The Lazy Genius Podcast - #211 - How to Plan a Summer Day

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

I want us to plan a summer day without turning into robots or without leaving literally everything to chance where we’re playing it cool on the outside because we’re cool and spontaneous and we go with the flow and on the inside we’re literally screaming in terror because going with the flow forever and always is just as stressful as planning every minute. Helpful Companion Links Check out The Lazy Genius Way (affiliate link) if you’d like to read more about how I use Lazy Genius principles every day. Check out a podcast flight on Time Management episodes on Spotify. Or listen to The Lazy Genius Plans a Day here. 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

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intense. Our planning is like very like optimized. Every single minute has to be planned and then we repeat it until we die. Or we don't plan anything because planning is too intense or restrictive or it reminds you of like when you used to plan everything to the minute and you're not trying to do that anymore. So I personally have not found a lot of good middle ground normal information around time management these last few years. So I'm trying to fill that void here. I want us to plan a summer day without turning into robots, but also without leaving literally everything to chance when we're like playing it cool on the outside, but we're, you know, because we're like cool and spontaneous. But inside we are literally screaming and terror because like going with the flow forever,

it's just as stressful as planning every minute, right? We need to have like a middle ground. Middle grounders unite. So let's plan a summer day like a lazy genius. We're going to do that with seven points. And here is the first. Number one, there is no single ideal day. The rhythm of summer is already naturally repetitious, you know, it's slower, you do fun things, kind of over and over again. I think there's even a paradigm that a lot of us have when it comes to summer where we envision lovely, slow, repetitive days doing the same things over and over again, like grilling and, you know, being outside laughing while the breeze blows on her hair and reading by the pool or at a park or daily reading hours with the kids where everyone is quiet and they're tired of playing outside

or whatever. I think we have in our minds an ideal that we not only expect, but we expect it to happen again and again and again. And I think it's really important to release that expectation. There is no single ideal day. Summer has all kinds of needs and personality. You and your people have all kinds of needs and personalities. I think you'll be frustrated with your summer if you create a single ideal day that you plan on repeating over and over again. I mean, I love routines and deciding once around things that matter and all of that. And you can totally plan a single ideal day in the hopes that you will repeat it over and over again. But I think it's really vital that you hold that expectation loosely and you make room for other kinds of things.

of days, which we will get to, that's point number four, I think, but let's go to number two. Number two, create summer stretches. No matter what your summer looks like, it's nice to make it smaller. Rather than seeing your summer as, you know, the end of this school year until the beginning of the next school year, or from the end of May to the beginning of September, or, you know, however you characterize your summer, I encourage you to make your summer smaller. by creating summer stretches. I live in stretches. I adore stretches. A stretch is simply a length of time that creates some good boundaries around your decision making. For example, if you say to me in our, what was our Sunday night, but it's now our Monday night, ask me anything on Instagram,

how you should lazy genius your summer, that's way too big. It's way too big. And my first answer would be to start small by making your summer smaller by creating summer stretches. So plan from the last day of school to the day trip that you're taking a couple weeks later to see the grandparents or something. Then go from that day trip to July 4th. Go from that to the yard sale that you're thinking about having. Then go from that to the end of the library summer reading challenge and, you know, like go from the next thing to the next thing. And if you don't have things, then just pick a date. Make it up. It doesn't matter. But you your energy and schedule will change throughout the summer and throughout your life. So you will likely not need the same day in May as you will in August. So create some summer stretches. Okay, number three,

name what matters about the next stretch. That's it, just the next one. Your attempts at lazy genius in your life will work so much better if you start small. So name what matters not about the summer, but about the next summer stretch. If you have kids who will be home, maybe what matters about the next one is like just hanging out and playing and not having a schedule for a little while after, you know, finally being done with school. Maybe you're a teacher and you just need to not have a to do list for the next two weeks, right? You just need to like, chill. Or maybe you have not had time to tend to your home. So you desperately want to do that now. Now that you're not in your classroom anymore, if you're a teacher and you're like, I want to get my home, like situated and reset and then I'll rest for the rest of the summer or whatever it is.

Like you're not going to do that all summer. You're not going to reset your house all summer. But that does matter right now. Okay. Whatever it is, name what matters about the next stretch. Okay. Number four. Name multiple prototype days. I want you to have prototype days. I love I love prototype. I love prototyped. type days. So I don't like using the label of ideal day or dream day or any of that because I don't know, ideals and dreams, they come with like a lot of invisible baggage for many of you in this community. You're already very good at striving for the ideal. That when you don't hit it, it feels like a failure. So let's not do that. Let's not do that anymore. Naming your ideal day and not experiencing it over and over again. It's just a recipe for feeling bad about yourself. And remember, lazy genius principle number 13 is to be kind to yourself not beat yourself up for you know whatever fill in the

blank so i really love prototype days i love that that title of them that label it just has no emotion it has room for like tinkering you know and it feels a lot easier now okay so i want you to name multiple prototype days if you can again i said this before the chances of your living the same day over and over again this summer, even if you hold that prototype loosely, like a single one, it's just unlikely. It's going to be very unlikely that you're going to have the same day over and over again. There are just different kinds of days, right? We all need different kinds of days. So think through the types of days that you might have in the summer. So there's, you know, maybe you're just typical day. You're not doing anything extra or special.

you're mostly at home or you're doing your regular thing, which might be going to the pool or going to the library or I don't know, whatever it is. It's just a typical day, right? What matters about that typical day? What does it generally look like? You can write it down if you want to. But what matters about that day? What about another one? What about like an adventure day or a day trip day? And this is if you have kids or not. Like you can still have adventures when you don't have children. please do if you're doing something you know generally for a whole day what is the prototype of how that day will look based on what matters to you okay maybe you have a prototype for a domestic day a day a day where you do chores or laundry or you clean out the garage or whatever some days you're home

for longer right and you're just going to do more tasks like what is what do those task days look like. Maybe you need a prototype for a rest day or an errand day or a vacation day or a day you work from home or a day you go to the office. Like it doesn't matter how many or what the days are. The point is to recognize that your summer will have different kinds of days. And then you can name what those days might generally look like in light of what matters to you about those days. There's more to life than finding the perfect car, but finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life. Like the SUV that handles everything from drop off to off road, and the car that hulls groceries and hockey teams, or the van that's gone from just practical to practically family.

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Number five, segment your next day. You can't really plan a summer day that's going to happen a month from now or maybe even three days from now. You know, people get sick, attitudes change, it rains, lots of things can interrupt a plan. So once you have made your summer smaller with some stretches and you have loosely thought through what your prototype days are, simply think about your next day. If you want to line it up with a prototype, do that. If you already knows what matters about your next day, awesome. That lens of what matters, it always makes a huge difference. And then I love to segment the day. Okay. I've talked about this often in other kind of time management episodes and on Instagram, but I love using flags, chairs, and bunting to think through a day. So if you're new here,

I'll just give you a quick refresh. Flags are the things that are fixed. They are not moving, right? Appointments, stuff that's like tied to a time. Chairs are the place. that you are scheduling rest because that is a lazy genius principle and you need to do it on purpose. And then bunting is the backdrop between those flags and chairs. So bunting can be tasked that like they can be done any time. Bunting can be happy music you play during a busy morning or a boring morning. Bunting can be a snack platter that sits out on your counter for the entire afternoon for grazing children. Bunting can really be anything. It's just like the filler between the things. it's the backdrop between the things that matter and the things that need to happen at a specific time.

So for your next summer day, segment it. What flags are you moving between? Where are your chairs? Where are your kids' chairs? Where are your people's chairs? What is the bunting that's going to connect one flag to another? And then does that same bunting continue like throughout the day? Or do you put up a new string of bunting that has a different purpose when you get to after lunch, you know? segment your day. Number six, make your challenges smaller. I said this, I said this already, but it's so much easier to lazy genius your life when you make your challenges smaller. You know, how do I lazy genius a new baby? How do I lazy genius a wedding? How do I lazy genius a new job? Those are legitimate, understandable questions. But you're likely asking me or asking, you know,

the ether because you can't figure out an answer on your own. And here's the thing. No one can because it's too big. It's too big. So make your challenges smaller in the context of your next summer day or maybe your next summer stretch even. What are some of your challenges? If you name one and you can't seem to like figure out how to apply one or two lazy genius principles to that thing, I want you to make the challenge even smaller. So for example, let's let's, let's workshop this. If you're trying to lazy genius tomorrow, don't ask, how can I lazy genius? is tomorrow. Instead, think about what is challenging tomorrow. Not necessarily like hard or overwhelming or sad. I mean, it can be those things. But also you just might find comfort in just that word challenging.

You know, it just feels less like ominous. So like what might a slight roadblock in your day be? And how could you maybe feel easier if that was out of the way? What is a challenge in front of you? So maybe your plan tomorrow is to have a full day of meetings at work where you're working on a, you know, a big project and it's super fun. It's very challenging, but it also takes a lot out of you. And when you get home, you've got a Zoom book club meeting that you want to have energy for, but you're wondering if you actually will. So instead of saying, how can I lazy genius tomorrow, name the challenge and make it small. So the challenge tomorrow is having energy during the times you want it. that's what matters. Now what principles could help with that? How can I lazy genius having energy tomorrow? You feel a difference in the specificity of that? You know, maybe you can schedule rest. That's a lazy genius principle. During your lunch break, you eat outside and you take some deep breaths while you read a book instead of listening to music or a podcast because maybe that's like a little too stimulating for you when you need to, you know, kind of get your energy back. Maybe a principle that can help with

this is to batch it where you double tonight's dinner so you can have dinner already made tomorrow. So when you come home, you can like take a walk or take a nap or do whatever you need to get your energy back after a long day without needing to make dinner. So you can go to your Zoom book club. You know, make the challenge smaller. And finally, number seven, apply lazy genius principles to those smaller challenges. we just did that a little bit in that example, but that's kind of where you end, right? Just apply a principle or two. Think through the list of the 13 and listen to which one, like, speaks a little louder than the others. Try something and see if it works. But I want to reemphasize, like I do often, that principles

work in different ways for different people. They even work differently from one day to the next. Like, they're not a formula, you know? You will never use like the same principle for the same challenge all the time. Sometimes you're going to need another one. Sometimes you need to put two together. So be really relaxed in how tightly you hold these principles in certain contexts. Use one until it doesn't work for you anymore. But don't be surprised when it's not working as well, right? Sometimes that happens. If you're still focused on what matters most about your specific day or your specific challenge because you've made it smaller, you will feel more comfortable shifting your principles to what works best for you. Because the focus is what matters, not necessarily using the same principle all the time. You apply the

principles, but not in a formulaic, robotic way. Just pay attention to what matters, to what you need, and to what might impact that need in a way that works well for you. Okay. So to recap how to plan a summer day. There is no single ideal day. Let that expectation go and stop trying to systemize one day that worked well into days that don't work so well. You don't have to do it that way. Next, create summer stretches and then name what matters about the next stretch. You can name a few prototype days if that helps you. Segment your next day with chairs and flags and bunting. Make your challenges smaller and then apply lazy genius principles to that challenge. Do not start too big. You will not be very happy if you're like, how do I lazy genius the summer?

You can't do it that way. This is how you lazy genius the summer is you make it smaller like And that is how to plan a summer day. Okay, before we go, let's celebrate our lazy genius of the week. This week it is Melanie McGatla. I hope I got that right. She made the chickpea bowl, which I love is my favorite lunch. It's on the blog. She made that for lunch and was celebrating getting out of a lunch slump,

which I'm always a fan of. In fact, I actually put a post on Instagram a week or two ago. about everyone's favorite go-to lunch. Mine, of course, is the chickpe people. Perhaps it is also Melanies. But there were some really great comments in that post of ideas you might like to try. We're trying to do more crowdsourcing on Instagram because y'all are just like so desperately smart.

So if you're not following me on Instagram, I would love for you too. I'm at The Lazy Genius. But thank you for being the Lazy Genius at the Week, Melanie, for reminding us of the chickpea bowl. and just for like the small joy of getting out of a lunch rut. There's something really special about that. Okay, friends, that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. And I hope you have a better posture towards your planning your summer days after this episode.

And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendrab and I will 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.