Wearing Sneakers Is My Secret Weapon For Being More Productive At Home

It's a surprisingly effective way to turn a Lazy Scary Sunday into a Today Seems Like As Good A Day As Any To Reorganize My Closet Sunday.

A few years back, I discovered a little trick that worked surprisingly well for helping me get shit done, and that I offer to you today in the hopes that it might help you too: when I need to have a productive day at home, I wear sneakers around the house.

Rachel Miller

I typically don't wear shoes indoors, though it used to be the case that I'd wear Uggs while working from home. These days, I'm Team Slippers because that keeps my feet warm and my socks (and apartment) clean, and also because our homes are death traps.

But one morning in 2014, I put on a pair of sneakers so I could go outside and spray paint something, and I ended up leaving just them on so I could pop outside to do additional coats throughout the day…and discovered that I had superhuman strength (i.e. motivation) all day long!

I was honestly surprised by how much of a difference this made in my productivity, but apparently there's something about wearing athletic shoes that just puts me in an active mindset. It also makes me less likely to flop down on the couch. Since then, I've found that the days when I wear sneakers at home, I am way less lazy about running up and down the stairs, taking care of chores, and crossing items of my to-do list.

Rachel Miller

If you're not the sort of person who ever wears outdoor shoes indoors and are already scrolling to the comments to yell this fact at me, let me say this: that's fair. I grew up in a "shoes on or off, do what makes you comfortable, we DGAF" household so I didn't think twice about wearing sneakers in my home at first. But now that I know more about keeping house and happen to live in a city where I literally have to dodge piss, shit, vomit, and other unmentionable things every time I leave my apartment, I totally see how this idea could squick you out. Luckily, my consumption habits are such that I have been able to set aside a specific pair of impulse-buy sneakers that never got much wear and that have clean-ish soles that I can treat as sort of sneaker-slipper hybrid. But if you simply cannot imagine wearing any shoes indoors, not even brand-new ones, I respect that and I respect you.

If you're more neutral on the topic of shoes indoors, you might find this trick useful if you need to power through chores, errands, meal prep, your taxes, and things of that nature! For me, it's become an easy but surprisingly effective way to turn a Lazy Scary Sunday into a Today Seems Like As Good A Day As Any To Reorganize My Closet Sunday.

What's your favorite trick for getting shit done around the house?

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