Less Stuff, More Joy. Christine Koh Helps Us Edit Our Life
Show Snapshot:
Does less stuff equal more peace? Can we live a better, happier, more purposeful life with fewer commitments and more mental space? Former neuroscientist turned author, and creative Dr. Christine Koh believes integrating minimalism into our lives offers maximum joy and well-being. She hosts the award-winning podcast “Edit Your Life,” which shares ideas for simplifying and decluttering your physical and mental space to make room for the things YOU most care about in life. Learn tips for doing and having less and how to use #microgoals to achieve priorities ranging from decluttering your desk to rebooting your midlife friendships. Less is more!
Show Links:
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Christine’s podcast: Edit Your Life
Quotable:
Big goals are super sexy, and they're what we see pasted over the internet. But they're tremendously daunting and paralyzing at times. I really lean hard in the other direction in every single aspect of my life. I work really hard to break down both the minutiae of life, as well as the bigger goals that I have into microgoals.
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty 0:03
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. If you are a regular listener, an ACA frequent flyer, you know that A Certain Age spotlights expert voices and the stories of women who are making the most of midlife, launching new endeavors and creative projects, women innovating their lives in new and exciting ways, because we are just getting started. This is the very first time the show has featured a neuroscientist, who walked away from academia to become a creative. Dr. Christine Koh spent a decade doing research and prestigious fellowships at places like the Harvard Medical School and MIT. On the cusp of becoming a professor, she hung up her academic hat to pivot into a career creating content that helps people live better, happier and more purposeful lives. Christine is a repeat author and contributes to major media outlets like the Boston Globe, CNN and the Washington Post. She is the host of Edit Your Life, an award winning podcast about simplifying and decluttering your physical and mental space to make room for the things you most care about in life. She joins me today to share ideas for integrating minimalism into our lives for maximum joy and wellbeing. Welcome, Christine.
Dr. Christine Koh 1:22
Hi, thank you for having me.
Katie Fogarty 1:23
I am thrilled about this. I love connecting with other podcasters - I need your expertise. I'm a mom of three kids, I know you're a mom. My kids are in a zillion different directions. I'm married to my college sweetheart who likes to hang on to his college T shirts. We have a lot of random crap in odd corners, an overstuffed family calendar, and I am really excited about hearing your recommendations to hardwire minimalism into our homes and lives. But first, I would love to hear the backstory on how a neuroscientist evolved into an advocate for doing less, having less, in order to experience more peace and joy.
Dr. Christine Koh 2:05
Yeah, I think that, well, thank you for asking these questions. And I think that really when I think about the broad scope of my career switch, it feels like I was living out therapy in real time or something. Because I grew up in a household of scarcity. I was on a very specific path with science, I wanted to become, and it was a valid authentic one at the time that made sense to me, I wanted to become a college professor, I was inspired by the mentors I had at my undergrad college. And you know, I was a good academic, I was really good at it. I'm great at developing experimental protocols and following them through and writing scientific papers and all that stuff. And yet, when I got to my postdoc, arguably one of the fanciest appointments one could have here in Boston at Mass General Hospital, Harvard Medical and MIT, I was just really quite miserable. I mean, it was not what I expected. It was not what I wanted. And you know, all the fire I'd had for science during my PhD and my masters just kind of extinguished. And I think a big part of that was having to deal with other emotional demands. In my case, specifically, I had become a new mom, my dad was dying. And those two things really shifted my priorities, forced me to look at my priorities. And I just realized that, you know, I love working, I want to be doing something interesting and creative and productive, and academia wasn't it. And also, notably, I was very clear that I wanted to return to work. But I knew that if I'm going to spend all this time away from my baby, and, you know, pay for daycare, and all these things and want to spend time with people I care about, that work really needs to matter and light me up, I can't just sort of go through the motions. That was really important to me. And that became clear in the face of the sort of big emotional upheaval of becoming a new parent and losing a parent.
Katie Fogarty 4:09
Sure, you had like a sort of a classic sandwich generation moment, and I think those, those moments of intensity are very clarifying, you know, we are forced to strip away all the stuff that doesn't matter. I'm thinking of an experience that I had a couple of months ago when one of my children had a very sort of life altering accident and then subsequent surgery, and it really puts into high relief what you give a shit about. You know? And what needs to fall away when you have less time. So you, so you had this moment of clarity, you reoriented your career and you became an advocate for what you call quote, you know, "editing the unnecessary to make room for the awesome." And I absolutely adore that notion, we all need more awesome in our life. You know we, we've just come out of three years of sort of tumultuous change, if you look at the news headlines, you know, it feels like, you know, there's a lot of chaos in our lives. And we do want to clarify what we care about and make room for the awesome. And I would love to hear why you chose to sort of focus on a podcast that, that helps people clarify what's important to them?
Dr. Christine Koh 5:22
Mm hmm, yeah. Well, the podcast had a natural run up and this was a real point of self evaluation and discovery. And it, I think it started really with the blog that I'd started as a postdoc that all of a sudden took off and was also a helpful validator. I mean, it wasn't making me money at the time that I left academia, but there was definitely something there. There was community, there was immediacy of publication, it was very gratifying in a very immediate way that is not present in traditional academic venues. And so the thing that happened when I was running that blog called Boston Mamas is, anytime I wrote about doing less, whether it was choosing not to opt into all the activities, like with intention, like really choosing not to do that, or not having all the stuff that everybody was buying, or anything in that lane, it was so interesting, because I would get these messages, it almost felt like digital whispers, you know, people saying, 'We can do that?' Like, 'Can we do that?' And I realized that collectively, this generation of modern parents needed a form of permission. I mean, I didn't think that it necessarily needed to come from me, but clearly, there were a lot of people who felt the same way but were struggling against the tide of what was happening. And so around that time I, when I'd started my blog, I had discovered a writer named Asha Dornfest, she had a very popular new parenting blog called Parent Hacks, so all about, you know, little things, little things to make change in your life as a parent and make your life easier. And I reached out to her, and we connected, and we're very like minded in this perspective. And so at some point down the road in our friendship, we had amassed enough experience and community and anecdotes in our own lives and those of others that I was like, 'Want to write a book about this?' And that led to our book, Minimalist Parenting, which Oh, my goodness, at the time of this recording, is its 10 year anniversary, which is bonkers. And then I think that as we were writing that book, as we were putting the finishing touches on it, I was really pulled by the sense that this conversation about doing less, about really tuning into our values, identifying what really matters to us, and then acting on it, just felt so much broader than parenting. And so I think we had literally just FedExed our pages into the editor, and I said, 'Want to start a podcast and talk about this and have it be intentionally broader?' I'm always, I'm starter of new things.
Katie Fogarty 7:57
I love it, of course, it's so fun.
Dr. Christine Koh 7:59
Yeah, I'm a creative, I'm a doer. And so yeah, that was the origin story for the podcast. And the response over the years has just been tremendous. You know, people need encouragement, they need to find agency. And it was really important to me that the show wasn't just a decluttering show about stuff. It's about our calendars, you mentioned your overstuffed family calendar. It's about our emotional space, about relationships, it's just about so much more, because we are complex mammals, and we have a lot going on, we have a lot to tend to.
Katie Fogarty 8:34
Absolutely, and you know, modern life runs at full tilt. We have, you know, a lot going on, in every aspect of our lives, you know. You alluded to the fact that you're, you started this as a parent, people felt really excited that they didn't have to sign up their kids for a million sports or activities because the world that we live in sometimes makes you feel like all that stuff is necessary. We have you know, we live in the world of The Container Store, which is like designed to house all of our crap, you know, which for some reason we continue to buy and, and we you know, we have a lot of demands in modern life. We're going to explore how we can sort of declutter all of our calendars and our physical spaces and our mental space, but I want to start with the notion of micro goals. You did a show on this, it caught my eye, because I was like, a micro goal? I could get behind that. It feels very manageable and doable. What are micro goals and how can they help move us from unnecessary to awesome?
Dr. Christine Koh 9:33
Yes. So I love the phrase micro goals. I don't know, it came to me kind of in the middle of the night, and I don't know if I'm the only one who's ever said that. Probably not, but I like to think I am. And, and, you know, basically the idea is that, of course, big goals are super sexy, and they're what we see pasted over the internet where people are talking about their big goals and this is going to be the best year ever and all that. And they're tremendously daunting and paralyzing at times. And so, I really lean hard in the other direction in every single aspect of my life. And I work really hard to break down both the minutiae of life, as well as the bigger goals that I have, into micro goals. So things that are really tactical, that can be tackled in relatively short order, or just to have like, you can check it off, you know, when you finish it. And so, I mean, this expands to everything from decluttering my office, which has been a big thing recently, to making more room and intention around my relationships, especially my friendships, in service of my own mental health, to my very real midlife healthcare needs like booking a colonoscopy, which I am talking about all over the internet and people are like into it, I'm normalizing poop conversations, okay, like there is real ROI.
Katie Fogarty 10:58
Yes. This is an important, this is an important step to take. We gotta normalize, everyone needs a book, if you haven't done it yet, that's your micro goal for the end of the show. Hit up your doctor get, a colonoscopy scheduled.
Dr. Christine Koh 11:10
Exactly, exactly. So yeah, it's just it's, it's all about I mean, my general goal in life is I just want people, one, to know they're not alone in their struggles and their and, you know, their desire to make change in their life, and I want to help them along that path to really find that agency and I think it just starts small and small is great.
Katie Fogarty 11:32
Small is great is such a terrific piece of advice. We're heading into a break but when we come back, I want to explore how we apply this in different aspects of our lives.
[AD BREAK]
Christine, we're back from the break we talked about baby steps, starting small, micro goals. All of this feels so doable, which means it gets done, right? You talked about how you apply this notion of micro goals to things like your health, you know, rather than just sort of saying 'I'd like to be healthier,' which feels very abstract, you break it down into concrete steps like book a colonoscopy, maybe it's book a mammogram, schedule, you know, a teeth cleaning, etc. But I was struck by something that you said. You apply this notion of micro goals to your relationships and specifically friendships. I want to hear more about this because you know, my husband is such an enormous part of my life but some of my other key relationships are with my girlfriends. Tell me how you use micro goals to reboot your friendships?
Dr. Christine Koh 13:32
Yes, well, I recently shared an episode called, I think it was called, Simple Friendship Reboot Tactics. And again, this was like me working out my therapy and my experimentation on myself in real time.
Katie Fogarty 13:45
Love it.
Dr. Christine Koh 13:45
And, you know, it came, even developing that show, came from a place of deep humility. I am somebody who has been, I don't know, had life experiences that have really hardened me and made me see things in a very black and white way and I haven't always been the best friend. I've had women who have definitely told me that I have not shown up enough and that I am not a good friend. And even as an evolved 49 year old I, in the last year, have had a couple of relationships that hit some major bumps, major bumps, of which I definitely played a role in. And so, you know, I think, and it's not surprising, we all know this from the loneliness epidemic and the pandemic and the struggles that people have had that our relationships matter. And it's also easy to let them not matter. So when I was thinking about my friendships in the last like four to six weeks I, or in advance of recording that show, I was thinking, okay, I need to make this really simple, really tactical. I'm going to look for any opportunities that I can find where I can even issue a short dose of love to people I care about. And so with small, really small stuff, like, okay, I'm sitting outside of my kids soccer practice, I would normally be scrolling or doing something. But, and I should note, I'm a phone foe, I do not like the phone, but I'm going to pick up the phone and call somebody because I just realized I have an old voicemail from a friend that I still have not responded. It was wonderful, it was life giving. On a shorter scale, it's engaging in like a little text storm with a friend or going to, you know if you want to double up on the love, I went to a book event with a friend for a mutual friend. So we got to show our support and show up and we also got to eat ramen before. So we were living. I mean, it's great.
Katie Fogarty 15:41
Nice.
Dr. Christine Koh 15:42
And I've also found, you know, I think it's important to note that, I don't know, kind of like, when you were saying taking care of your health feels like this big daunting thing. Taking care of your relationships feels daunting, and maybe emotionally loaded. So I do want to encourage people, that if you're somebody like me, and you're very tactical, and you need reminders in order to remember to do things, even as it relates to your relationships, that's okay. And you know, two very specific examples I have, I live and breathe by my To Do app, I use Todoist, I love it, because I can set up recurring tasks. And so on the front end of the week, I have a recurring reminder, I think on Sundays, that says something like 'social relationship check in.' And it's a reminder to me to make sure I have at least one non-work, human social connection that week. It could be in person, but it could also be like a Zoom, you know, meet up with a friend who lives out of state. The other thing I have on Fridays is a recurring Friday task that says 'friend Friday emails,' and at that point, I just take a quick spin through my inbox and, you know, respond to friends who have reached out to me where I haven't gotten back to them yet. So it both initiates connection, and alleviates me of that, 'Oh, I'm such a bad friend,' like that guilt from not having responded to the emails. So I just want to point out that really simple, quick, tactical actions can make a huge difference. I do feel a level of contentment in the last, you know, month or two since I've started doing this, where I feel like I'm connected to people. Like they know I care, I care about them, it makes me happy thinking about them and showing them I love them.
Katie Fogarty 17:27
I love this. It's so, it's about bringing attention to something that's important that we can sometimes neglect, you know, just because our calendars are full. It's smart to schedule it. And it makes me think of, I've had a couple of experts come on to talk about midlife intimacy, and every one of these women who have, you know joined me as guests, has said 'You can schedule sex,' you know, that doesn't mean it's not going to be really fun once you do it. You know, so we can, we can be intentional about putting things on our calendar to reconnect. I do something, usually once a week, where I take a walk with a friend through my neighborhood, which I love doing because it's, again, it's that double dose that you talked about. It's, I'm getting some exercise, I'm getting some vitamin D, we know that movement is important, sitting is the new smoking, but it allows me to reconnect with somebody. And it allows me to walk my pandemic puppy which, which I'm not always,
Dr. Christine Koh 18:21
Which many of us have, yeah.
Katie Fogarty 18:22
Which I'm not always great about doing because she's a little hard to walk. But you know, when I'm doing it with a friend, I, I get that dog leash out and make it happen.
Dr. Christine Koh 18:31
Yeah, totally.
Katie Fogarty 18:32
I love that, I love this notion of bringing intention to this. So I have done a dive onto your website and to your Instagram and I know that you are also applying this sort of notion of intention and you're sort of doing less with, you know, doing less to your wardrobe. I noticed,
Dr. Christine Koh 18:50
Oh, yes.
Katie Fogarty 18:51
This caught my eye, that you've been experimenting with clothing rental versus buying. So I would love to know why are you doing this? Is this about purchasing less? Is it about ease? Is it about taking out some of the stuff like having to shop? Has it worked, what did you learn, is it something we should consider?
Dr. Christine Koh 19:10
Oh my gosh, well, I have a whole episode, I think it's called like, My Clothing Rental Experience, that I shared on Edit Your Life and it has been all the things. And, like, like everything I'm talking about there's a backstory, I will just quickly say I grew up in scarcity. I was the kid who, you know, wore the same outfit one week at a time because that was all I had. And you know, so clothing has always been a little bit of a struggle, you know, and since coming into more of an abundant life where I can buy my clothes and all that stuff, it's also been a struggle. Like I, like many people, moths come around every now and then and eat my sweaters and then I feel bad about having bought the sweaters and I also like wearing bright things but I'm worried about wearing them too many times. I mean, I've so many issues. So anyway, I decided to try renting clothes from Rent the Runway, which by the way isn't just about fancy gowns, although I did wear, rent and wear, an amazing sequined jumpsuit a couple weeks ago for a 50th birthday party and it was awesome.
Katie Fogarty 19:13
Nice!
Dr. Christine Koh 19:13
I'm renting like sweaters mostly because it's cold in Boston right now. But it has been so fun for me personally. So, sorry, let me just say that the reason I shared that backstory is that it took some convincing of myself to say, Okay, this is not frivolous, this matters to you, you love clothing, and you want to dress the way you want to dress and so try this different thing for a while. So there was some like inner wrangling that I had to get to. On the other side of that, I will say it has simplified my life in so many ways. I don't have to wash anything, I just toss it in the bag, I don't even have to drop it off. I just, they'll pick it up on my doorstep when I'm done with my clothes. I get to dress the way I like and it actually makes getting dressed easier. Because I know I have a plan. I know what I'm going to wear, what days and it is just been so fun and awesome. I can't recommend it enough.
Katie Fogarty 21:08
You know, I've actually tried it myself. I've done Rent the Runway for events, mostly. And I just started a rental thing with something called Nuuly and,
Dr. Christine Koh 21:19
Yes.
Katie Fogarty 21:19
I think it's N-U-U-L-Y, or maybe there's two L's. I'll figure out the spelling and put it in the show notes. But it's super fun for me because it's largely an Anthropology rental. And I love Anthro, I do a lot of shopping there. But I don't need to own, you know, a sweater with swans all over it permanently. But I could wear, I could wear twice and be like this was fun. Or, rent like a hot pink coat that I don't want to invest money in but I can wear, you know, once or twice and then return it. And it's been super, super fun. And I would definitely encourage people who have not given this a go yet to consider rentals because we all own too much stuff. I've got things languishing in my closet that I don't, that I don't really wear and I don't need to own. And I'm pretty good about donating so there isn't truly too much in there, but I don't want to add new stuff. And I think we're all getting to that, that phase of life. You know, I have a lot of friends who are about to become empty nesters, maybe they're downsizing, or even if our listeners are not downsizing, they're often helping their parents downsize. And I think we can all agree we all own too much junk. So this is such a smart way of maybe keeping your closet in check. What would be -
Dr. Christine Koh 22:33
Yeah, there's, you know, one other unexpected residual effect of this is that, I mean, I haven't bought clothes ever since I started this. And I think I started it in, I don't know, maybe September or October of 2022. And that means I'm no longer getting credit card statements from like J Crew, which means I'm not spending time logging in and making payments. I mean, they're just so many unexpected things that it's simplified. I mean, if you were really thinking it through at the beginning, of course, yes, that would be an effect, but it's just been like, wow, okay, great. Less emails, less online payments, like I love it.
Katie Fogarty 23:08
Yeah, it simplifies things across the board. So how do we, how do we simplify our homes, you know you, you cover lots of different areas. But if we're trying to actually, your work goes beyond simply decluttering, but, you know, my desk is a hot mess. So if you were to help - everyone's got a hot mess area in their home, it could be your kitchen cabinets, it could be your front hall closet, you know, for me right now it's my desk - what is coaching that you might give to somebody who, you know, needs help tackling areas that, that feel unmanageable?
Dr. Christine Koh 23:43
Yeah, well, I will say that, in general, my perspective is, not surprisingly, it's go micro. So if, like office declutter, that was one of my goals that I had, that I needed to break down into micro goals. So we're talking, empty the top junk drawer, empty the second junk drawer, or like, you know, declutter the closet, get rid of books. Like it's about breaking down those big steps into like one drawer at a time. Now, I say that and I do believe in that as it might apply to your closet, for example. It could be like, take one thing that you're never going to wear again out every time you walk in there. I was doing that for a while, which was a great way to get rid of stuff in a slow way in my closet. So in general, I prescribe a really micro approach because otherwise it's tremendously overwhelming. And so that's actually one reason why I never could really get on board with the Marie Kondo approach of like dumping out your entire closet and then, you know, burning it all to the ground and starting again. That said,
Katie Fogarty 24:45
Oh my gosh, that's so funny.
Dr. Christine Koh 24:47
That said, the other day, as it relates to my office, I decided to buy a standing desk. In order, with the ultimate goal of getting a walking treadmill and you know, getting some more movement and standing in my day. But what happened is when I ordered the desk, it required reconfiguring my office because I wanted to also fix the feng shui. And then getting rid of my desk, which meant if I was going to get my workspace reoriented, at least in general, by Monday, I had to dump everything out. And I will say it was both a disaster, there were pictures that I posted on Instagram and people were like, 'Oh, my gosh, I have huge amounts of anxiety, seeing, like, this level of mess.' But the fascinating thing is, I basically dumped everything into three big boxes/bags, just dumped the drawers out. And since then, this was a few weeks ago, it's been an exercise in only unearthing the things I really need. So my drawers are beautifully empty right now, except for like, you know, some pens and paper and you know, my essential oils, and stuff. So if you feel like you need a big reboot, I guess what I'm saying is give yourself permission to like, dump everything into a bag and then see what you might need at the end.
Katie Fogarty 26:05
Yeah, absolutely. And only fish out things that you're that you're truly missing. I mean, the Marie Kondo thing is such a crack up. I read that book and in some ways it was inspiring, but I thought to myself, there's so many things in my house that don't spark joy that I need, you know, like, like plungers, like that doesn't spark joy. But like, I'd be very sad if it weren't there when I needed it. So we do have to hang on to stuff. But we all we all own too much and as we look to streamline our lives and our, you know, our homes, and sometimes we just need to edit things out. I do love this notion of taking it in micro steps because it does make it feel manageable. Speaking of making things feel manageable, I know your show is called Edit Your Life, but you truly have a lot going on, right? You, you are an author, you write books, you host a podcast, you are a contributor to The Washington Post, Boston Globe, you have kids, you have a side job consulting, what keeps all these trains on the tracks for you? How do you manage your own calendar?
Dr. Christine Koh 27:07
Yeah, I think, well, I will say that I notably shuttered two of my anchor businesses, my blog, which I archived officially in October, and then my resistance apparel line, I put a pause on that on my Etsy shop. And I did those in the last quarter of last year, which was very freeing. But I will say, I do, I am a doer, I love creative things, I'm inspired by those projects. But on a tactical level, I have really embraced in the last several months, calendar blocking. And I know that's gonna sound, might sound a little basic, but let me tell you what I mean. So I used to be the kind of person who really only wanted the things on my calendar that were like meetings where I needed to remember to show up because otherwise, it felt too busy to me, I didn't like looking at it, it was just, it felt like too much. But I recently have started really intentionally blocking my calendar. So for example, say I need to spend some time drafting up interview questions for a podcast guest or something, instead of just having that hanging on my to do list, like to be done at some free time in my day, I put a block on the calendar for that specific task. And so now my calendar is really quite full, but it's with these really intentional blocks. And what I've found is it just, it keeps me focused, it keeps me from jumping in and out of my email. And I think it's helped me work in a more efficient and mindful way. So that's been a just, a really good tactical change in the last several months.
Katie Fogarty 28:45
That's so smart because if we wait for time to have things, you know, free time to make things happen, it just doesn't occur. You know, I feel like nature abhors a vacuum. And, you know, parenting and modern life really just sort of oozes into your calendar and you don't get to the things that are important to you. So it's smart to time chunk it, I do time chunking myself. Also, I had, Lesley Jane Seymour kicked off the podcast with me at the start of 2023, she has done a deep dive into time management, we explore that idea on that show. And we also talked about the Pomodoro method there too, which is where you break your day into 25 minute increments. And I have found all of those tips to be so helpful in my own life of keeping the trains on the tracks with the podcast, my family and my day job. So I love to hear that you do this as well and I've encouraged listeners to take this on if you're looking at your calendar and thinking I'm not getting my important things done, this is a great planning tool. Christine, we're gonna be heading into our speed round because our time is nearing the end. And this is just a quick one to two word answers, we're streamlining our answers for this question.
Dr. Christine Koh 29:53
Okay, let's do it.
Katie Fogarty 29:54
We're editing out the unnecessary, we're sticking to one to two words. Your favorite lifestyle hack that declutters your own thoughts and makes you feel zen?
Dr. Christine Koh 30:05
Favorite lifestyle hack? Oh my goodness. That makes me feel more zen? I would say it would be prioritizing and really acknowledging movement, even if it's just 15 minutes. For me it's yoga even if it's just 15 minutes. It doesn't have to be an hour, it can be quick.
Katie Fogarty 30:23
I love it. I'm with you, Bikram yoga is my jam. So I see from your Instagram that one of your other things that keeps you busy is that you are an avid baker, right?
Dr. Christine Koh 30:35
I am.
Katie Fogarty 30:35
What's the last most awesome thing you baked?
Dr. Christine Koh 30:38
Oh, so it's from Sally's Baking Addiction website and it's her carrot cake cupcakes. But the great hack that makes my family very happy is that I halve the frosting recipe and I turn them into carrot cake muffins so they're appropriate for breakfast.
Katie Fogarty 30:56
Nice. Yum. that sounds good. Latest favorite rental item?
Dr. Christine Koh 31:02
Oh, I think it was the sequined jumpsuit. I do have an Instagram post on that if you want to, if you want to see it.
Katie Fogarty 31:07
I will, we will check that out. Fewer better things is a fab montra, what is something specific you would like to have less of?
Dr. Christine Koh 31:16
I think I would, I think still just stuff is, is an issue. I like to think that I'm on this like seven year declutter ramp until my youngest child leaves the house. So I'm tackling it in micro goals. But there's there's still a lot of stuff as much as, I think I want to acknowledge to people that it's a, it's an ongoing fluid process.
Katie Fogarty 31:40
Yeah, it's an ongoing battle. For me, it's the shoes in the front hall closet. Okay,
Dr. Christine Koh 31:45
Oh, yeah.
Katie Fogarty 31:46
And so this is sort of a good segue. Even people committed to minimalism struggle, right. What's an area of your home that's continually hard to declutter?
Dr. Christine Koh 31:55
Oh, well, I like to joke that - so I live in a side by side condo and there's no front closet, and so everybody puts their coats on the knob of stair rail that leads upstairs - and so I like to joke that this is my battle with exactly no one because it bothers me intensely and it doesn't bother anyone else. I think in my dream world, if I could have some somebody deal with the coats on the knob, I would be really happy.
Katie Fogarty 32:23
Alright, somebody needs to buy Christine a coat rack for her, for her front hall. We're all chipping in. Alright, this has been such a blast. I love connecting with podcasters. I loved hearing your thinking on how we can bring these micro goals to important things like relationships, but we can also apply them in areas of our life like managing our health, managing our home, managing our calendar. This has been fantastic. Here's my last question before I say goodbye. What is your one word answer to complete the sentence, as I age I feel...
Dr. Christine Koh 32:55
Content.
Katie Fogarty 32:56
Nice. Thank you, Christine. How can our listeners find you, your books, and your podcast?
Dr. Christine Koh 33:02
Yeah, I think the best place for everything is Christinekoh.com. I'm Dr. Christine Koh. And I actually have just recently started writing a substack newsletter. So it's just Christinekoh.substack.com. And I would love for people to join me over there.
Katie Fogarty 33:18
Thank you, Christine. All of that will go into the show notes. This wraps A Certain Age a show for women who are aging without apology. Thank you for tuning in and being a friend of the show. Before we say goodbye, a quick favor. I would love a written review over on Apple podcasts. Yes, the star ratings help but written reviews are truly killer. You can share what you learned, why you tune in, mention a favorite guest, or simply let us know if A Certain Age makes you happier, smarter, more inspired, or feel like you've crashed a very fun dinner party and don't need to stick around to help with the dishes. Reviews matter. They help other women like you find the show. Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then, age boldly beauties.