Latest / Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News / Why adults are turning chores into social events ‘admin night’

Transcript

Why adults are turning chores into social events ‘admin night’ · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:06
  You're listening to The Hidden Lightness on America Out Loud Talk Radio.
• 0:09
  I'm your host, Jimmy Hinton.
• 0:11
  There's a new TikTok trend.
• 0:13
  Well, social media trend anyway.
• 0:16
  And it's called admin nights.
• 0:18
  I actually had not heard of this.
• 0:20
  And probably part of this is because organizing is just not my thing.
• 0:25
  And so anything that has to do with it, I shut down.
• 0:29
  I just don't like to organize things.
• 0:31
  I'm not a planner.
• 0:32
  It's not my gift.
• 0:33
  It's not my spiritual gift.
• 0:35
  And so give me a microphone and let me talk all day long.
• 0:38
  I'll talk in front of crowds.
• 0:40
  I don't care how big or how little they are.
• 0:43
  I like to talk.
• 0:44
  I'm a talker.
• 0:45
  But organizing events and organizing administrative events, especially really is not my thing.
• 0:53
  I'm looking at a big pile on my desk right now.
• 0:56
  And my wife does not like my piles.
• 0:59
  She tells me that I need to get more organized.
• 1:02
  And when I hear that word, I just kind of twitch.
• 1:09
  It is uh definitely not my gift.
• 1:14
  But I really like this idea of having admin nights.
• 1:19
  And some people don't, some people do to each his own.
• 1:23
  And I'm not saying that I would plan one.
• 1:25
  Realistically, I probably never will, but I like the idea.
• 1:30
  I like the concept.
• 1:32
  And I'm gonna unpack this in this episode because this is the new viral 2026 trend.
• 1:40
  And the no, this is not like eating the tide pods and you know, those ridiculous things where people do harmful things and think that it's funny and they want to get views and that sort of stuff.
• 1:54
  This is not that.
• 1:56
  This is a completely different idea that some people are calling the new book club for busy adults.
• 2:06
  All right, so what in the world is admin night and what does it look like?
• 2:11
  How does it work?
• 2:13
  Well, this is an article here uh that talks about the viral trend.
• 2:18
  It's on Republic World, and uh it's really interesting.
• 2:23
  So it says Instagram is a buzz with a new hangout trend called admin night.
• 2:28
  The party style that seems to be a hit with social media users is marketed as the ultimate adulting hack.
• 2:36
  The trend focuses on organizing gatherings and and parties, which helps build an effective routine and aids people in staying organized without burnout.
• 2:48
  All right, so basically what it is is you take all the mundane tasks and heavy chores that we absolutely hate doing.
• 2:56
  So think about cleaning out your email.
• 3:00
  I I know I have like 12,000 unread emails just in one account, and it gives me anxiety just to look at that.
• 3:11
  Uh I have people constantly, constantly email me, and they ask for favors, you know, I'd say 80% of the emails that I get, besides for junk, a lot of them are junk, but about 80% are people asking for favors.
• 3:29
  Well, I'm all favored out, so I just don't even look at them.
• 3:32
  I don't read them, I don't look at them, they give me anxiety, but I have this guilt for whatever reason of deleting those emails.
• 3:41
  Well, those emails need to be deleted because I have some that have been in there for I don't know, four or five years, and uh they're just clogging up my email.
• 3:50
  So think about those kinds of things paying bills, sitting down and paying bills, planning your budget.
• 3:58
  I'd say probably once at least once every two months, maybe even once a month.
• 4:06
  I like to sit down, go over my budget and see all right, am I on track?
• 4:11
  Are there things that I can cut?
• 4:13
  Are there things that I can do?
• 4:14
  Like, am I maximizing things?
• 4:16
  Am I going over budget?
• 4:19
  And uh I say I like to do it.
• 4:22
  I like to get it done, but I don't love doing it.
• 4:25
  To me, it's just another mundane task.
• 4:30
  Uh, what about planning things for work?
• 4:35
  I have a lot of planning to do.
• 4:39
  And quite honestly, it makes me tired.
• 4:42
  It's just one more thing on my plate to do.
• 4:45
  I don't have a team of people that I can bounce ideas off of.
• 4:49
  When I do get people to bounce ideas off of, usually ideas get shot down and it's not really brainstorming as much as it is uh brainstorming.
• 5:01
  So I just I don't like to plan those kinds of things with church people, where if I got some fresh ideas and fresh eyes, maybe things will go a little bit better.
• 5:15
  So there are all kinds of things that people can bring into this that are administrative things that we just don't like doing.
• 5:22
  How about uh planning wills?
• 5:26
  A living will.
• 5:28
  That's something a lot of Americans don't do.
• 5:31
  Uh life insurance.
• 5:35
  Um let's see.
• 5:38
  Checking rates.
• 5:39
  This is one that we have to do.
• 5:41
  We have a daughter who's about to get her uh not license permit.
• 5:46
  And I'm dreading calling up insurance companies to get quotes.
• 5:53
  Because my insurance carrier that I have right now is rated one of the highest in the nations for 16-year-old drivers.
• 6:02
  Well, I don't want to pay above market value.
• 6:06
  I'm a budgeter by nature.
• 6:08
  I will find the best deal, but I hate doing it.
• 6:14
  It's exhausting.
• 6:16
  I don't even know where to start.
• 6:18
  I don't know what companies to look at.
• 6:20
  And so I just kind of shut down and I'm like, well, I'll get to it eventually.
• 6:24
  Well, time is ticking.
• 6:26
  All right, so you get the point.
• 6:30
  Uh planning meals.
• 6:32
  My wife gets exhausted planning meals.
• 6:36
  Every single week, she has to come up with a a um a meal planning uh grocery list, meal ideas.
• 6:46
  She's always asking us for ideas, and and I just blank.
• 6:51
  And I'm like, man, I would love to have something in place, a mechanism in place where we keep track of every single meal that we do, and we can recycle those meals.
• 7:03
  You're kind of a calendar.
• 7:06
  But the idea of doing that, again, it's the planning, it makes me physically exhausted.
• 7:13
  So the idea is to kind of crowdsource with other people.
• 7:17
  So everybody brings their administrative things to this party, and you have food, some people do wine, uh, they do hors d'oeuvres.
• 7:28
  Uh, you know, it's the idea is not to clean your house and make it look perfect and cook a big meal for people.
• 7:35
  That's not the idea.
• 7:37
  The idea is we're just gonna have snacks and drinks, and we're gonna socialize and have fun, and we're gonna laugh.
• 7:44
  We're gonna get these these dumb tasks done, and then we're just gonna hang out and have a good time for the rest of the night.
• 7:52
  So I think that's actually a pretty effective way to do it.
• 7:56
  And the reason I'm attracted to this idea, and again, I'm not saying that I'll do it, but it's kind of like a co-working environment, a co-working community.
• 8:08
  Our town got one, and it's one of my good friends, is somebody I grew up with, and uh she's one of those people, again, who is wildly successful, uh, is building a lot of wealth, doing very well with everything that she does, and I'm super proud of her.
• 8:25
  But she started this business that's a co-working community, which is really popular in cities, but in rural areas, it's almost unheard of.
• 8:36
  So her idea was to take something that works really well in urban areas and bring that to the country.
• 8:43
  And it took off, and it's doing really, really well.
• 8:46
  It's it's uh business has been in place for several years now, and a lot of my friends are are um, they have co-working spaces, and so basically what it is uh, and I love to visit there, it's just it's a really cool concept, but it's an open desk community where people bring their work to this open desk.
• 9:11
  So you have a computer, but it it's not a private office.
• 9:15
  Now, you can rent a private office if you have to do phone calls or you know, you have stuff that requires a private office, you can do that.
• 9:26
  But generally, it's an open space idea.
• 9:30
  And the idea is that as you work, you bounce ideas off of the person who's across from you.
• 9:37
  And you can share ideas back and forth, and you get up and you walk around and you socialize with other people, and they become a tight knit community of like minded people.
• 9:51
  And it's a really neat idea, and it's wildly successful.
• 9:58
  What I really like about this.
• 10:00
  And what I like about the admin night, and if people are using this properly, which it sounds like a lot of people are, but you get to share ideas with each other.
• 10:10
  You get to bounce ideas off of people.
• 10:12
  So you're not just getting your administrative tasks done, but you're bouncing ideas off of each other and you're becoming more efficient.
• 10:21
  And that's something that people like me who are not good planners, it's really important for us to bounce ideas off of other people.
• 10:30
  And that's where my wife is really organized.
• 10:33
  So I say we make a good team.
• 10:35
  Opposites really do attract because she's very organized.
• 10:40
  She's very structured.
• 10:42
  And uh so I learn so much off of her.
• 10:47
  And whenever we do, we actually, I guess we do a form of this where we sit down and and every now and then we do administrative tasks and we do it together.
• 10:57
  So putting our information together for taxes every year, we we pick out a night.
• 11:04
  We we joke around, we call it our date night, and uh we get all of our tax information together, and there are certain tasks that she hates that I don't mind, and there are certain tasks that I hate that she doesn't mind, and so we work together and we just get it done in a matter of usually it only takes about 30 minutes, and then we're done, and then we feel better about ourselves and we send that off to the accountant, and life goes on.
• 11:31
  And uh so we kind of look forward to that annual administrative night, our date night.
• 11:37
  So I get the idea.
• 11:39
  I get the concept.
• 11:41
  And uh it's kind of a cool, fun way to socialize with your friends and to share ideas.
• 11:48
  And there are a lot of things that I think we could learn from each other.
• 11:51
  So as you're paying bills, that's gonna bring up a lot of transparency.
• 11:57
  And you get to talk about bills and talk about the things that that you're wasting.
• 12:02
  What are the areas where we're really uh inefficient?
• 12:06
  Where are the areas that we need to cut more?
• 12:09
  What's your phone bill?
• 12:11
  What kind of deals do you have?
• 12:13
  I did this with my brothers whenever we we did our our annual brothers' campout.
• 12:18
  Uh, we talked about our our phone bills.
• 12:23
  And we started sharing, like, well, who's your carrier and what's your monthly rate?
• 12:28
  What are the benefits?
• 12:30
  How's your service?
• 12:32
  Are there any things that you don't like about uh who your carrier is?
• 12:38
  And so we start sharing ideas and we learned that uh yeah there's one carrier in particular that's a super low rate, and it's locked in and it's guaranteed for I think it's something like the next five years at least, they guarantee their rates not to go up.
• 12:58
  So you learn those kinds of things by having those conversations with people, and a lot of people aren't really open, they're really private about all of their uh bills and administrative tasks because we feel like it's well it's just nobody's business.
• 13:12
  And so people struggle all to themselves, they struggle in isolation, and they feel the weight of those bills, and they're not sharing ideas with people.
• 13:24
  They don't share ideas with friends who are probably probably somebody at some point had to deal with the stress of whatever it is that you're dealing with.
• 13:34
  And when you share those ideas with each other, it opens up a lot more possibilities.
• 13:40
  And that's what I really like about it.
• 13:43
  There are a lot of things that I've learned from other people that I never in a million years would have thought of these ideas.
• 13:52
  That's why I'm an avid reader.
• 13:54
  I love to read.
• 13:55
  I love books.
• 13:56
  I I read tons and tons and tons of books on ministry.
• 14:00
  Uh I'm reading one right now that uh we're walking through with the church, and it's phenomenal.
• 14:07
  But that that idea of sharing ideas with people, and it's not just ministry, I buy a lot of books as as you might have guessed by how much I talk about this topic.
• 14:20
  I buy a lot of books on budgeting, on investing, on business startups.
• 14:29
  I love Cody Sanchez, she's one of my favorites.
• 14:32
  I love Gary V.
• 14:33
  Uh, I've read all of Dave Ramsey's books.
• 14:37
  Um, I've read many, many other people, Robert Kiyosaki.
• 14:41
  I read tons of books all the time.
• 14:44
  Tons of books.
• 14:46
  And it's good to learn from other people.
• 14:51
  And I feel like this is a free education.
• 14:53
  If you do an admin night, it's a free education where you get to share ideas with your friends and nobody's charging money for it.
• 15:01
  And I guarantee that whatever I think I'm really good at, or whatever you think you're really good at, there are other people who do it 10 times better.
• 15:10
  And if we're humble enough to realize that, we can use this as an opportunity to grow to share with people to grow and to do a better job, the administrative tasks that so many of us hate to do.
• 15:27
  So it's a really, really cool idea, and I'm all for it.
• 15:32
  Again, it's not a uh it's not an endorsement.
• 15:35
  I'm not saying that I will do it, but maybe I will, maybe I'll try it.
• 15:40
  But one of the ideas that people are doing is that they'll do an admin night with family members instead of friends, they'll do it with other family members.
• 15:48
  I think that's cool.
• 15:50
  Now that I could get on board with.
• 15:54
  Because they're family members who I see them develop really bad habits, and I would love to share with them.
• 16:01
  And I have other family members that have really good habits, and I'd love to learn from them.
• 16:08
  So this idea of crowdsourcing and sharing ideas with each other, helping each other with your administrative task, it's really cool.
• 16:15
  I have nieces and nephews that talk to me all the time about uh investing, and they're like, can you please spend time with us and just do like a private session and teach us about investing?
• 16:28
  We really want to learn.
• 16:31
  I love that idea.
• 16:32
  I love that they're asking those questions.
• 16:36
  And it's it's really cool.
• 16:39
  So I'm all for it.
• 16:40
  Green light, thumbs up.
• 16:42
  What a cool trend.
• 16:43
  We'll talk more about this after the break, some of the nuts and bolts and and how this is uh working out.
• 16:48
  So speaking of administrative tasks and saving and budgeting, be sure to check out the America Out Loud store.
• 16:56
  You're gonna find incredible deals.
• 16:58
  Uh I can't emphasize how great these deals are.
• 17:01
  20% off by using the code out loud is incredible.
• 17:05
  And our sponsors are so great to us.
• 17:08
  Uh, they love health, they love uh you, and that's why they give really good deals.
• 17:14
  Visit America Outloud.news, help us share the out loud truth.
• 17:18
  We'll be right back.
• 17:19
  Well, get ready, my fellow Americans, July 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.
• 17:24
  America Outloud.news in partnership with Clear and the Wellness Company invites you to Nashville, Tennessee for our red white and blue celebration.
• 17:34
  You'll never forget.
• 17:35
  We're saluted 250 years of America and 10 incredible years of America Out Loud News, standing strong for truth, justice, and the nation we all love.
• 17:46
  Three days of high impact speakers, powerhouse voices, delivering dynamic, unforgettable insights that will fire up your patriot skirt.
• 17:56
  And on July 4th, well, brace yourself because you'll experience America's most explosive fireworks show, lighting up downtown Nashville in pure patriotic glory.
• 18:06
  You can reserve your spot with early bird fleisching right now at America Outloud dot news forward slash Nashville.
• 18:15
  It's America Out Loud News 25010 Nashville V.
• 18:20
  Virus protection and immune boosting just got easier.
• 18:23
  Enter the Daily V Stack using cellular absorption technology.
• 18:27
  We put vitamins A, C, D, Zinc, and Quircetin together with a multi-mineral complex for complete protection.
• 18:35
  The Daily V Stack is basically an oral IV of six products all in one at an affordable price.
• 18:41
  Go to Chemicalfree Body.com forward slash out loud, get the daily V stack, protect yourself, boost your immune system, and save 20% on your first order.
• 18:52
  Successful weight loss is about changing the gut-brain relationship with food.
• 18:56
  I'm Dr.
• 18:57
  Kelly Victory with the wellness company.
• 18:59
  If you don't like needles, you'll love oral dissolving terzepitide RX.
• 19:03
  Works by targeting the GLP1 and GIP receptors that influence appetite and metabolism.
• 19:09
  And unlike injections, these are fast absorbing sublingual tablets placed under the tongue, paired with an energy boost of B6 and B12.
• 19:18
  Visit TWC.
• 19:29
  Admin nights.
• 19:31
  This is the new trend.
• 19:33
  It's trending big time on social media.
• 19:36
  People are calling this the new book club for busy adults.
• 19:40
  And uh, you know, with so much going on in the world, we we have the war in Iran, we have people worried about the economy.
• 19:49
  We have uh just lots and lots going on around the world.
• 19:55
  I think people are are are more serious.
• 19:58
  I said this to my wife the other day.
• 20:00
  Day, I'm like, I think that sometimes we just take life too seriously.
• 20:04
  We kind of need to let her hair down and enjoy life a little bit more.
• 20:08
  And that's what the show is all about, folks.
• 20:10
  At the end of the day, when Malcolm talked to me about doing the show over a year ago, we said, wouldn't it be cool to just tell stories that are positive and encourage people to be better, better versions of themselves.
• 20:27
  And I really love that idea.
• 20:29
  I'm attracted to that idea because I don't like negativity.
• 20:35
  My wife tells me that I'm a I'm a sunshine blower.
• 20:38
  I like to blow sunshine.
• 20:40
  And uh she's like, why are you always so positive?
• 20:45
  And my response is, well, what's the alternative?
• 20:49
  If we're not positive, then the alternative is not neutrality, it's usually negativity.
• 20:56
  And I prefer to be positive.
• 20:59
  And it's not given false hope.
• 21:01
  It's not that I want people to think that, oh, the world's it's a good, safe place, and there are no bad people out there, and you're just going to be so blessed by God.
• 21:11
  And like that, that's not that's not reality.
• 21:18
  The reality is there are a lot of hard things that happen in this life.
• 21:24
  And uh I've had to deal, all of us, I'm sure, have had to deal with situations that have aged us by years.
• 21:35
  We've had to become wise beyond our years.
• 21:39
  Some people at very young ages, they've experienced such tragedies.
• 21:46
  So many hard things, uh, you know, abuse of different kinds, poverty, uh, homelessness, disease.
• 21:55
  I I have friends right now, they have a little young girl who's battling cancer.
• 22:04
  And I just, as a parent, I can't wrap my mind around the heaviness of that.
• 22:12
  That your daughter at eight years old is fighting for her life.
• 22:18
  I I can't, I can't wrap my mind around that.
• 22:24
  There's so many other people facing infertility, um, facing child loss.
• 22:32
  Uh people's homes lost to fire or other natural disasters.
• 22:41
  I mean, there are so many heavy things in life.
• 22:44
  And so the alternative to focusing on just the negative is to talk about the positive and talk about the things that inspire us.
• 22:53
  And a lot of these stories that I tell are people who have overcome really horrific times in their life.
• 23:02
  People who've pushed through adversity and trials and uh refinement by fire.
• 23:12
  Life is just absolutely burned them, and they they pushed through the ashes, and life started to emerge.
• 23:24
  And through that new life that started to emerge through the ashes, something beautiful began to take root.
• 23:34
  And these people succeed, and they inspire other people.
• 23:39
  And I love to share those stories.
• 23:41
  In fact, it's an honor.
• 23:44
  It's an absolute honor to share those stories because it reminds me of so many friends in my life who have made something powerful out of really horrific situations.
• 23:59
  And I always get inspired by those stories.
• 24:01
  I get inspired by the people.
• 24:03
  I often wonder how people are able to keep their nose above water.
• 24:10
  When it's just it's problem after problem after problem that people face, and they overcome that.
• 24:16
  So that's what the show is about.
• 24:18
  The hidden lightness is about allowing your hidden lightness to shine in the midst of a dark room.
• 24:26
  When there's so much darkness that's all around us.
• 24:30
  It's the light that gives us hope.
• 24:33
  It's the light that shows us the way.
• 24:38
  It's the light that shows us that, hey, people are still smiling, even though they've suffered so much tragedy.
• 24:46
  They're still able to smile, they're still able to function, they're still able to bless other people and help other people.
• 24:54
  And that's why I'm attracted to these stories.
• 24:56
  And this, this is no different.
• 24:58
  You know, this isn't one of those heartwarming stories, and there's not like this deep personal connection, but it's a really cool idea where people are sharing ideas and people are turning this into a trend.
• 25:10
  Now, some people might say it's a fad, and maybe it is.
• 25:14
  Time always tells.
• 25:17
  Maybe it's just a fad that'll that'll fade away as quickly as it came in.
• 25:23
  Or maybe it's a new trend, but either way.
• 25:28
  How can we point fingers at people, millions of people who are coming together for these admin nights?
• 25:37
  You know, the the social media trend, how can we point fingers at them and start talking trash?
• 25:43
  And we're like, well, this isn't gonna last.
• 25:47
  Yeah, I choose to celebrate it.
• 25:51
  Don't we want people to succeed?
• 25:56
  There are some people, I saw an article where they're basically calling people snowflakes, and they're like, this is what's wrong with society.
• 26:04
  People can't function on their own, and they have to get their friends, they have to get their buddies and mask it in calling it a party, and they rope their friends, they dupe their friends basically into doing their dirty work.
• 26:18
  And I'm like, man, can't you just let people do something and enjoy it?
• 26:24
  If people are enjoying this and they're being productive and having fun and God forbid laughing while they're doing it, shouldn't we celebrate that?
• 26:33
  Shouldn't we applaud them?
• 26:36
  Whether this is for you or it's not, I think that as Americans and and just as fellow neighbors, we ought to applaud people and say, man, that's actually kind of cool.
• 26:52
  So that's why I'm doing this story.
• 26:53
  I choose to stand behind people and applaud them.
• 26:57
  I want to read a little bit from CNN of all people.
• 27:02
  CNN has a really good article.
• 27:05
  I say that in jest.
• 27:08
  There are a lot of good stories that CNN does, and uh this is one of them.
• 27:16
  The article is called Why Admin Nights Are the New Book Club for Busy Adults.
• 27:22
  Benjamin Chipman has met with his friend Nikita Surrey every Tuesday since July, usually over a grilled chicken sandwich, fries and a beer with a killer happy hour deal, Wi-Fi and outlets at a neighborhood pub.
• 27:39
  Chipman, an actor and content creator in New York City, began his version of admin night working on a screenplay, picking up an idea first planted in college.
• 27:51
  Meanwhile, Surrey split her time between personal development tasks, such as improving her technology skills, and administrative ones like cleaning out her inbox and updating her resume.
• 28:04
  I'll do it later as a line we all probably have said countless times.
• 28:10
  Amen to that.
• 28:13
  Should be my bumper sticker.
• 28:16
  My kids unfortunately have inherited my procrastination.
• 28:23
  I am a master of procrastinator.
• 28:27
  I put things off to the last minute.
• 28:32
  And I always have my entire life.
• 28:35
  I figure at my age, this is probably not something it's not a habit that is just gonna fade away.
• 28:42
  It's deeply ingrained into the DNA of who I am.
• 28:47
  I perform under pressure.
• 28:49
  Uh I need that pressure.
• 28:51
  I need timelines.
• 28:52
  I need to wake up one day and be like, oh, today's the day that it's due.
• 28:58
  I need that pressure.
• 29:01
  So I'll do it later.
• 29:03
  Is a line we probably have said countless times.
• 29:07
  That's because being an adult is hard.
• 29:09
  And it's not just the big stuff, choosing your career, where you live, where you'll have a partner, whether you'll have a partner, and who that could be, those sometimes small, often tedious tasks can feel impossible to do.
• 29:25
  Yet they still need to get done.
• 29:29
  Many people are turning to group admin nights to finally check administrative tasks off their to-do lists.
• 29:37
  And it's not just for Gen Xers like San Francisco-based journalist Chris Collin, who coined the term and wrote about his hack for the Wall Street Journal.
• 29:48
  Everyone can benefit from an admin night.
• 29:51
  And some are even putting a spin on it to realize long-held personal goals.
• 29:58
  Now, this is what's really
• 30:00
  Cool about it.
• 30:01
  And actually, as I was reading that, I just had an aha moment.
• 30:07
  So I'm going to share the aha moment with you.
• 30:10
  And this is how this stuff works.
• 30:11
  That's why it's important to talk about it.
• 30:13
  Maybe this is subject that you care less about, but for me, I just like collaborating with people.
• 30:19
  I I've always been that way, and I love to share ideas with people.
• 30:24
  I need to share ideas with people.
• 30:26
  I don't want to go through life alone.
• 30:28
  I don't want to be a uh an anti-social pessimistic um lonely man who who's like the cat man.
• 30:39
  I live with my cats, and I don't care what other people think or say, I'm I'm just gonna live by myself.
• 30:46
  I don't want to be that person.
• 30:48
  I like to collaborate with people.
• 30:52
  I need to.
• 30:53
  I need to share ideas.
• 30:56
  So I was just thinking about this because just the other night, my daughter was saying, uh, I have this report that's due.
• 31:04
  Like she's rattling off all these things that are that are due.
• 31:08
  And she's like, I I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do this.
• 31:12
  Well, meanwhile, I'm like relaxing on the couch, watching TV as she's telling me this, and I felt a little bit guilty.
• 31:21
  I was like, it's not really right that I'm in here watching TV, having fun, you know, just socializing with my other kids.
• 31:29
  And she's overwhelmed, completely overwhelmed with all the things that she needs to get done.
• 31:36
  And meanwhile, my desk is just heaping with things that I need to do that I do have timelines for.
• 31:44
  They have to get done.
• 31:47
  So I thought, well, like just now.
• 31:50
  This is my aha moment.
• 31:53
  So what if instead I offered to sit down and bring my stuff, all the tasks that I hate to do, because that's part of it, right?
• 32:02
  That's why we lose motivation.
• 32:05
  Nobody's there to do it with us, nobody's there to kind of complain about the dumb task, and we don't make it fun, right?
• 32:12
  That's part of why these mundane tasks build up, because it's not fun to do them.
• 32:18
  Well, what if we made it fun?
• 32:20
  What if we turned it into a social event?
• 32:23
  Where we got the snacks out or made something special.
• 32:27
  What if what if somebody made homemade ice cream?
• 32:33
  Or went out and bought a snack, just something something cool, something different, and you turn that into a social event.
• 32:43
  Whereas a family, you sit down and you do your your administrative task together.
• 32:48
  I think it'd be a game changer.
• 32:50
  And that's the whole point.
• 32:52
  That's the whole point of this.
• 32:55
  That's why uh Chris Cullen came up with the idea.
• 33:00
  He coined the term anyway, and said that anybody can benefit from it.
• 33:07
  So what in the world is it?
• 33:09
  Uh again, it's a similar concept to book clubs, but they regularly bring people together for a fun night while holding one another accountable to an assignment.
• 33:22
  Admin night is an evening where you and friends, whether it's one friend or multiple friends, gather to do your back burner tasks, said Chipman.
• 33:34
  He said that in a TikTok post that it's been life changing for him.
• 33:40
  And I get it.
• 33:42
  I think it really is.
• 33:43
  I think it really would be.
• 33:45
  They get together can be for scheduling appointments, canceling subscriptions, collecting the 1099s to file your taxes, or even stating or starting that screenplay.
• 33:59
  Colin said the idea is to reclaim weeknights from being home alone.
• 34:07
  Saying also that you should focus on whatever is calling you, but try not to sneak in work.
• 34:15
  So it's it's the point is not to work and be like, oh, we gotta get this done, and it's this is terrible.
• 34:23
  This is off.
• 34:24
  The point is to whatever calls your name, whatever calls out to you, that's what you're gonna work on.
• 34:31
  And you make it fun.
• 34:34
  You you make it enjoyable, you make it social.
• 34:37
  And I think it's that social aspect that so many Americans are attracted to right now because we miss it.
• 34:42
  People miss face to face.
• 34:45
  It's such a strange concept.
• 34:47
  We're more connected than we've ever been across the world globally.
• 34:52
  We're more connected than we've ever been in the history of mankind, and yet people feel more isolated than ever before.
• 35:00
  Well, why is that?
• 35:03
  Well, it's because we've substituted the face-to-face with online with texting.
• 35:11
  It's the quick text to somebody.
• 35:15
  You know, you gotta find something out instead of picking up the phone and calling them and hearing their voice, or stopping to physically see somebody, we just shoot them a quick text.
• 35:25
  And we do this over and over and over.
• 35:27
  We rinse and repeat all day long for hours and hours and hours to the point where people feel really socially isolated.
• 35:35
  Mental health with young people is really suffering.
• 35:39
  There are so many studies that are out there that talk about how isolated young people feel, especially.
• 35:46
  They don't feel connected to their parents, they don't feel connected to anybody, and they feel alone.
• 35:50
  They they're depressed, they're anxious.
• 35:55
  And that's not a good place for people to be.
• 36:00
  And also it contributes, I I've mentioned this once before.
• 36:03
  I think it's worth mentioning again, but it contributes to depression.
• 36:09
  And the idea that we're all isolated and we're all lonely and that that the world's a broken place.
• 36:16
  It contributes to your worldview.
• 36:18
  It really does shape it when we become socially isolated.
• 36:23
  But I mentioned before there was a psychologist.
• 36:28
  I can't remember the woman's name, but she visited Iceland or Greenland or one of them.
• 36:32
  I think it was Iceland, and she realized there is no such thing as seasonal affective disorder in Iceland because people are happy.
• 36:40
  They're happy in the winter time.
• 36:41
  And her conclusion was they're happy because they socialize.
• 36:46
  They visit each other's homes and they're intentional about it.
• 36:49
  They build fires and they drink coffee and and they just they love being around each other.
• 36:54
  And in the winter time, they don't survive the winter, they get to go through the winter with each other.
• 37:01
  That's how they frame it.
• 37:03
  And uh, it's really a different mindset, and it's so so important.
• 37:06
  Socialization is vital.
• 37:09
  Vital, and I think that's why this trend, the administrative trend is taken off so well.
• 37:15
  Uh, we're coming up on a break here.
• 37:16
  All of our shows do go to podcasts the next day after the broadcast is heard on talk radio.
• 37:20
  You can hear them on Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora, iHeart Podcast, Apple Podcast, many, many more.
• 37:25
  Be sure to subscribe, rate the show, share it, and visit the store at AmericaOut Loud.news.
• 37:31
  Use the code Out Loud for 20% off and hang tight.
• 37:35
  We'll be right back.
• 37:36
  I cannot tell a lie.
• 37:37
  My sinuses are blocked.
• 37:39
  George, you crossed the Delaware.
• 37:42
  You can cross congestion.
• 37:44
  Here, try clear.
• 37:48
  Freedom smells like victory.
• 37:50
  Come celebrate 250 years of American independence with the America out loud.
• 37:57
  25010 independence day celebration in Nashville on July 2nd through 4th.
• 38:04
  Go to America 250 Nashville.com.
• 38:07
  Use code X L E A R for 20% off admission.
• 38:11
  Clear.
• 38:12
  Breathe in the independence.
• 38:14
  Have you been looking for a healthy snack for on the go?
• 38:18
  Well, not all energy bars are soft and sugary.
• 38:22
  Bear bars or a crunchy savory bar made from just six simple natural ingredients.
• 38:29
  Bear bars are plant-based, organic, gluten-free, contain six grams of protein and are low temperature dried for unique crunch.
• 38:38
  Most energy bars are based on chocolate or fruit and are held together with syrups or sweeteners.
• 38:45
  To learn more, just visit barebar.com slash out loud.
• 38:56
  So this trend is really taken off.
• 38:58
  The admin night.
• 38:59
  It's where people come together, they uh they create or do accomplish administrative tasks, but they turned it into a social event.
• 39:10
  Instead of dreading the dreadful administrative tasks, they turn it into something fun.
• 39:17
  They turn it into a social event.
• 39:19
  And it's gaining wild popularity.
• 39:21
  It's really, really taken off.
• 39:23
  And this is a really recent trend.
• 39:25
  I like the idea.
• 39:26
  I like the concept, I like the idea.
• 39:28
  And the biggest thing that I like about it is socialization.
• 39:32
  It's the socialization aspect, but it's also the uh collaboration aspect where you can collaborate together and as you're accomplished accomplishing the administrative task, you're able to bounce ideas off each other.
• 39:47
  So for example, uh what I would use it for wholeheartedly two things.
• 39:54
  If I end up doing this, I can tell you right now what I'll use it for.
• 39:58
  I'll use it for budgeting.
• 40:01
  Getting the budgeting items done, uh, canceling subscriptions, you know, trimming down the budget, finding deals, comparing uh prices, the whole price comparison thing, grocery shopping, groceries are our number one item on our budget.
• 40:21
  Number one on our family budget is groceries.
• 40:26
  I mean, it's super high.
• 40:29
  And we're very careful.
• 40:31
  I feel like we're very careful about what we buy.
• 40:34
  Well, maybe there are certain hidden things that we're missing that other people can tell us about.
• 40:40
  So budgeting is one.
• 40:42
  I would love to collaborate with people.
• 40:45
  As we work on that administrative task.
• 40:49
  Each month, my wife and I, we kind of sit down together and we we plan for the month.
• 40:54
  We go over numbers, and we talk about what what we could possibly cut for the month.
• 41:04
  I would love to do it with other people.
• 41:06
  All right.
• 41:07
  So what else I would use it for, though, is to bounce ideas off of people for businesses.
• 41:15
  I am not by nature of just a naturally smart businessman, entrepreneur, and my daughter is starting her own business, and I would love for her to be able to bounce ideas off of other people.
• 41:29
  I'd love because there are wildly successful friends of ours who are just really good at businesses.
• 41:39
  They're very wealthy, they're they're very well established, and it's not about the money, it's it's about starting a business that's not gonna, it's not gonna fail.
• 41:49
  And so I'd love to talk to people whose businesses did fail.
• 41:55
  And they reinvented themselves and they started up another business.
• 42:01
  And that business took off, and it was wildly successful.
• 42:05
  We have friends who that's the case.
• 42:06
  I would love to pick their brains.
• 42:10
  I'd love for them to share ideas and point out the things that don't work, the thing, or at least didn't work for them, point out the lessons that they learned, point out what does work, how they became more efficient, how they structure their taxes, how they structure their business name.
• 42:26
  Are they filed as an LLC?
• 42:28
  Uh, what insurance do they have?
• 42:30
  Those sorts of things.
• 42:32
  I'm clueless.
• 42:34
  I would love to learn from other people.
• 42:39
  So it's a really cool idea.
• 42:41
  It really is.
• 42:42
  And that social aspect, that's what I was talking about before the break.
• 42:46
  I think that's the holy grail.
• 42:50
  That's what makes us work.
• 42:52
  That's what makes it enjoyable.
• 42:56
  That's what makes it enticing.
• 43:00
  People are increasingly lonely, people are increasingly depressed.
• 43:06
  In America, here we talk about seasonal affective disorder, dubbed SAD SAD.
• 43:15
  And by the way, over the break, I found the author uh who had visited, she's a psychologist and had visited um it actually was Norway.
• 43:30
  I thought it was Iceland or Greenland or one of those.
• 43:32
  It actually was Norway.
• 43:34
  And the study's coming back to me now, but uh I've I found an article, I'll link to this in the show notes.
• 43:39
  It's actually a podcast, and it's really fascinating.
• 43:42
  But it's Carrie Liebowitz, and she visited uh a place that's north, I think it's like 200 miles north of the Arctic in Norway.
• 43:57
  And she uh 200, here it is, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
• 44:03
  Tromso is the is the place that she went to.
• 44:06
  It's a small island of about 70,000 inhabitants.
• 44:10
  And because it's so far north, they have extreme changes in daylight between the seasons.
• 44:16
  So in the winter, it's virtually dark 24 hours a day, and in the summer it's virtually light 24 hours a day.
• 44:24
  Uh, they have two months of midnight sun in the summer, the sun never sets, and in the winter they have the opposite.
• 44:34
  It's called polar night.
• 44:37
  So Liebowitz talks about how she went there to study how sad people are.
• 44:42
  She wanted to to see how badly it was, expecting it to be super bad, because here in America, that's all you hear about.
• 44:49
  Seasonal affect disorder.
• 44:51
  People get depressed in the winter, winter's awful.
• 44:53
  Listen to the words that they use.
• 44:55
  It's terrible, it's awful, uh, it's brutal, it's the worst, it's terrible.
• 45:01
  I hate living here.
• 45:03
  On and on and on it goes.
• 45:05
  Now, my son left in the morning on a field trip, one of my sons.
• 45:11
  It was 20 degrees.
• 45:14
  We have a very short summer season in Pennsylvania where I'm at.
• 45:19
  It was literally 20 degrees.
• 45:21
  He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt to go on a field trip outside.
• 45:27
  And we used to fight him a little bit on that.
• 45:30
  My wife more than me, because I'm a I'm a lover of the cold.
• 45:34
  I just, I love it, I embrace it.
• 45:37
  Uh, I love cold exposure.
• 45:39
  I love walking barefoot in the snow.
• 45:41
  I just, I love all of it.
• 45:44
  And uh winter motivates us, it excites us.
• 45:49
  We can't get enough of it.
• 45:51
  We love the snow, we love the cold, we love all of it.
• 45:56
  But a lot of people hate it.
• 45:57
  And so they talk about seasonal affect disorder, and it's terrible, it's awful.
• 46:01
  Uh, we've been called stupid.
• 46:03
  I've I've been told we're gonna call our kids, we're gonna call CYS on your kids because if we see them out in the yard, uh shirtless and shoeless, we're we're gonna call CYS on them.
• 46:15
  I'm like, uh, knock yourselves out.
• 46:18
  It's they love doing it.
• 46:19
  They love the cold, they love the snow.
• 46:21
  They can't get enough of it.
• 46:24
  And so anyway, Carrie Libowitz goes to Norway, and she found out something really surprising.
• 46:32
  The first thing she noticed when she got there is wait, the taxicab drivers like really happy and polite.
• 46:41
  But then she started meeting more and more people, and she found out that everybody was happy.
• 46:48
  And everybody was polite.
• 46:51
  And she's like, wait, what in the world is going on here?
• 46:54
  So she started asking them about seasonal affective disorder.
• 46:58
  She's like, How do you guys survive seasonal affective disorder?
• 47:02
  And they're like, seasonal what now?
• 47:04
  They had never heard of it.
• 47:06
  They didn't, like, even the concept.
• 47:08
  She explained the concept, and they didn't understand.
• 47:11
  They could not comprehend this idea that people sit around feeling sorry for themselves and getting depressed in the wintertime.
• 47:19
  Like that didn't register for them.
• 47:22
  And that's at a place where two months out of the year, they get no sunlight.
• 47:27
  It's dark 24 hours a day.
• 47:32
  They couldn't get it.
• 47:34
  They couldn't understand it.
• 47:38
  What in the world are you talking about?
• 47:40
  So she starts doing the study, and what she found out is that the reason they can't comprehend that is because they go into winter with a really positive attitude.
• 47:51
  They live there.
• 47:52
  That's the weather.
• 47:54
  And so it just is what it is.
• 47:58
  So when they go into winter, they they plan social activities.
• 48:04
  They find ways to keep themselves engaged and busy and active, physically active, mentally active.
• 48:12
  They visit each other's homes and they sit around the fire and they drink coffee and they just they love they love the winter time.
• 48:21
  And actually, some of them reported liking winter time even more because it was a time where they could slow down a little bit.
• 48:30
  They could slow down and use that as more of a social time because in the summer that's when you get the work done, right?
• 48:37
  That's when you're you're out doing the yard work and you're farming and you're fishing and you're doing all the all the things outside.
• 48:44
  And so in the wintertime, they get to breathe a little bit.
• 48:48
  And they're like, we absolutely love it.
• 48:51
  We can't get enough of it.
• 48:54
  So that was really foreign to her.
• 48:56
  So they've rewritten psychological journals based on her research.
• 49:04
  And they found that seasonal affective disorder is actually a social construct.
• 49:12
  And that uh that's really, really fascinating to me.
• 49:15
  So I'm saying all that to say that it's the social aspect that we're really missing in America.
• 49:22
  Or at least we were.
• 49:32
  Uh, for the naysayers and the people who are like, oh, this is a bunch of snowflakes that they just can't man up and pay their bills, and this is so ridiculous.
• 49:43
  And this just proves how weak and how soft the younger generation is.
• 49:48
  Back in my day, right?
• 49:50
  When something starts with back in my day, you know, it's gonna be rich.
• 49:56
  I I think we should celebrate this.
• 49:58
  Here's a quote.
• 50:00
  This is going back to the CNN article.
• 50:03
  Surrey agrees that the right partner makes all the difference.
• 50:07
  Quote, the person you choose to do admin night with matters a ton because that's your accountability partner.
• 50:15
  I love the social aspect.
• 50:18
  It makes these boring tasks feel lighter and more fun.
• 50:22
  Did you catch that?
• 50:26
  I love the social aspect.
• 50:33
  I'm telling you, young people crave social interactions, face to face, seeing people literally.
• 50:44
  So how does that apply to life?
• 50:45
  Well, in every single aspect.
• 50:47
  A lot of churches.
• 50:48
  I know a lot of my friends who are like, man, we need to, the young people, they speak technology.
• 50:54
  And so we need to add more videos in the sermon, and we need to, we need to really harness technology and AI and all like they're just going berserk about all this stuff.
• 51:04
  And I'm like, no, actually, what the young people crave is the very thing that you're robbing them of.
• 51:13
  They crave face to face.
• 51:16
  They crave, they long for that interaction.
• 51:20
  We were created by God in his image to be social people.
• 51:31
  To care for one another.
• 51:33
  To pray for one another.
• 51:36
  To share ideas with, to share life with.
• 51:41
  We were created for that.
• 51:45
  And so we we try to strip that away and call that normal.
• 51:51
  And people right now, it's just every study points this way.
• 51:55
  People are addicted to social media.
• 51:58
  Doomsday scrolling, where they just sit for hours and just scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll.
• 52:06
  It's short after short, real after real.
• 52:10
  Scroll, scroll, scroll, and they're not satisfied.
• 52:16
  And then we wonder why people are depressed and people are uneasy and why they can't do simple things like creating and finishing administrative tasks.
• 52:28
  You know, the problem is not with people.
• 52:32
  They're not inherently broken.
• 52:34
  The problem is that we don't value social connection anymore.
• 52:40
  And so the reason this is so viral right now, and I hope I really hope that it stays viral.
• 52:46
  I really do.
• 52:46
  I think it's great.
• 52:47
  I think it's fantastic.
• 52:50
  But it's that social connection.
• 52:55
  So the article, the CNN article, it says, you know, you may as well enjoy yourself, have fun.
• 53:02
  Get your task done and have social time, enjoy it.
• 53:09
  It says for Surrey, that enjoyment is a chocolate chip cookie.
• 53:14
  It's my treat to myself every time we go.
• 53:18
  You know, it really doesn't take a lot of complexity to make us humans happy.
• 53:25
  I feel like sometimes we just overcomplicate life and we're like, oh, well, what's the next biggest thing?
• 53:30
  And how do we, how do we plan and how do we check the demographics and is this really going to resonate with people?
• 53:35
  And how do we take it to the next level that right?
• 53:39
  Level up.
• 53:39
  That's a term that we've embraced.
• 53:41
  How do I level up?
• 53:44
  Sometimes we just got to strip away all the complexity and just be simple.
• 53:48
  A chocolate chip cookie.
• 53:50
  That's my reward.
• 53:51
  That's my treat to myself.
• 53:54
  I go, I talk, I laugh, I enjoy myself, I get my administrative tasks done, and I enjoy my chocolate chip cookie.
• 54:06
  Chipman and Surrey start their admin night by catching up for 10 to 15 minutes.
• 54:12
  Next, they'll wrap up their chat and ask each other, what are you working on?
• 54:18
  According to Chipman.
• 54:24
  Varying needs and demands for creative projects or quote, I'm behind on life tasks.
• 54:33
  Give reason to check in on the agenda.
• 54:38
  Then they establish ground rules.
• 54:41
  Make sure there's not a lot of gray or wiggle room.
• 54:47
  They just get it done.
• 54:49
  Then they have more fun.
• 54:51
  They finish a task, they enjoy it, they work on it for about 25 minutes.
• 54:56
  Uh, they rest, they repeat, and they just do it until the tasks are done.
• 55:03
  And then they just enjoy the night.
• 55:07
  People customize the the work nights, the admin nights.
• 55:13
  They do an admin date night.
• 55:14
  This is what I was talking about before.
• 55:17
  What my wife and I do.
• 55:20
  For McCole uh Capetta, a content creator based in Portland, Oregon, and her husband, admin date night is a monthly ritual that has transformed both their finances and their relationship.
• 55:32
  I love this.
• 55:33
  I absolutely love this.
• 55:38
  You know, why not combine administrative things that we have to do anyway and just turn it into a date and have fun.
• 55:46
  Enjoy yourselves.
• 55:49
  We love the sense of accomplishment.
• 55:52
  Just as humans in general, we love feeling accomplished.
• 55:55
  And if we love feeling accomplished, let's accomplish things that need to get done anyway.
• 56:00
  Let's enjoy each other's company.
• 56:02
  Let's have fun.
• 56:03
  Let's have some laughs, eat some food.
• 56:06
  We have to do that anyway.
• 56:07
  Drink a couple drinks.
• 56:10
  We prefer water in my family.
• 56:12
  And uh just enjoy it.
• 56:14
  This is such a cool story.
• 56:16
  It's a cool trend, and I really hope it picks up more momentum.
• 56:20
  And uh Americans can really enjoy being productive together, reconnecting with each other, and just having an all-out fun time.
• 56:28
  Life is short.
• 56:29
  Let's enjoy it.
• 56:30
  That, my friends, is the hidden lightness.
• 56:33
  You can find more out about my show and get all the latest podcasts if you go to the menu navigation bar at AmericaOutloud.news under our shows or schedule.
• 56:40
  You'll be in the note.
• 56:41
  There's a hidden lightness that shines inside of all of us.
• 56:43
  When there's so much darkness that envelops the world, remember that it doesn't take much light to expose that darkness and to ultimately inspire other people.
• 56:51
  Join me in being a light.