A Novel Approach to Chores

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In December 2025, my life changed forever.

I learned how to hack my brain and love doing chores.

The cure? Audiobooks and a pair of noise-cancelling headphones.

You might think it’s hyperbole when I say my life changed forever, but I assure you, it is not. I used to DREAD the part of the day where one of two things took place:

1. Laundry had to be done.

2. The house had to be restored to order after the kids went to bed.

Then, I discovered Audible. Silly, because Audible has been around for ages and this is hardly breaking news to anyone. But to me — a former full-time stay-at-home mom with zero time, energy, or desire, for that matter, to so much as crack open a book, let alone listen to one — it was a revelation. When, precisely, was I meant to be putting on noise-cancelling headphones during the day?

But my youngest daughter started school in the fall of 2025, granting my brain the liberty to noise-cancel the world into oblivion and escape into the novel of my choosing.

I am, at present, in a season where anything I read or listen to MUST be entertaining. Perhaps down the road I’ll have more bandwidth for something meatier, or even nonfiction (aside from Ina Garten’s memoir, which I devoured just as swiftly as her Dijon chicken thighs), but for now, I require a great story. Specifically, a mystery.

I had just purchased Verity at a bookstore and was totally intrigued, but way too exhausted to stay awake and actually read it at night. “Why don’t I just listen to it tonight while I do the dishes?” I thought to myself.

Cue the life-altering discovery.

Since then, I’ve proudly achieved Scholar status on Audible — which likely means nothing to you, and, in full transparency, doesn’t mean much to me either — and have listened for 34 consecutive weeks.

I thought it’d be fun to share some of my favorites so far, for those of you, like me, in search of motivation to tackle the household tasks you’ve been avoiding. Soon you’ll be happily volunteering to be the one who scales the laundry-basket equivalent of Mount Everest currently occupying your living room.

So grab your Audible app, and if you’re anything like me, hop on your walking pad, don your noise-cancelling headphones, and prepare to purchase some credits.

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