Thanks for thinking up alternatives! Sometimes my partner bursts out loud that my ruminations are simply dumb and hey sometimes that helps!

Maybe instead of thinking of these things as “excuses,” it’s better to think of them as “explanations”? (I think I read this somewhere but have no memory where.) Thinking of these as explanations doesn’t excuse you but it does give you some validity. So something along the lines of, “I’m tired—it’s not an excuse for my tidying up but it is an explanation. I am tired so I am messy, but I should still clean up soon.” Hope that makes sense :/