You’re not really a nice person if you save all your patience for strangers and none for your family.

Public manners are partly maintenance of your own image, and they cost little because the interaction ends. At home there is no image to maintain and no exit, so whatever patience is left over is what you really have. Most people run the budget backwards, spending the good hours on strangers and the tired remainder on the people they live with.

Reverse one piece of it this week. Give the first ten minutes after you get home the tone you would use with a customer. It will feel artificial for about two days and then stop being artificial.