The Lazy Genius Podcast - #148 - Making Memories Like a Lazy Genius

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to mark moments, make memories, and give our kids something to remember. Even if you don’t have kids, there’s still a high cultural premium on memories. Scrapbooking, photo albums, daily journals, the Gram. But if we try to manufacture memories, mechanize them, we’ll get overwhelmed by something that our brains already do. Let’s make memories like a Lazy Genius. Helpful Companion Links You can listen to Ten Steps to Creating Your Own Traditions (even if it’s geared a little bit towards holidays) here. Laura Tremaine’s family doing Sunday pancakes is a great example of a simple, but powerful memory-making practice. She also hosts a great podcast called 10 Things To Tell You. My favorite app for documenting with video is 1 Second Everyday. I also use a five-year journal (affiliate link) with a couple of lines for every day with space for five years. More info on Chatbooks, which we use to print photos of our kids from Instagram. Speaking of Instagram, I’ll be there on Thursday around noon EST to talk live about making memories. I’d love for you to join me. Download a transcript of this episode! This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi everyone. You're listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I am here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 148. Make memories like a lazy genius. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to mark moments, make memories, give our kids something to remember when they're teenagers and they kind of hate us. And even if you don't have kids, there is still a really high cultural premium. on memories. Scrapbooking, photo albums, daily journals, The Graham. And to be fair, it's not just cultural pressure or even like always bad. Memories are beautiful. Experiencing things that make us feel happy that connect us to other people. Like memories are beautiful. But if we try and manufacture them, mechanize them, or if we simply forget that we're human beings who can live our lives without pressure from other people's expectations, we'll get overwhelmed by the thing that's really natural that our brains already do in remembering things and making memories and marking moments. So today we're going to talk about making memories like a lazy

genius. We're going to focus on what matters, ignore what doesn't, and then create actual strategies and shortcuts around those things. And no add or ask today, we're just going to dive in. So we're going to go through four sections in this episode. Presence, flexibility, tradition, and tangibles. Presence, flexibility, tradition, and tangibles. First, presence. I think this matters to all of us. We want to be where we are.

We don't want to get distracted by what's around us. We want to pay attention. If you're listening to this, it is very likely that going slow and connecting both matter a lot to you. I think what we often do, though, is sacrifice presence in what we think is service to making a memory. It feels strange that making memories exist in the exact space that we're in, right? There has to be some kind of forethought, or we have to capture it with a photo or a video. We have to think about how we might recreate it down the road and create traditions around it. But really, we can't force memories.

We can't keep thinking ahead trying to manage. manufacture them. Your brain actually remembers well. Your senses are incredibly capable of capturing memories. And I think sometimes the moments that matter matter because we're in them. We're present with them. It's not that we create something from the outset knowing it's going to make a memory. I mean, some things are like that, I suppose, like, you know, weddings, birthdays, graduations, vacations. But really, the ordinary life memories happen and stay. and feel like they matter because we were in them. The other day I was watching my daughter draw.

I don't usually watch her draw. If she's happy drawing, which is very often actually, it means I get to read. I'm next to her. I'm kind of with her, but I'm doing something else. Now, that's not bad. I love reading, and it's nice to be able to do something that we both love,

individually next to each other, right? But there was something about this particular occasion where I just sat with her and I watched her draw. I didn't really say anything. Everything was the same as it usually is, except instead of like looking at a book, I was looking at her. And I am not sure that I will ever forget that couple of minutes. It was a memory in the making simply because I was there and watching. I didn't take a picture or anything because like I don't even think I realized that something important was happening until after it was over. But my senses, my eyes watching her, hearing like the, you know, the scratch of her cheat marker, hearing her breathe. Like, it is embedded in my memory. Like I can see it and conjure it right now without any hesitation.

Now, memories like that fade, of course, you know, but the point is being present in and of itself is a great way to make a memory. You just might not. You just might not. know that it's happening when it's happening. So don't give up presence for planning. Planning is great. Planning has its place, but memories don't always come because you plan them. They come because you are present. You were there. The second part of this is flexibility. When we get into planning mode or when we enter an occasion that feels important, you know, like those weddings and birthdays and graduations and vacations, we have expectations. We have expectations. We have expectations. we expect things will go a certain way or we want them to go a certain way and are disappointed

when they don't. I've talked about this before in other contexts that honestly I can't exactly remember right now. Maybe like traveling on vacation. I can't remember. But essentially, a lot of us go into things with unnamed expectations about, you know, certain events in our lives or whatever. You don't know how much pressure you're putting on the birthday girl to feel excited and looked apart at her party. You don't realize how you assume that no one is going to fight on vacation because you're on vacation. You didn't know how much you wanted your high school student to give you a hug and say thank you at her graduation rather than just like leave with her friends like it was any other day, right? We often have expectations and because they're unnamed or because

we're holding too tightly to what we want, we are not fling. flexible. We don't roll with it because we're rolling with the wrong thing. Being flexible in life, and definitely in terms of making memories, especially around like typical memorable occasions, being flexible, it's like it gives you more surface area for memories to stick. You're in a posture where anything and everything can count as a beautiful memory. What matters is being present and connecting with your people. So when the circumstances change in big or small ways, you're not beholden to those circumstances because what matters, the presence and the connection, are likely still there. And if they're not, if something like your teenage kid leaving

when you wanted her to stay with you, you can name that for yourself. You can have the perspective of her growing up and changing and all the things that I have not experienced yet as a parent. But by naming it for what it is, you're not resenting your daughter. You know you wanted her to hang out with you after graduation or for her birthday dinner or something. So when she chooses something else, you can immediately know, oh, that's different than what I hoped would happen. But you can say that with compassion instead of resentment. You can be flexible and connect with her the next morning and go get coffee. You know, you can tell her that you love her and you're proud of her as she's leaving with friends and not make her feel badly.

for being a teenager and moving away from family being the place that she always chooses. I realize that's like a really heavy example. But being flexible in those times, especially, is its own component of making memories. You're not seeing everything through a lens of harsh disappointment. You're remembering what matters and in your flexibility around everything else. You can still have good memories, even if things don't go the way that you wanted. Aw isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark

awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. So the first two, presence and flexibility, are a little more like, you know, intangible. With these last two, we'll have some more bones. So next is tradition. I have an episode actually called 10 Steps to Creating Your Own Traditions. It's episode 132, not that far back. And it has a bit more of a holiday bent just because of, you know, when it came out. But that doesn't mean it can only be applied during the holidays. There are steps in creating and naming traditions. in your life and with your family. One of the biggest places is really the smallest, actually, and that is to start small. We really love the idea of a life of tradition, of things we do all the time

that everyone looks forward to. But if you try and craft a ton of traditions, you won't do any of them probably. So start small. Start with what you already do. That episode goes into the process of that in more detail. So I would encourage you to listen to that. But the point is that you're likely already engaging in more traditions than you think. You just haven't really named them in that way before. I think it's also important to remember that memories are made from spontaneity for sure. You remember like getting to go on that cool trip as a kid. You remember being woken up in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower in your driveway with your dad. Those things are amazing and definitely can be memory makers. But so are things that are incredibly consistent. Traditions are just things you do

again and again. And some of those can be super simple and ordinary, but they carry extraordinary memory powers. Things like Laura Tremaine's family doing Sunday pancakes. Laura is a real life friend and she's the host of a great podcast called 10 Things to Tell You and her family makes pancakes every Sunday morning. Is it always super special? Do they always talk to each other the whole time? Is it full of laughter like every single time? No. It's kind of ordinary. But the repetition of it is what makes it special. So just remember that as you think through traditions that consistency, regular ordinary things work their own memory grooves in us and in our people. Your kids will remember eating pizza every Friday or going on a walk around the block after dinner every night

or listening to a certain audiobook or album in the car on the way to school. Those things are ordinary, but they're really important. And when I say that they're really important, I hope that you don't feel the pressure to make it all count. Just remember that they matter too. The ordinary things matter too. And finally, some tangibles. I love to capture and look back. I think it's important I just don't want to be beholden to it, especially in a trade for just being there and being present and being a person. So I use three separate things to capture life. Sometimes that life is of a specific event, you know, that is like a, that's a memory. And then sometimes it's not.

Sometimes it's just daily stuff. But these are my personal memory making tools if this kind of helps you. First is the app one second a day. It is a great app that costs, I think it costs a couple dollars. And it captures a one second video of every day or as many days as you have. You don't have to do it every day. And puts them into one long video seamlessly. The nice thing is that you can pull from the cloud and every video is connected to a date,

obviously in your phone. So basically, you don't have to update the video in the app every day. Like I just take a video with my camera, right, on my phone. I just take a video as many days as I think of it. Just a literal video of like a second or two of something that's happening. Very exciting, very ordinary, whatever. And then every couple of weeks, I open the app. I grab the videos that go on each day.

And they make it so that like you tap the day and it accesses, it just immediately pulls up videos and photos from your phone that were on that day. So it's so, so easy. But I grab the videos that go on that day. I choose my second from the video and then I'm done. Like that's it. We have been doing this since the end of 2016. So we have videos of every year with like a little snippet of most days. And it is the best. It is like it is my favorite memory keeping option. I love it so much. So one second a day. The second thing I use is a five year journal. I'll link to it in the show notes, but it's basically like a year

long journal with a couple of lines for every day, but it has space for five years of writing on every page. So like one page has a date, like March 12th, but there are five year options on that page, right? I've been keeping it for a year and a half maybe, and I use it for myself. I remember things about my own days, what I felt, what I enjoyed. Sometimes it's work, kids, friends, trips, a movie I saw, whatever. I'm not much of a journal person. I'm not much of a journal person. so this works well for me because it's it's really a sentence every day super small and very very easy to fit into my life and the third thing that I use is I take a purposeful photo of my kids once a month I have an alarm set on my phone actually as a reminder that goes off on the first day of every month

I take square photos of each kid individually against the same wall in a well-lit room and then I take a photo of the three of them as a group so at the end of the year year, I have 12 photos of each kid and 12 of them together, 12 photos of them together. And you'd better believe we put those in a book for grandparents every year at Christmas for sure. Actually, the easiest way for me is I have a private Instagram account that I use just for photo storage, like just for stuff like that. Because we usually use chat books to make those kinds of books. It's easier to just connect to an Instagram account rather than like uploading photos from my phone or to the cloud or I don't know, whatever. I don't understand a lot of that stuff.

So I just, I have a random, like, private. Nobody follows it. It's just like a secret photo account that I can use as like a photo album for digital memory making. So those are my three things. One second to video a day, one sentence written a day, and one set of photos taken once a month. Now, what this does is for me, it eliminates the need for me to capture everything. I am capturing the growth of my kids through those monthly photos and through the videos. I'm capturing the anthology aspect of life through both of those things. And I'm remembering my own things with the journal. It's freed me up from taking photos all the time of feeling pressure to capture every moment.

It's just a huge load off because I have these very simple practices that do the same job with a lot less work. So basically, you can ask yourself, what matters about capturing memories and moments to you? What is it that you really want? And then think about one or two things that you can do on a regular basis to fit that. Make those steps as small as you can so that you will do them. That's why I love these particular tangibles because they serve me well. One other just quick tangible tip that I have is to take the photo or the video in the moment, but post it later. No posting needs to happen right now. That way you can just stay present.

And I'm not saying like if you post it right away that you're like a bad person. And of course not. But I think sometimes we sort of get in the habit of like we take a photo and then we immediately want to share it because we're excited. But then we sort of remove ourselves from the moment when we do that. And if you, you know, if you want to stay present, I'm assuming that's what you're ultimately after. It works a little bit better that way to just take the photo or the video and then put your phone away and do it later. I also, this might sound weird, I also try and use my eyes more than my camera as much as I can. So this is very true for things like school plays. My husband is a school counselor, and so he doesn't have that kind of job flexibility to be able to see one of our kids' school performances in the

middle of the day. He doesn't really get to do that. He doesn't have a lunch break or something. So of course I record the school play for him. But I really try to record it with my phone, but I watched the play with my eyes, not watched through the phone. I know that's kind of a strange distinction, but it makes the memories stick more to see them in real life versus through the phone, even if I'm still in the room. So just think about that the next time you're filming something. Watch with your eyes. Film with your phone, but watch with your eyes. So presence, remember that being present actually makes memories stronger because you're remembering where you are.

You can't force it or manufacture it. Just be present and allow memories to create themselves. Be flexible. Roll with what matters and try to not be so stuck on what happens. Start small with your traditions and listen to that extra podcast episode I mentioned to get some ideas on kind of some practical ways to go through that. And then remember that ordinary consistency creates memories just as much as spontaneous fun does. And then fourth, use tangibles that work for you. My need as little attention as possible, but with big payoff in the end. So name what matters to you. Ask around for other ideas from people in your life. And then seek out tangible approaches that allow you to capture memories without losing the presence and connection that you ultimately want. And that is how to make memories like a lazy genius.

If you have thoughts or questions about this, I will be on Instagram this Thursday around noon Eastern time to talk alive. So follow me there at The Lazy Genius. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra and I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A-plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You

wherever you get your podcasts.