The Lazy Genius Podcast - #23: The Lazy Genius Reads

Episode Date: May 22, 2017

1. Read what was mentioned. Summer Books You Don't Have To Wait For How to Use Trello to Track Your Reading My Top Ten Favorite Reads from 2016 Why I'm In Love With a Milk Crate My Favorite Dessert Cookbooks the PagePal, a super cute way to keep your book open with one hand my episode on Anne Bogel's podcast What Should I Read Next 2. Get book recommendations every month. If you're part of The Lazy Genius Collective, you get an exhaustive and awesome list of book/show/podcast recommendations every month. It's so nice to have someone do the searching for you. 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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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. Hey guys, it's Kendra, and you're listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. Here I'm going to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today's episode, episode 23, The Lazy Genius Reeds. here is the pitch for today. Do you want to be a genius about reading?

This is really the big question. Or do you want to be lazy about it? If reading is important to you and it's something that you want to be a genius about, then this episode will hopefully help you. And if you want to be lazy, well, hopefully this will help you too, release some of the guilt that you feel about not wanting to read anymore. So in the playbook today, we're going to talk about four very simple things. Why you read, what you read, how you read,

and when you read. So let's jump in. So why do you read? You can only answer that. Everything starts from this question. And I don't mean to sound so serious in the beginning. Sorry about that. But this is really the crux of the whole thing. Why do you read? Why do you want to read at all? If you don't know the answer to that question, choosing your next book, finding time in your life to actually do it, how, you know, the methods that you use to read, none of that is really going to matter. It's going to be scattered all over the place if you don't actually know why you read. It feels like reading, this sounds like it's such a dumb thing. Reading is so in right now, but it feels like it is, at least in my circles, like,

people are tracking their books more and, you know, they're trying to like read more this year than they did last year. and there are just so many resources out there of how to access books. And, you know, you can have like hundreds and thousands of books like at your thumb on your Kindle app. You know, like it's such a huge deal. But, and I think there's some guilt attached to reading and not reading as well. If you don't read, you're not as cultured or you're kind of lazy or you're not as smart. There are lots of things that could go along.

with that or maybe you perceive that people feel that way about you if you don't read as much. I went through a stretch of my life, I mean like a lot of years, 10 years maybe, where I just didn't read. I didn't care. I didn't want to anymore. I went to college. I have an English degree. I went to college to be an English teacher. So I read and wrote, see, it worked really well. I read and I wrote for so long. And so when I graduated college, it was like, bye, I'm not doing this anymore. I don't want to read another word. And that's when I started to get really obsessed to television. So I got to tell you, man, I am grateful that I got tired of reading because it opened up the doors of TV to me that have just made my life so happy. But I have

gotten back into it and I'm really glad because my why has changed. When I was reading before in college, I was reading to get good grades. I was reading to become educated and to learn about these concepts that I needed to know in order to teach growing minds, right? I was reading for school. After that, I didn't have that purpose anymore and I didn't have a purpose at all. I didn't have one to kind of substitute in. I didn't have a replacement. So I just stopped. Now my purpose is different. why for reading is because it's fun. I want to have fun when I read. I'm not reading right now to get smarter, to grow my mind, to become a better person. All of those reasons are really, really good. And I think they'll probably become wise for me in the future. But right now, my why is fun.

I want to read to have fun. So you are the only one who can decide why you read or why you don't want to anymore. And that's really okay. And when it's like, when I say don't want to anymore, it's not like you're never going to read for the rest of your life, you know? It could be in the stage. It's just not right for you. And that's okay. You just need to take a break. Or maybe you just want to change what you're reading. Maybe you had a genre that you really loved for a long time and you burned out on it or it's not as fun or there are just a myriad of reasons. But I'm giving you the freedom right now to decide why you want to read or why you don't want to read because that answer is going to determine everything else that we talk about in this episode and the filter that you use

to take any advice or tips from anybody in the future. So decide why you want to read for fun, for entertainment, you want to be moved, you want to learn, you want to engage in the past, you want to look into the future. You know, maybe there is an author's style that you love that you just want to study and you want to soak up every single word that they've ever written. whatever your purpose is, decide it and let it influence all the other pieces that we're about to talk about. The next piece is what you read. And this is going to be really short, you guys. What you read is determined by why you're reading in the first place. If you're reading for fun, you're probably not going to read a whole lot of nonfiction. You're not going to read really

heavy literary fiction, right? If you want to have fun, you're going to read maybe like dystopian like for me it's like dystopian novels and um other worlds and like fantasy things that are just like use my imagination and have lots of atmosphere and that to me is really fun or obviously books that are funny would you know are great picks if your purpose of reading is for fun but if you want to be moved you know like you're going to look for books that are set in really dark times in our history you know you're going to love world war two books you're going to love the nightingale and everyone brave is forgiven and all the light we cannot see. You're going to love those books. Those are going to fit into your purpose so very well. So rather than giving you like a really long list of what you should read,

no, you get to decide that based on why you're reading in the first place. Okay. So even you could even just sort of jot down like, okay, why am I reading? This is why. What are two or three genres that fit in that really well or authors or time periods to focus on? And then just focus on that. You're going to get a whole lot of momentum and you're not going to have such decision paralysis because there are so many books to choose from. You have narrowed it in like tons and tons and tons and tons and that's going to help you get your reading momentum. And that leads us to how we read. What are we going to do to make it so that we read more in our lives? If that is our goal, how are we going to do that? How are we going to keep that momentum? One of the ways is to read the kind of books that fit in our purpose that we're

excited about the number of times that I've started a book and then I'm like why haven't I read in a while because I didn't like the book but I felt bad about quitting I know you've heard this before it's okay to quit a book you might not feel like it's okay to quit a book but it is if it's not working for you if it's not fitting in your purpose don't read it or if you want to like trick yourself into thinking like I'm not going to finish this just say I'm not going to finish this now this doesn't fit in my purpose now maybe it will later but it doesn't right now Close that book, man. Pick up another book that works better. Another question about how you read. Are you going to read actual physical copies of books or digital ones?

Now, this is obviously not a new question, but here's what I want to challenge you with. Do you have some sort of like internal prejudice against digital books or audiobooks? Because for real, y'all, I did and I didn't even know it. I was listening to an episode of Ann Bogle's, what should I read next, which I love. and I currently stopped listening to, and I'm going to tell you why in a little bit, oh my gosh. But I was listening to an episode a while ago, and one of her guests was saying how she reads exclusively on her Kindle. And I had this weird reaction to that where I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds crazy. And then went, why?

Is that crazy? You read most of hers on the Kindle, too. And I realized I was feeling guilty about that. Every time I read a book on the Kindle, I had this weird, underlying prejudice about it that somehow it didn't count. as much or it wasn't as cultured are you kidding me like that is so dumb so if you I just want to ask you like make sure that you don't have some weird thing about that because it's really silly it's going to get in your way of your reading and you didn't even realize it okay so if right now in your life with why you're reading and and how your life

kind of works out it could be that you're going to read exclusively on the Kindle for a little while and that is okay there's nothing wrong with that and you may be listening to this going Kendra, you're insane, but I just want to just be careful in case any of you feel the way that I do and don't even realize it. What is silly bias to have, right? That doesn't, it doesn't even matter. It doesn't even count. Like, it's so stupid. So if that's you, like, we're both stupid. It's fine. Let's just let it go and read however it works best for us to read. I don't always have the ability to hold a book in my hand, especially when I have a baby in the other hand, right?

Except for this really cool thing that I will link to in the show notes. It's called a page pal and it's one of those things where you stick it on your thumb and it works as your like your pinky, you know when your pinky

and your thumb kind of cramp up and you're trying to keep your book open as you're holding it. No, no, no. You put this beautiful, it's like sanded and it's smooth as a little baby's butt and it's this wooden thing

and you put it on your thumb and it holds your book open for you and it's magic. It's magic. I'll put it in the show notes so you can check it. out the lazy jeaniescollective.com slash lazy slash reads and I'll have like lots of resources things I've written in the past all that kind of stuff on there but that's a great place for you to

get some resources but the point is digital physical it doesn't matter do it works man another question to ask yourself about how you read is are you going to be a tracker are you going to be a book tracker some of you are awesome intense book trackers and you love it so much I like to track my books. I like to like remember what I've read. I definitely have a list of what I want to read. I think that is so key because if you don't know what's coming next, you don't have any momentum. You don't have a place to go, right? But some of you don't like to track. You don't understand why everyone's doing it. You just read a book and then move on. Okay. So either way, again, doesn't matter what you choose. Just know that you're choosing the thing that works best for you. In those same show notes that I just mentioned, I will link to a post I wrote a few months ago about how I use Trello to read. That is my favorite way of remembering what I have read, what I want to read, like tiny little phrases of descriptions of those books, that kind of thing. So I will show you, I will link to that in the show notes so you can check that out. AI is moving fast across the enterprise. But without visibility, it's just chaos,

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But again, in terms of how you read, like where it fits into your daily routine, think about places that you already might be looking at something like Instagram or Facebook or whatever. And I'm not going to tell you like Facebook is evil. Well, a little bit. No, it's not. It's fine. Like, Facebook is terrible and Instagram is ruining in our lives. And they're not. It's fine. But if you really ask yourself seriously and you answer honestly, would you rather be reading or scrolling Instagram most of the time at any given moment, which one would you rather be doing? For me, the answer is always reading. I would always rather be reading. I do love Instagram, but I don't need to look at Instagram 13 times a day,

which I totally do probably more. So, like, be honest with yourself. And if your answer is, I would rather be reading. Then let's read when you would normally be scrolling. A couple of things I've seen, like tricks I've seen of people doing to help them see that and be reminded of that in their phones a bit more is, and I've done one of them, is I have my Kindle app on the first page of my home screen or like on my home screen, I guess, and no other apps. Like it's the only app on my first screen. Everything else is after that. I read about some guy who actually put all. of his other apps in a folder. So he couldn't even scroll as easily because you can only see nine apps at a time instead of whatever it is, like 25 or something. And he wouldn't even scroll.

He would only search. Like if he needed another app for something, he searched it. That is hard a core. But it does remind you of just that visual cue of, oh wait, I want to be reading. Why am I not reading right now? I want to be reading. Let's read. And you click that Kindle app and you start to read.

So for you with how you read, so much of it comes in why you're reading. And then you already know what to read. So how are you going to make it work in your life? I think so often the reason that we aren't able to get so momentum is because we feel guilt about certain things. We're doing things that work for other people, but they don't work for us. So just think critically about what it is that you're doing and why it's not working. If you want more reading in your life, you can just change things up a little bit.

don't try to copy what someone else is doing that might not be working for you. And finally, let's talk about when, when you're reading. We all know about pockets of time, right? I just mentioned, like, if you're actually scrolling something that you don't really care about scrolling, that's a really great time to read. I read, because people ask me this a lot, like, when do you have time to read? Because I send out a newsletter, well, I send out a newsletter once a week. but one of those newsletters every month is called The Lazy Links, and it's where I talk about

everything that I have read and watched and listened to, like favorite podcast episodes or like a new album I discovered, but definitely all the books I've been reading. And I do read, I mean, I read a good bit now. I've gotten into a habit of reading a little bit more. And so I give, like, what's the word? Reviews. I give reviews of the books that I've read. So if you want that, I'll have a place that you can sign up for that in the show notes as well, or you can just go to the lazy genius collective.com slash join or maybe it's subscribe dang it just go to the show notes I should know that I changed it recently and now I can't remember what it is shoot it's fine but you can get on that mailing list and you can see what I've been reading but but because people see what I read

every month I get questions of like how do you find time I read this is when I read it's pretty much when I'm feeding Annie whether I'm nursing her or actually feeding her solid foods because it takes forever, right? Like, here's another quarter grape. Here's another quarter grape. Here's another quarter grape. So it's like, yeah, let's open up the phone and do a little bit of reading. So I read when I'm feeding her a lot. I read when I brush my teeth, dry my hair, you know, anytime where I'm sort of zoning off into space, I read a lot when I'm making dinner. Like if I'm stirring, you know, you're stirring vegetables. There's kind of like little pockets of downtime. I'll have a book or my phone to read on when I'm making dinner.

And so I get a lot done that way. You know, it all adds up. It really does. Now, some books don't lend themselves to be read in tiny snippets. And if you know that's the case, save that book for when, you know, everybody's in bed and you can sit down for 30 minutes or an hour and read. By the way, there was a, if you're kind of like poo-pooing the idea of reading a few minutes at a time, there was a study done in, and, you know, and, you can sit down in, and, you can't

Sussex, I believe, where they tested people's heart rates and muscle tension after they had been reading for six minutes, just six minutes. And their heart rate was reduced by a ton. Like, it way slowed their heart rate down, and it eased their muscle tension, and everyone was super calm, like every single person. So I feel like that's kind of a big deal, right? So if you're feeling stressed, like you can read for six minutes, and your life will change. That's pretty great.

So when you're reading, you could read when you're eating, when you're, you know, in the car, a carpool, you know, there are lots of kind of obvious pockets. But really the thing is to think about when do you have little snippets of time? They're way more than you think there are. And it's worth it to read for a few minutes at the time. Okay, so I told you that I used Trello to track my reading. There are lots of other ways that other people track their reading. and different perspectives on reading that Anne had in one of her podcast episodes recently that I will

also link to in the show notes. It's a great, great episode to read or listen to. It's got all these people's different ways of how and one, and I loved it. But as we close, I want to tell you why I'm not listening to what should I read next or any other sort of bookish podcast right now. And that is because I realized that when I would have pockets of time, I would listen to people talk about reading and add more books to my list that's already so full rather than actually reading. And I want to read. Like I kind of want to read for a little while. I want to get caught up a bit on this list I have and stop adding to it. So I'm taking a break from recommendations, you guys. Maybe that's something that you can do too. That's actually today's lazy genius tip of

the day is to take a break from book recommendations. Which seems kind of sad because you're like, I'm going to miss it. I mean, you're not. They're not going anywhere. Books keep getting written you're going to be fine if someone knows that a book is going to change your life they're going to tell you about it they're going to know you well enough to tell you about it or um there's a there's actually a book i'm reading right now called the sugar queen called the sugar queen it's super light and fun it's by sarah addison adler and um it's cute it's the kind of book that i need to read right now because i've been reading some heavier like more atmospheric dramatic books lately and so it's a nice little change but anyway one of the characters books follow her around like

if she, based on what she needs in that moment. So like her boy, her ex-boyfriend who cheated on her is like trying to like come back, like, forgive me, forgive me. And she's like, no way. And then this book called Finding Forgiveness keeps following her around. Like we'll show up on her couch. It'll be in her purse. It'll be in our car seat.

Like all these things. And it makes me laugh. So I actually believe in some ways, maybe books don't do that. But if you are worried so much about missing out on a book, it's going to find you. I mean, it's going to. like you're not going to lose that book forever and if you do there are going to be lots of others going to change your life too so it might be time to take a break from book recommendations maybe maybe as i say hey subscribe to my newsletter so you can get more book recommendation but you may be the kind

of person that needs to take a break and so i just want to give you freedom to do that to maybe unsubscribe from a couple podcasts or just delete them when they come up and know that one day you're going to go back and listen to them again it may just be a couple months where you need a break break, but it's okay to take a break from those kinds of things. Okay, there are going to be a lot of resources in the show notes, okay? Lots and lots of things. So please head over to the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy slash reads. And if you aren't giving up on book recommendations, this week on the blog, I actually have a

post about books that you can read this summer that you don't have to wait for. A lot of the, like Anne's summer reading guide that I love. I added some. I did add some of those to my list because they look so good, but it's fine. But lots of people are writing about what's coming out this summer, what you should be reading this summer. But the library list for those are like 70,000 people long. And those books often aren't on sale for a really long time. So I have written a post of books that I think you could read this summer that you don't have to wait for. They've been written a long time ago.

Some like super long time ago. But you don't have to wait for them. So you can see that link in the show notes as well. Okay. I'm so glad you listened. I hope that this was encouraging for you and maybe gave you a couple of ideas and some freedom. If you have any thoughts on your reading life that you want to share with others, you can leave a comment on the show notes of this episode.

So you can go to the lazy geniuscollective.com slash lazy slash reads. All right, friends. Thanks for listening. I can't wait to see you next week. And until then, be a genius about the things that matter. I'm lazy about the things that don't. I'll see you next time. 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.