Helping you tidy up & live better with less | Once a month inspiration for home organisation, decluttering and lighter living 🧺 | Sign up below! 💫
Share
02/25 Minimal Monthly — Could You Imagine Having One of These?
Published about 1 month ago • 3 min read
February 2025
Minimal Monthly
Hello, hello!
Picture this: a tall silver figure gliding through your home. Maybe sweeping the patio, scrubbing the loo, weeding the garden or even organising your spice rack. All while you sip a cuppa and admire your tidy haven.
Humanoid robots like Tesla’s Optimus might just make that fantasy real. Pegged to retail at around $20-30K, they could be designed to tackle chores and beyond. The plan? Limited factory runs later this year, B2B sales by 2026, and, fingers crossed, household helpers not long after. Think 2028-2030 for us regular folks.
Hey Fred, when you're done in the sitting room, don't forget to pop the laundry in the dryer, alright?
It’s not all smooth sailing, though. Wet floors and soapy sponges? Tricky for a robot still mastering egg-poaching and shirt-folding. And Unitree's G1 may be a great outdoor jogging companion, but these guys still look a little clunky and intimidating for home use.
Sure enough, experts say full autonomy’s a few years off. A home robot would need sensors that can spot grime, limbs that don’t slip across wet bathroom tile floors, and a battery that lasts long enough for a thorough round of spring cleaning. But the progress is wild: these things were still wobbly prototypes just a couple of years ago, and now they're strutting around. So the technology's getting there.
What are your thoughts, would you get one if it were affordable and functional?
My first instinct is to scream "sign me up!" and get one of them scrubbing my grout asap. But on the other hand, I'm someone who doesn't even use Siri or Alexa because that degree of privacy invasion creeps me out. When I consider a robot housekeeper would always be on and listening, not to mention have wifi connectivity... I'm not so sure anymore. Weird, weird times are upon us.
Some thoughts on financial minimalism and how doing an audit of your spending habits and consolidating accounts is a good starting point for better budgeting.
Drop your own mellow beats with this nifty online synthesizer. It makes pretty decent white noise for when you're working (or napping?).
Speaking of white noise, did you know you already have it on your smartphone? I had absolutely no idea. My old colleague Sy shared this fantastic tip over on Kim Komando. Great for bedtime, calming down babies and pets, or deep-flow work:
Is Gen X the last sexy generation ever? Gen-X women are having the best sex, say the NYT at least. "This is a cohort of women with formative experiences that do not resemble those of the generations surrounding them: a generation that began having sex earlier than any other on record, that stayed on the singles market for years longer than their parents, that is continuing to have sex even amid a broader sexual decline." As my father used to succinctly put it: "Huh. Interesting."
Ozzy Osbourne on school xylophones, anyone? Gotta love the solo at 2'40" here. The kids are alright.
Some productivity tough love, with three incredibly simple steps to get stuff done. Warning: NSFW, foul language galore. 😅
Cook with Chris's Oxtail Soup recipe is very nom. Also, with so many nasty comments on socials nowadays, this has got to be one of those rare things everyone seems to agree on: oxtail soup is the best. 😋
Tax season is upon many of us. Heck, if you're self-employed, it's pretty much always tax season. I find it easier to keep tax docs organised with this simple system.
The umbrella plant is one of my favourites. It's easy to care for, can grow super tall, and works really well with a variety of interior styles. Here's everything you need to know to keep yours healthy.
March 2025 Minimal Monthly Well hello! Does feeling physically 'off' ever completely derail your housekeeping? I had a painful reminder of this connection the other week after managing to spectacularly pull my back out yet once again (highly do not recommend). Suddenly, the desire to keep up with everything was completely overshadowed by the effort required to simply move without bawling from the pain. The whole episode highlighted how much our physical state dictates our capacity for...
January 2025 Minimal Monthly Hello, hello! During the raging fire earlier this month, a woman from L.A. wrote in to me, asking about a picture of some metal bento boxes she had seen on Tidymalism. She was putting together a bug-out bag in case she had to be evacuated. She struck me as being incredibly calm. I had a hard time finding the right words to respond to her in such a situation, but I let her know where I found the steel boxes and wished her good luck. I hope she's okay. I hope you're...
December 2024 Minimal Monthly Hi Reader, Wow. 2024 blew by fast. As the year winds down, I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to get caught up in planning, learning, and gathering inspiration—but then sometimes we don't get around to taking action. This morning, I opened up my battered copy of the Daily Stoic to this passage from Marcus Aurelius. It feels like the perfect closing thought for the year: Great little book btw. It’s a reminder that fresh starts don’t come from empty hopes or...
