does not use electricity. It uses a porousouterearthenware pot, lined with wet sand, contains an inner pot (which can be glazed to prevent penetration by the liquid) within which the food is placed - the evaporation of the outer liquid draws heat from the inner pot. The device can be used to cool any substance. This simple technology requires only a flow of relatively dry air and a source of water.
The most elaborate versions of these used special cuts to channel air flow and allowed the ancient Persians to create frozen delicacies in the summers. Sharbat, anyone?
i am not joking we need to force teach cooking in schools. like. it is an essential thing for survival. do you know how easy it is to make things if you know even the bare bones shit about how cooking works. we need to teach teenagers how far you can take an onion and some other veggies it’’s sad that people grow up not knowing how to prepare literally anything. and i’m not talking about oh this home ed class taught me how to make chicken nuggets at home i’m talking about learning the balancing of sweetness and acidity and saltiness and bitterness and shit like that and techniques and oil temperatures and how meats cook. it needs to be taught because it’s literally not even that difficult and it matters so much
i truly believe that knowing how to cook is a basic survival concept and the fact that so many people can’t even make simple dishes is depressing as hell this is the sorta thing that should be taught at a young age. being able to take the ingredients you have around your home and turn them into a meal is like, essential and will make life so much better. you don’t need to be a high end chef you just need to understand some things that can be easily taught… but then again maybe the education system is playing a roll against this and ultimately they want you to grow up to rely on mcdonalds for dinner. i don’t know. please learn how to cook for yourself if you’re able. i’m not asking you to hunt for specific ingredients to make some expensive youtuber’s “best” recipe but if you know the basics of cooking you can do a lot with cheap canned ingredients. cooking can be affordable i promise you just need to learn how to make do with what you can get
Can anyone point me towards resources that teach those basics cus I would LOVE to teach my child this stuff but i dont know how to cook
kitchen tools (although the specific suggestions are pretty expensive even with the lower end scale items the basic categories are solid, and you can evaluate what items you will realistcially need - eg. if you dont need to read temp for steaks etc the temp reader will not be relevant) &
the western supermarket playlist of chinese cooking demystified (more recipes available but these are accessible if you dont have “specialty” ingredients)
cooking with boris (bear with me here i know he does it exaggeratedly humorously but a lot of them are actually solid and beginner cook friendly. mostly slavic/russian)
you suck at cooking (also falls into the intentionally humorous category but most of the recipes are pretty solid anyway)
how to cook that (baking, also does debunking videos of viral cooking hacks - breaks down the reasons the hacks dont work, pretty important to understand those basics imo)
i REFUSE to recommended joshua weissman because he is fucking insufferable but if you want you can try if you can deal with it, the techniques/recipes seem fine for the most part
again definitely not a comprehensive list but it touches on most of the basics
Both genders should know how to change diapers. Both genders should be expected to pay for their meals. Both genders should know how to cook. Both genders should know how to start fires, cut wood, and pitch tents. Both genders should wash dishes, clean, and do laundry. Both genders should be able to defend themselves. Both genders should be able to sew and repair clothing. Both genders should know how to change a tire and oil. Both genders should learn basic first aid skills. Both genders should be able to garden and hunt for food.
They’re basic life skills. (I’m adding from the comments)
How to Adult is coming to an end, but we’re so proud of the channel and the amazing community around it. Thanks for being part of this with us. Our last episode is about how to say goodbye.
Tying a necktie is hard and NO ONE knows how to do it. Well, probably some people do, but for everyone else, here’s a video you can refer to every time you have to do a fancy thing!
