The Lazy Genius Podcast - #201 - The Lazy Genius Guide to Moving

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

It’s finally here — an episode about moving! Good golly, I’ve been getting asked to Lazy Genius moving at least once a week for the last two years. But before you scroll away because you aren’t planning a move, I want to tell you that I apply every single Lazy Genius principle to moving in this episode so you can see how to LG your own thing in real-time. Stuff Mentioned Find all of the Lazy Genius principles in my book, The Lazy Genius Way (affiliate link). Follow along on Instagram @thelazygenius to provide feedback on this episode setup. 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

Great news. The federal EV rebate is back. Eligible customers get up to $5,000 with the federal EVAP rebate on select 2027 volt and 2026 Equinox EV models. Visit your local Chevrolet dealer today for more details. Hey there. You're listening to the lazy genius podcast. I am Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 201, The Lazy Genius Guide to Moving. Good golly. I have been getting requests for this topic. I would think like at least once a week for the last two years.

You guys really want some lazy genius perspective on moving. So here it is. I'm happy to make you happy. However, I want to share something at the top of this episode for those of you who are not currently moving because you might be like, I don't need to listen to this, which is you don't have to. However, we are going to apply every single. lazy genius principle to moving in this episode so that you can see how to lazy genius your own

thing in real time. I get asked all the time how to lazy genius pretty big situations like moving, like a kid going to college, like a job search, all very personal, detailed, nuanced things. The truth is, I cannot lazy genius those things for you, but you can with the 13 principles from the lazy genius way. So I'm going to do that in this episode about moving. So it can help the movers and it can help the people who are like already settled and you have no plans to move anytime soon like me. Okay. Now I want to start with this. You could follow every moving tip on every blog post ever written and still have a stressful move. That's just the truth. The problem is not that you need more tips or that you don't have enough tips to move. in the right way. The problem is you're trying to be a genius about the whole thing. So let me offer some permission here. If you are moving, there are absolutely a lot of things that you need to consider, right? There is the packing up of your stuff, the selling of your current place, the buying of a new

place or renting of a new place, the unpacking at the new place, the cost, the time, the energy involved in all of those things. Then there's obviously like regular actual life that keeps moving. kids still go to school you still go to work people still need to eat bills still have to be paid on top of switching over the utilities for those bills because you're moving then there's you you still need to relax you still need to sleep you still need time with friends or in the woods or in your garden or in a chair with a book there are so many components to moving and i want to tell you this right now trying to be a genius about all of them will end up with you crying in the corner almost certainly. You cannot optimize every single component of your move, just like you cannot optimize

every single component of your life. So this is your permission to name what matters so that you can choose where to put your genius energy and where to put your lazy energy. Moving is so hard, obviously. I don't care if it's across country or like on a different street in your same neighborhood. You're literally transferring your entire life from one place to another. And that takes a while. The logistics of that are immense, not to mention the energy and the stress and the relationship strain, the exhaustion, and how regular life just keeps happening. So go ahead and decide now that you will accept that not every part of this will be perfect. Not every part of this will be optimized. But that also doesn't mean that you just have to give up and just, just

throw everything in boxes and hope for the best. It's not all lazy or all genius. A lazy genius is a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. So name what matters most to you so you can know where to work hard and where to let go. Okay, so what is that? What matters to you about your move? What feels heaviest to deal with? what singular thing if it were taken care of would make you feel so much better about everything else. The answer is obviously up to you. But once you know that answer, everything else will make a little more sense. And only then can you move forward with what tips and strategies that you need to have a lazy genius move. Making a list might help. If you like lists, if you want to try this,

write down all the things about the move that come to mind. and you can maybe even, if it helps, break it down, break like capital M moving down into some categories like packing, unpacking, selling one house, buying another, trying to move while you have a job or kids or a limited budget. You know, there are lots of components here. So write down all the things that you have to do or all the things that concern you, all the things that are on your mind, anything that feels stressful. Just jot down whatever comes to mind. Just write it all down. if it's in your brain and it comes to the forefront, it will likely be valuable to see written down. Okay, now once your list is made, you can use it to help you name what matters or to confirm what you've already named,

you know, now that you've seen it all written out. So what jumps out at you? What aspect of the move? What challenge, what stressor that you wrote down has a spotlight on it. That is where you're going to start in applying lazy genius principles. it's okay if you apply principles to this thing and it turns out it's not actually the most important thing but if it's high up there it's good to get the practice we're getting the reps in on how to apply lazy genius principles now speaking of lazy genius principles if you are a new listener hi hello

welcome i wrote a book called the lazy genius way that it details 13 lazy genius principles to help you apply your own system to anything in your life that needs it rules and systems that are already built, they usually don't work for us because the person that wrote that system into a book maybe that you have read, that person is different from you. That person has different priorities than you do. And you need different tools to build your own system, not just copy someone else's. And those tools that I've created are the 13 lazy genius principles. So I'm going to mention them all here. briefly. But since I wrote a whole book about them, detailing them, like to their greatest extent,

it would make this episode very, very long. I think the audiobook is like over four hours. So we're not going to do that here. But they are in the lazy genius way. If you get to the end of this episode and you're like, oh man, those principles are really helpful. You can check it out at your library, you know, grab up for a bookstore, Amazon or whatever. Okay. So you have your list of things about the move that are stressing you out or you have to do. You have chosen the thing that at this point feels like it matters most, the thing that feels the most important to lazy genius. And now you're going to run that thing through all 13 principles and see what ideas rise to the surface. What principle kind of makes the biggest impact for this situation.

It's almost like putting together an outfit. It's like you put on a, you know, like a gray jersey dress. But you try on different things to make in an outfit. You try on this jacket. But then this card again, you put a t-shirt over the dress, you find the necklace, you know, whatever. You keep trying things on until you go like, ah, there it is. That's how it is with the principles. You try them all on for size until you find the one or the two or three that kind of work in tandem that make the most sense for whatever you're dealing with.

Okay. So for the sake of our example right now, we are going to lazy genius packing. So let's say you've already started packing, but it's just too overwhelming, right? You move in two weeks and you're just kind of thinking about burning your whole house down and starting over, if not for the fact that someone's already bought the house that you're moving out of. So burning it down is not really a viable option here. So what do you do? What do you do when you're so overwhelmed by packing? Let's try all 13 principles. Try them on in this area of packing. and see what sticks. I am literally doing this on the fly. So these examples are not exhaustive.

They are not perfect. It's just what came to mind first. Okay. I'm just giving you some practice on how to do this for yourself in your own move. Okay. Principle number one. I do have the principles written down. Principle number one. Decide once. So decide once is making one decision one time and then never again until that decision just doesn't work for you anymore. It's a way to be. It's a way to be able to. cut down on decision fatigue, which is likely a very important component of moving. There are lots of things to choose, right? So for packing, I could decide once that anything that doesn't feel like it's worth moving will go to goodwill. If I'm like, do I need this? And it doesn't feel worth finding a box for or whatever. Maybe it's time to say goodbye to that thing. But the gift in Decide Once is that I have

already chosen where that thing will go. I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to to decide if, you know, we should do a yard sale before we move or if my sister would want this thing or anything like that. It's going to goodwill. It's all going to goodwill. So that's just an example. Another decide once could be, we're having a yard sale the weekend before we move, right? Which gives you a purpose for everything you touch. Either it goes in a box to go to your new place or it goes in the living room for next week when you have your yard sale. So limit your decisions by deciding something once. Principle number two is start small. We can start small. You need to start small in lots of ways with moving. I can start small with packing specifically

by choosing one area to pack a day, you know, and that's it. By sending an email or a group text to my, you know, local friends asking if they can save their extra boxes for me, put them on their porches and I'll spend an afternoon driving around to get all the boxes. I can start small by throwing away the trash in all the rooms by returning my mother-in-law's Tupperware containers that I keep forgetting to give her that are clogging up my kitchen because I'm not going to pack them and they're just kind of in the way. I can start small by cleaning out my van so there's room to load up all those things I'm going to take to goodwill, right? Start small one thing at a time. Principle number three is ask the magic question. The

magic question is, what can I do now to make life, or in this case, packing easier later? You can designate a space in your home where packed stuff can go and it's not in the way. You can get quotes from movers now rather than waiting until the last minute and then they're all booked or they're all too expensive, you know? You can buy extra rolls of packing tape now when you're picking up bananas at Target so that you don't run out of tape later? That's principle number three. Ask the magic question. Principle number four. Live in the season. Moving, you guys, I don't know if you know this, is a stressful season of life. Of course we know this. So trying to make it not stressful

or trying to make it resemble regular life, it's just not a realistic expectation. So simply naming that this is a season of things being a little off center because you're moving, That really, really helps. Principle number five. Build the right routines. Okay, so this one feels like it might not work. It feels a little tricky. Like it might not be the best jacket with a dress.

Mostly because routines kind of get thrown out the window during a move, right? However, the idea of a lazy genius routine, it's not about the steps that you take, but it's about how you want to feel where you're going. routine really is an on-ramp to something that you've already named, to something that matters. So maybe in this context, when you think about packing, maybe there's a routine of putting yourself in a positive headspace when you pack so you don't resent the process as much as you could. So like your routine might be, you know, putting on really peppy music or making yourself an iced

coffee before you get going, putting on your favorite sweatpants, opening the windows to let breeze in so it's not stuffy. There's something really special about open windows if the weather is appropriate, obviously, when you're, you know, cleaning things out. Saying to yourself as you get started, this is a season, you know, we're moving because this thing that matters, you know, we made it a priority and we're going to move to support that thing or, you know, you can name that, you know, I'm grateful to have help or to have resources or have that yard that we're moving to or those neighbors that were so nice to us. Like, whatever it is, you know, there could be something that you just say to your yourself before you begin packing to kind of shift your perspective a little bit. So maybe a little

routine before you begin packing isn't such a bad idea. Maybe it actually will work. Okay, principle number six, because remember, we're just trying these on for size, right? Principle number six, set house rules. A house rule is a rule that everyone in your house knows about to keep things from falling apart later. So a house rule for packing, Could be don't tape the boxes closed until moving day. That way you can always go back and get something that you didn't think you needed before you left, but you actually do need without having to untape boxes, which is weirdly so annoying to untape boxes. So that could be a house rule.

Don't tape boxes until the last day. Another house rule could be don't tape a box until you label it because you tape it and you think you'll remember and then you get distracted and then you have to untape the box. and, you know, basically make house rules around taping boxes, apparently in my house. You can make a house rule, like, don't pack trash. I know that's kind of crazy, but we just sometimes, like, just throw stuff in. It's like, oh, that toy's broken. Who cares?

But it's literally trash. So, like, don't pack trash. That could be house rule. Whatever you need to make the process of packing feel less, you know, crazy town for you, whatever makes you crazy. 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. Principle number seven is to put everything in its place. everything needs to be transported to the new home and something, right? So a way to lazy genius packing with this principle is to pack things not by what they are, but by where they go, right? Label them based on the place where they're going to be put. Label the box with the place the thing goes rather than what the thing is.

Okay, principle number eight, let people in. Okay, so this feels a little bit obvious. Like you can let people in by asking them for help. Sometimes we, you know, there's like all the jokes. I mean, I feel like there's a whole episode of Seinfeld about asking a friend to help you move. Like, are we, are we moving friends? Can we ask that? We feel like we're such a burden when we're asking people to help us move. But there are other ways to ask for help. So thinking about packing, you can ask for packing help. If you are overwhelmed and stuck, ask a friend who is not overwhelmed and stuck. Ask a friend who is not overwhelmed and duck to come help you for like two hours, you know? When my sister moved from North Carolina to

Alaska a few years ago, she was in that overwhelmed place. They were not taking everything with them because it was obviously like a really big trip. Some things were going to go in storage, but also like some things were like, should we keep this at all? So I went to her house and I went through her stuff. We sat in her bedroom and I literally just held everything up in front of her. And I was like, pack store, like, which one? And she sat on the bed and she just said those words. She just spoke words. She was too overwhelmed and tired to do anything else. But we got her whole bedroom packed that way. So ask for help. You can ask for help by asking a friend to bring you dinner the night before you move or the day of or three days after. Actually, if you have a friend who is moving,

like you're not moving but you have someone that you know who is i would seriously love to see more of us create meal trains like we do when someone has a baby when someone's moving like just set up two weeks of meals for your people like maybe even include lunches on some of those days and invite your community invite friends and family to help provide food for your people during their move like when you're moving you're trying to pack up a kitchen and thinking about going to the store or meal planning like are you kidding me, that's just not on the table right now. So if you know someone who is moving, this is such a lovely way to help that friend who probably would feel really weird asking for this kind of help.

So just go ahead and do it, like without their permission. I just be like, we're bringing you food for the next couple of weeks. So you're going to be fine. Or maybe ask permission. Maybe they have a plan. You know, it's fine. But I still think it's a great idea. Okay. Principle number nine. Batch it. Batching is doing the same. action all at once. So a way that you could batch packing, pack all the clothes all at once. By the way, just quick, quick tip on packing clothes. If you have the ability in terms of like, you know, hiring movers or you've got like moving dollies and stuff like that, consider actually not unpacking your dresser drawers, like leave your clothes in their dresser and then just wrap up

the dresser and, you know, that packing plastic or whatever. Leave your clothes. on their hangers. That's always a time saver so that you're not having to like put everything back on your hangers. I think we sort of think that packing stuff, everything has to go on a box. And it doesn't. It doesn't actually always. So consider that with packing your clothes. But back to batching. You could, you know, batch pack all the clothes. You can pack all the linens or, you know, the towels or any category of thing all at one time. You can tape up all the boxes all at once. assemble a bunch of boxes all at once go through your entire house and pull out all the suitcases and duffel bags and containers that are empty that you can use to put stuff in do all that

all at once okay principle number 10 is essentialize essentialize is getting rid of whatever is in the way of what matters so once you name what matters and anything there are plenty of ways that you might have things that are in that way, right? So get rid of that stuff. So what is in the way of packing? What could be in the way of your packing? Clutter. Clutter is in the way of packing. Expectations that your house will not look like you're moving. That is definitely in the way. Get rid of that expectation. Cooking meals in the usual way. That's very much in the way. So you can eat whatever is in the kitchen. You know, it's like a free-for-all at every meal. so you have less food to pack.

Essentialize. Get rid of whatever is in the way of what matters most. Principle number 11 is going the right order. Let's see. What could be going in the right order for packing? You can, well, it feels like it's good to have a space, like to set aside a space for where the packed stuff will go, right? So that's maybe the first part of the order. Pack what you don't need right now, you know, pack seasonal stuff, things that aren't going to, that you don't want to open boxes for after things are packed. Pack up rooms that are less used first.

So that could be in order. Principle number 12 is schedule rest. This one is non-negotiable. You need to do this. Now, how can a person schedule rest specifically during packing? Maybe you set a limit of when you're going to stop. And it's not 11 o'clock at night. You know, you give yourself some time to rest and be a person.

or if you are on such a time crunch because again everybody's situation is different only you know what you need maybe you are in a time crunch and you do need to pack into the night for a few nights in a row then rest by feeling like yourself play music that makes you feel like yourself while you're doing it order takeout from a place that you really like while you're packing don't necessarily feel like you have to go at the speed of light so that you don't crash and burn you know you can you can go at like a medium steady speed if you're having to pack for a long time. And then for sure you need to schedule rest on the other side of the move. Right.

Like once you move in, please pick like a day where you're not doing anything related to moving or unpacking or whatever. Just take a nap. Go for a walk. Read a book. Something like that. Okay. And then principle number 13, our last one is be kind to yourself.

Moving is so stressful. you will snap. Your people will snap back. Feelings will get hurt. Things will get packed wrong. Tape will run out because you asked your teenager to pick up extra at the store and he forgot. Be kind in this process to yourself and to your people. Everyone is stressed out. Things will get forgotten and missed. So what matters more is loving each other well and staying kind and connected, even in those stressful circumstances. Okay. So I just ran packing through the 13 principles. Those are some ideas. Now, I actually think all of those could actually be really great ways to approach packing. But if this were your list, pick the one or two ideas that feel the most important right now

and start with those. You don't have to build a big packing machine. Start small. Remember, that's principle number two. Not everything is going to be optimized, even how you lazy jean. a particular category of moving. So just try and lazy genius what you need, like the one or two things that you need with the energy and resources that you have. Now, are you really mad at me for not having a master list of lazy genius moving tips? Here is the good news. There's no such thing for one because different things matter to different people. But now, guess what? Now that you know what matters most to you. You can search for tips about that thing. You can search for, you know, tips for moving on the internet. And you can read those lists, but you can read them

through the lens of what matters most to you. If budget is not an issue, you don't need to read the list about a budget-friendly move. If decluttering first is not an issue because you're moving from a small place into a larger place and you already don't have that much to begin with, you don't need to read the list about a minimalist move. Name what matters to you and then choose the tips and strategies through that lens. You can use lazy genius principles to come up with your own ideas or you can totally read other people's lists of ideas but with your own priorities in mind. This is how you guys become a lazy genius in your own life without even needing to listen to

this podcast. I need to work myself out of a job because what you guys can do is as you apply these principles and lead with what matters most. You don't need specific tips anymore or you don't need as many as you think you do because you already know what matters most to you. And that is the lens that you look at your life with, moving or not, all the things. And that is how a lazy genius moves. That's the lazy genius guide to moving. I hope this helps. I hope that if you're moving soon, that you just feel like, okay, I can do this. And if you're not moving, that this gives you some really good practice in applying the lazy genius principles to your own situation.

Remember, all the principles that we just, all 13, are in the lazy genius way. And I promise you, if this was not a helpful book, I would not tell you about it. I would not keep talking about it. I'm actually not really trying to sell it. I want your life to be better. I would be super thrilled if every single one of you just got it from the library. I just want you to read it because I care about you and I know, I know that it will change your life. I know this because you've told me that. You've told me how this book has changed your life. The reviews on Amazon say that to you.

And I use these principles in my own life every single day. This stuff works because it helps you create what you need based on what matters to you. we will probably have more episodes in the future where we practice using the principles on a specific topic where we're just trying on all the jackets with the dress. So if you liked this format or you have ideas for more like specific topics, be sure to follow me on Instagram. I'm at the lazy genius. I will actually be asking for some feedback there this week and how we can, you know, maybe keep making episodes that are like this if they're helpful. And I would love your feedback. So be sure you're following me there. Okay, 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.