The Lazy Genius Podcast - #229 - How to Magic Question the Rest of 2021

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

There are only 95 days between today and December 31st, and those might be the fastest flying 95 days of the year in any year. Rather than find yourself in the middle of day 52 wondering how in the world you’re going to make it, today I want to help you think through this fall and holiday season like a Lazy Genius.   Helpful Companion Links Grab your copy of The Holiday Docket for $10 this week only! Learn more about the Lazy Genius principles in my book The Lazy Genius Way! 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

Amazon presents Laura versus Fruitflies. Swarming your fruit and terrorizing your kitchen, these little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say, yo. Chill. But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Hi there, you're listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm 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 229. How to Magic Question the rest of 2021. Do we need to have a moment of silence for 2021? All the energy, obviously, is that, man, we thought 2020 was hard, and it was.

2021 has also been weirdly hard. Now, we're not going to go into that today, but in a crazy turn of events, this week, the calendar turns to October, which is utterly bonkers. And then it feels like the gauntlet begins, right? Obviously, there are going to be changes to the rest of the year like there were last year because of the pandemic. It's probably not going to look exactly like it did before we were in this. But we will still have Halloween and Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, any number of winter holidays.

Then there are fall sports that some of you are. already in with your kids perhaps, fall traditions, seeing family, thinking about holiday gifts, figuring out who's going to host Thanksgiving this year. Brace yourselves. Be careful. There are only 95 days left between today and December 31st. Is that how wild? And those might be like the fastest flying 95 days of the year in any year. So rather than find yourself in the middle of day 52, wondering how in the world you're going to make it. Today, I want to, want to help you think through this fall and holiday season like a lazy genius. We are basically applying the magic question, which is one of the 13 lazy genius principles in my book,

The Lazy Genius Way. The Magic Question is, what can I do now to make something easier later? So what can you do now to make the next 95 days easier? That is to listen to this episode. Maybe even more than that, it is to use something that I made a few years ago that is our top selling item, I think called the holiday docket. The holiday docket is the lazy genius guide to celebrating well. It's a downloadable like PDF ebook thing, you know, that you can print out, fill out, and feel like you are enjoying, not enduring your holiday season. I know so many people, one of them being Latoya, who's our community manager here at TeamLG, who go through the holiday docket every year around this time to make the holidays work for them. And it does. It really,

really does. It works. This little collection of words packs a mighty punch. So today I'm actually going to walk through some of the steps laid out in the holiday docket to help you get an idea of how you can enjoy your holiday season, give you a head start and planning it based on what matters to you. And then maybe you'll have a good idea of whether or not you think the holiday docket is a beneficial investment for you, which you'll get a lot from this episode without getting the holiday docket. but this week only, just so you know, the week this episode releases through Sunday, October 3rd, the holiday docket is on sale for $10. Usually it's 15.

It's available throughout the year you can get it anytime. But we wanted to make it as easy as possible for you all to get this tool now. And I guarantee, I guarantee that it will save you way more than $10 in wasted purchases and like panic purchases because things weren't planned. but it will also infinitely pay you more than that in wasted energy and stress. So this thing really is how to lazy genius and magic question the rest of your 2021. Okay. So there are seven steps to follow in the holiday docket. And today I'm going to go through five of them, the first five in detail. So the seven steps are name what matters, number one. Number two, organize what matters. Number three,

troubleshoot. Number four. Set. holiday house rules, five schedule stuff, six, playing your projects, and seven, open and close well. So again, we're only going to talk about the first five today. Okay, so step one in magic questioning the rest of 2021, name what matters. Big surprise. So the nice thing about the holiday docket is that there is a giant list of so many things that could matter in the next 95 days so that you can circle or underline what matters most to you and your people. But of course, you can just make your own list. What matters most about the next 95 days? What traditions are super important? What events are you looking forward to? What kind of space do you want to create? There are obviously a lot of things,

a lot of things that would fit here, which is honestly why we get stressed out. But it's why I give you a long list of possibilities. One thing that's slightly different with this process of naming what matters and other times that we talk about it when I say like name what matters most is that for this you should pick more than one thing you should pick like multiple things we're making a plan right which remember a plan is an intention it is not a past fail we've learned that in past episodes um so we're making a plan for the rest of the year and you will absolutely be able to fit multiple things that matter into the next 95 days you don't have to pick just one thing that doesn't make sense but if you do get the docket, you'll see how long the list is and how when you read through them, how you likely try and fit

most of those things into 95 days. And you're like, wait, no wonder. No wonder I'm tired. That is way too many things. So you get to pick more than one thing. Of course, just not all the things. You need to pick the most important things. That's why you're tired. You're not picking the most important things about this season. So first you name what matters about, you know, what you'll do. the rest of 2021. I've mentioned this before, but one of our families, like, top things every year, not just in the fall, but like for the whole year, is the first weekend of December. So our city has a downtown thing on the first Friday night of December. There's like a giant Christmas tree lighting and carolers and booze and food. It's so fun. The whole city comes out. Then on Saturday,

the next day, there's, y'all know Saturday comes after Friday. Then on Saturday, there is a, There's a parade, like a Christmas parade that we absolutely love going to. And then often on that Saturday night, there is another park in town that lights luminaries throughout the whole park. And it is so beautiful. So we just love that weekend as a family. It is my favorite weekend of the year. We always block it out. It's so important. Under no circumstances, will anything interfere with that weekend, except in 2020 when there was a pandemic? It's fine. But nothing interferes with that. It matters too much. Like we protect that weekend. That's why we name what matters, guys. What matters enough for the rest of 2021 that you want to protect it, right? You'll want to name that now. Name it now.

And then create intentional space for it rather than hoping you're going to fit it in or assuming it's going to fit in when the time comes. We'll get to that. But name it now. So step one, name what matters. Step two is to organize what matters. So that's basically putting what matters in its place, right? Put everything in its place. Another lazy genius principle. So for this exercise, and there are actually pages for this in the holiday docket, you put those things that matter that you named, right, from the list or from your own list that you make. I like you to put them into the column of the month that they'll happen. Again, there's a page for this in the docket. But put them in the month that they're going to happen. Organize what matters by the month that they happen,

October, November, December. You're putting them in place loosely. You're not scheduling them specifically yet, but you're putting them in place loosely. So you can see how packed one month is compared to another, right? Is everything that matters? Is everything that matters in December? That's good to know. Is everything kind of spread out? That's also good to know. You organize what matters. You put it in its place, right? The month it's going to happen. All right. So that's step two. Organize what matters. Step three is to troubleshoot. Now this is the step. I think that has the most power, but gets the most ignored. You just think like, ah, that'll be fine. There are a lot of beautiful, fun things that matter, especially during this time of year. But there are also things that get in

their way, okay? Expectations, over scheduling, attitudes, lack of of money, the list goes on. So what you do next after you've named what matters and then loosely organized it by the month that it is probably going to happen is to look at those things that matter and ask yourself, what do I need for this to work? What often gets in the way of this? What keeps this from being fun? If you can know that, you can better ensure that this thing that matters enough to lay claim to your schedule first before anything else, you can make sure that this thing will actually happen, right? So, for example, do you love driving around to see Christmas lights with your family? Okay. Maybe one of the things you love about that is that everybody's wearing a new set of pajamas.

Like, that's a tradition a lot of people have. It's such a sweet tradition, like fresh PJs around Christmas time, right? Well, the thing that has kept that experience from being fun in the past is that you forgot to get the new pajamas. So you kept putting off the Christmas light drive to get the PJs, but then there's so a lot of the pairs that you really wanted and you feel like you're settling for what you do get or you don't get anything at all. And then you're like, fine, we won't get new pajamas. Is this no big deal? Okay. But maybe it is a big deal because that tradition matters to you. And you're kind of like, you know, slightly bummed the entire Christmas light drive because it didn't happen the way you

really wanted it to. It's okay if you have an expectation of things. If it may be, you matters a certain way, right? So how can you troubleshoot that? You can put a deadline on your calendar a week or two before you'd ideally like to take that Christmas light drive to have your pajamas purchased. Spread it out. Make sure that you have what you need. Troubyshooting the very important stuff, make sure that they're more likely going to happen and that they'll happen the way or close to the way that you hope they do. So that's step three is troubleshoot. And again, there are pages and guidelines for this in the holiday docket, but that's the gist. What's going to get in the way of this?

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can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Okay, step four. Set holiday house rules. This one to me is so important and simple and helpful. So for the rest of 2021, you will likely have a lot trying to fill your brain and your calendar, right? You also have likely been paying attention more and more to what you and your people need especially after the last year and a half. I think a lot of us are way more aware of our energy limits

than we ever have been before. So step four is to notice what you need to put in place to help set healthy, helpful boundaries around what matters to you in this form of house rules. Setting house rules is another lazy genus principle. This episode and the holiday docket are both flooded with them, flooded with Lazy Genius principles. Okay, so step four is to set holiday house rules. What can help you feel consistently grounded in your choices for the rest of 2021? Is it something about how often you're willing to go out? Maybe there's a house rule on how you handle social gatherings regarding COVID. Maybe you have a house rule where you only buy gifts this way or you have people over this way. Maybe it's that everyone gets one social veto for the rest of the year.

Like if somebody really doesn't want to go to a thing, like everybody in the family gets one chance to not go to the thing. So, you know, other people can go, but you don't have to go. Everybody gets a veto, right? I am not going to give you house rules specifically. I'm not going to say like these are the ones that you should have because there are not universal house rules. That's the beauty of principle. But now that you've named what matters and you've seen how it's organized across your months and you've seen where you need to troubleshoot, you can now have a better idea of what your challenges are. Like what might you need to keep what matters most at the forefront. So you can have one house rule, five house rules. There is a sheet in the holiday docket where you can

like brainstorm your holiday house rules. And then there's a final sheet for like five, up to five house rules for the holidays. I do think more than that is like a lot to keep track of, but I'm also not you. Like you do what you need. If you need more than five, you make more than five. Okay. Now the final step we'll talk about today is step five. Remember there are seven steps and the whole thing, but it is to schedule stuff. Now, you might be like, why are we not doing this first? We're doing this last and not earlier because if you put stuff on the schedule before you've had a chance to troubleshoot or set house rules for sure before you've named what matters, you're going to schedule things too close together, not realizing you have a house rule where you only do one thing a

weekend in December or something, or you want to take a weekend off every month and you just hang out at home or, you know, so you need to set your limits well first and then you schedule stuff. You don't schedule stuff first. That's out of order. Lazy Geniuses go in the right order. You don't schedule stuff first. So the holiday docket comes with calendar sheets for October through December So I would say, here's how I like to do it. Even if, like, I use a Google calendar. Okay. If you use a Google calendar or a planner, I think it's nice to have separate calendar sheets

just for this purpose to like sketch things out before you add it somewhere final. It's almost like whiteboarding your schedule, right? But step five is to schedule stuff. Now, here's the order again, because lazy geniuses go in the right order. If you haven't gathered, that's another principle from the book. Okay. So when you're scheduling stuff, namely the things that you named and organized in stepped one and two, we're starting there, right? I want you to remember that this is simply a plan, right? Remember,

a plan is an intention. It is not a pass, fail. This is not law. You can move stuff around as you get closer to December. I get that planning December in October might feel a little strange. But having stuff in place makes it so much easier when you have to adjust rather than starting from nothing and then filling your calendar in as you like crazily live your life and then you're enduring you're not enjoying right makes sense so we go in the right order with scheduling stuff the first thing that you schedule is what you already know what is locked i mentioned that christmas weekend in december for us that is known uh i know when that stuff is going to happen it's always the first weekend of december so that goes on the calendar for sure actually literally literally

as I'm like making this episode, I just email my friends who are in charge of our church's annual lessons and carols service, which is one of my favorite things all year to see when the date is. Because I was like, oh, no, no, I don't know when the date is. And I for sure when I have that on the calendar because it matters. It matters. So first schedule what you know. What has a date already? Put it down. Next thing that you want to schedule is what you want. What matters that doesn't have a date. You know, some things can move around, right? Pencil it in. Like, pick an ideal date based on what's already available after you've scheduled the stuff that you know. And then pick ideal dates based on holiday house rules that you might have set. Schedule what you

want to have happen. And then the third thing I want you to schedule is rest. Schedule rest. Don't forget about rest. Maybe rest is built into your house rules. But my guess is the the rest of the year has this like weird paradox of relaxation and family and tradition and then also doing doing doing doing right there's so much to do even all the fun things so please be sure that you schedule rest build it in for your family for you personally for your work for whatever but schedule some rest now so you're not desperate for it later and if i may depending on how you set up your calendar, actually schedule rest. Don't just leave a day blank. Blanks are filled. You know, you've heard people say that in lots of scenarios before. Like leaving white space doesn't count as white space unless you actually schedule and fill it in with like, this is white space. So schedule the rest by naming a time and place for it to happen right on your calendar. Stay home. Don't just leave it blank. Don't just leave it blank. You get the idea for that. Okay.

So to recap, name what matters. These are your five steps we went through today. Name what matters. Organize it. Organize what matters. Troubleshoot. Set holiday house rules and then schedule stuff. Like I said, there's also space in the holiday docket to organize projects that you likely have dates attached to, like buying Christmas gifts and getting your kids set up for Halloween before there are no more Captain America costumes, you know, in the 11th hour when you're desperate. We're trying to eliminate 11th hour energy. There's also a place in the docket to think through and write down your opening and closing ceremonies for whatever you would like to open and close for the rest of 2021. But that's how you magic question the rest of 2021. I implore you. And I do this every year around

this time, even though it's only September. It is the end of September. And October through December in any year is like a laundry shoot. No friction, right? It feels like it starts and then it's over. And I will bet just about anything that the reason it feels like that is because you're dealing with the season as it comes rather than applying the magic question and doing something now to make life way easier later. This episode is your something now. The holiday docket is even more specifically something you can do now. So if you would like to get it, If you would like, you know what, I don't want to have to make my own list. I don't want to, I just want to follow.

I just want to follow the path. Remember, it is on sale for only $10 this week only until this Sunday, October 3rd. And you can find it by going to the lazy genius collective.com slash store. Or you can click the link in the show notes. And a quick heads up, we have the holiday docket and all of our store items on our website. But you don't actually like purchase them from our website. whenever you click on a product, it will likely take you to a different online platform or you can purchase whatever it is you're looking for. So don't be freaked out when that happens. Like that's supposed to happen. It is, it is legit. You're like, what is this website that I'm on? Hopefully it looks normal. But just so you know, we've had a couple people ask that in the past. Like, is this real? It is. I promise. Okay. So that is the episode. I hope it helps you. And if you get the holiday docket, I hope it helps you too. I feel confident it will just because it's helped so many people over the last couple of years. I love the holiday. docket. Okay. It is time to celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it's Adela.

She shared this idea and an email that she's sent to hello at the lazy genius collective.com. Here's what she says. So washing linens, ugh. I love when people write ugh. Until I stumbled across this tip, I would never remember to wash my towels or sheets or bath mats or whatever. Then I got two of everything and always have one set in the hamper. So when I do laundry, as soon as I put the clean towels on the rack or the fresh sheets on the bed, I take the dirty ones and put them in the hamper. And I have everyone in my family do this. Otherwise, my hamper would be overwhelmed by linens. This works well for teenage kids who do their own laundry. But you could also adjust the process if you have smaller kids and do their laundry for them. You could also modify and not clean the linens every time you do laundry, but just having them in the hamper helps to remind me to change them out periodically.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful. Great work on the show, Adela. first of all, I think this is fantastic. You're storing the second set of your sheets in the hamper instead of in the closet. So you'll remember. I think that's so fantastic. And then you always have one clean and one dirty. But the clean ones on the bed and the dirty ones waiting to be washed. It's like it's such a, it's such a smart tip if regularly laundering your sheets. I just nailed that. Regularly laundering. That feels like a tongue twister. If that matters to you. So it's just fantastic. And also, So thank you for the encouragement, Adela.

It's so kind. So thanks for this idea. Congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. And that is it for today. So again, remember, the holiday docket is on sale for $10 instead of 15 this week only. So if you want to snag it, now is an excellent time. Once the price changes, back to 15, it'll stay there just to be fair to everybody. So thank you for that.

Thank you for your support of this business. And thank you for listening. Thanks too to our podcast network, ACAST. And to Team LG that makes everything happen. Latoya, our community manager, Leah, our creative director, and Leslie, our operations manager. And all of you, thank you all for listening and making this community awesome. Until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra.

I'll see you next week. 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.