“Because it was a new skill for me and I don't have any interior designer friends, I ended up using ChatGPT a lot and it ended up being like an interior designer for me, but also a buddy to bounce ideas off of. And so practically speaking, what I would do is I would make some changes, and I would take a picture, and then I would upload it and be like, hey, what do you think about the space? Like, what are some improvements that I could make? And it was actually shockingly good at pointing out things I could do differently.”
Japanese restaurants taught us how presentation changes meals
“One of the things that struck me most about our trip to Japan was the way in which Japanese restaurants actually present food. They often have little ceramics for each little dish, and it kind of keeps your eating experience very clean, but also pleasant. And I think overall I came away with the idea that the way that you present your food or deliver it to people, including yourself, actually changes the eating experience and your perception of it.”
“If I gave a tip for space optimization, my recommendation would be for people to walk around their house, sort of notice these problems like the build up places or as you're cooking, what's really annoying that keeps happening to you. Just literally pay attention. Go to the container store and walk every single aisle and you'll see things like, oh, I can't really organize my pots and pans without rejiggering it constantly.”
“Frugal staff ended up coming in and saying, hey, why don't we go to the West Elm outlet tomorrow and just see what they have? And so I had bought this couch online and I'm like, oh God, it's an hour and a half away, but Okay, let's do it. And by the grace of the gods, the universe, whatever you wanna call it, the couch that we bought was actually there. It had arrived the night before, and we ended up getting it for, like, $900 cheaper and having it delivered that quickly.”
“I think what we did probably could have taken three or four months, and it would have been less hectic. Though there's something about getting obsessed with something for a short period of time. This project only took a month. So I know a lot of home optimizations or changes can take months and years. In this case, it was very, very siloed. Once you got into it, you're like, I wanna just do it all now.”
“I ended up doing most of this on my own, partially because it was me who really wanted to get it done. But in the beginning, I was checking with you on a lot of things. Hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? And over time, you're just like, I trust you to make the decision. And I think that that was a really important part of actually making it happen in a short period of time because without that, we would just get into decision paralysis.”
“So we started with the kitchen table with a specific goal of having at least six people fit comfortably, but that naturally led to everything else. Like, the next step clearly after that was, okay. So what chairs do we get? And starting with one thing that you concretely know you want to change and optimize for is really helpful.”
“As I thought of different pieces, there was this important thing of, am I optimizing for the space or am I getting a forever piece? And if I'm just optimizing for the space, which is the case of something like we got a media console that was smaller than I probably would have in a different space, I'm not going to go balls to the wall in terms of how much I spend on this. Even if there are nicer ones that may look better, I'm actually going to trade off on price here because I may not want this piece in the future.”
“As people are taking stock of their home and what's maybe broken, where things are accumulating, also take stock of the areas of your house where you spend no time. And there's a reason for it almost always, and it's probably because there's a TV and you don't watch TV or it's like there's a couch, but it's really uncomfortable. Use that as an opportunity to maybe override the sunk cost.”
Typewritten name cards turn dinners into a personal joke
“We have these little name card holders that are kinda cool in and of themselves. But what I do before guests come to dinner is I use my typewriter, and I write someone's name. You basically give them really funny, clever, only a close friend would refer to them as labels. When I started getting into CGMs, you're like, Steph Smith something something wearing a CGM. It's just funny or clever jokes where someone's like, I feel seen, but also you're kind of, in some cases, as a friend would, making fun of them.”
