The Lazy Genius Podcast - #238 - How to Get Stuff Done When You Don’t Feel Like It

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

The number of times I have to do stuff I don’t want to do is a very high number, and it’s part of life. I think it’s important to name what we can be a genius about and what we can be lazy about, but there are things we have to do that we don’t love doing. So how do we do that while still being Lazy Geniuses? That’s what this episode is all about, and we’re going to make it as linear as possible.   Helpful Companion Links Read all about the 13 principles in The Lazy Genius Way (affiliate link). Episode #91 - The Lazy Genius Organizes Paper Sign up for my monthly newsletter, the Latest Lazy Letter (the next one comes out Wednesday!) Download a transcript of this episode.    Lazy Genius of the Week Angela Kidde Taylor, who shared this tip in the Lazy Genius Facebook group: After a taco night, I dump all the bits and pieces of leftovers into a taco soup bag for the freezer. When I’m ready for soup, I empty the contents of the bag as a starter. It saves time and the leftovers aren’t wasted.   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 are 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 238. How to get stuff done when you don't feel like it. How real is this episode, y'all? The number of times I have to do stuff I don't want to do is a very high number and it is part of life. I think I think it's important to name what we can be a genius about.

and what we can be lazy about, but some things like, you know, paying bills, we can't just drop off our task list. There are things we have to do that we don't love doing, and we still have to make time for them. So how do we do that while still being lazy geniuses? That's what this episode is all about, and we're going to make it as linear as possible. So let's start with the problem. Start with a thing you don't want to do. You're sitting on your couch or driving home. from work or driving to work or lying in bed trying to find the momentum to get up that happens to me this morning. And there is something on your mind you don't want to do. There is something that's keeping you from moving forward because you just don't want to do it. As we walk through

this process of getting stuff done when you don't feel like it, I'm going to use the personal example of paying bills. You can use whatever you would like. I hate paying bills. There is something about it that breaks my brain. So that's where I'm going to start. I will walk to the mailbox, grab the pile of mail inside. I will find a bill. And then I am reminded that I need to pay bills, right? And then I groan and complain and I walk slower and I roll my eyes and I feel like my whole afternoon is ruined because I have to pay bills. Now, I am pretty sure you do not have to work hard to imagine your own similar scenario about something you don't want to do. So here, Here is your first question in that kind of moment.

Do I have to do this now? Do I have to do this now? We get in the habit of responding to the urgent right away, but some things are not quite as urgent as we think they are. Now, if I am going through mail that we have gotten over the last couple of weeks, and I find a bill that is due literally today, much like what just happened with an email I got from my credit card company, being like, hey, Kendra, you're great, but you need to pay us today, or we're going to get

real mad. If you are hit with something that you don't want to do, there are definitely times when the answer to, do I have to do this now is yes. Like, you do have to do this now. Thank you. If the answer is yes, just go ahead and do it. You know, paying overdue bills, cleaning up an accident in the bathroom where a kid had really bad aim, feeding yourself or your family because at 6 o'clock and everyone is melting down and hungry. Those are the kinds of things that do need. need immediate attention. Now, you could absolutely ignore them, but the, uh, the aftermath of that decision is way worse than just doing the thing now. If you don't clean up pee right away, actually let's just let's not talk about it. If you don't pay your bills on time, you will be,

uh, you will, you'll be paying more in interest. You will pay like these. Your power could get turned off. If you don't figure out how to feed your family when they're hungry, they will turn on you and become feral. Chances are you already know the things that are urgent. That's why you jump on them right away, even though you really don't want to do them. But there are a lot of things that feel urgent that might not actually be urgent. And that is why your first question is, do I have to do this now? And this is also, let me clarify, this is also not spoken to yourself in a whiny tone like you're a fourth grader being asked to put away as laundry. Like, do I have to do this now? It's not that. It's more intellectual and rational. Do I have to do this now?

Is this truly necessary in this moment? And only you can know the answer to that. If I get a bill that just reminds me that I have bills to pay in general at some point in the future, I don't really have to pay that bill right now. I can make a plan for when I should, which we'll get to, but ultimately I don't have to carry the weight of this thing I don't want to do because I can release doing it until later. Now, as you ask that question, do I have to do this now? The answer might be no, but qualified. You know, maybe you don't have to do it now, something like cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. But man, will you sure be glad you did it now when you wake up tomorrow morning? So have to is relative. You know, do I have to do this now? That is. That is.

relative, but you can make decisions, as we always do, or always try to at least, make decisions based on what matters to you. Okay, so you've decided if it has to be done now. If yes, do it now. If no, here's your next question. It's pretty simple. If not now, when? Let's go back to the dirty kitchen. If you don't clean it now, when will you clean it? When you answer to yourself tomorrow morning or tomorrow before the next time I cook dinner, really think about if that's the time that makes sense for you and what matters most. If you're like, no, I'm exhausted and I really just need to go to bed, then do that. Do that. That can be an answer. I'm not trying to trick you into choosing only one answer here. But when you ask yourself, if not now, when you're giving yourself a context

for what's best for you. You can kind of see your scenarios a little more clearly and you can make a decision that works. Let's go back to my bills. I have established. I don't have to pay the bills right now that I just got from the mailbox, right? But if not now, when? Because they have to get paid. For you, you have to figure out something for dinner. If not now, when? Like for real, when? Name your when. If it's not now, but it has to happen, then it has to happen. Then it has to happen. some time. Now, before we move on to the next step, which is the fun step of using lazy genus principles to build a system, I want to talk briefly to the folks who find it challenging to see time this way. Some of you are either right now or later, just like in general

later. Those are your two time buckets. If you're not doing it right now, it just exists somewhere in the future. So to you, I would like to say that part of your system of, if not now, when, is to use some sort of technology to specify your later. A timer, an alarm, a calendar notification, your brain can think, I'll do it later. And be correct, but you need a fail safe. You need some kind of automated net to move your generalized later to an eventual but very tangible right now. And ideally a right now that's not stressed out and late and frantically trying to finish something because you forgot that your right now was coming up. We'll be right back. Need a vehicle that isn't afraid to make a splash? That's the Volkswagen Touse. Capable and confident

the Volkswagen Touse is fit for everyday life, nimble in traffic, agile and tight spots, and still spacious enough for weekend getaways. While available for motion all-wheel drive gives in rain and snow. The capable taos. You deserve more confidence. Visit vW.ca to learn more. SUVW, German engineered for all. There's something else here now.

Something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home.

From Binge All episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. 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. Okay. So you've named if you have to do something now. You've named when that will be and recorded it somehow if you need to. Now it's time, this is the fun part, to create a small, hear me, a small, doable system around that thing. Maybe even one that you can replicate. And this is where we bring in lazy genius principles. We are going to apply a few of the principles here as examples. So you can figure out how you might use those principles for your own thing that you don't want to do. As a reminder, the lazy genius principles exist in my book, The Lazy Genius Way.

There are 13 of them. I won't talk about all 13 in this episode, but we're going to apply a few. Okay. First up, I'm going to share how I personally use a couple of the principles to deal with my bills that I hate so very much. Well, actually, before I do that, hold on, let me say this. Some of you might be thinking, why do you have to pay the bills? Can't cause to do it? Because I'm married. I have a partner. And yes, he can. In fact, he is probably on paper way more qualified than I am because he has actual college degrees in both economics and math from Duke

University. He's very smart. And actually, as I say that, I have. I'm not sure why the bills fell to me in the first place. But, I mean, I guess I really do know why. Because I tend to be more organized than causes. And he also desperately does not enjoy administrative tasks, like at all. They just suck his soul dry. Now, does he mind cleaning toilets or doing laundry or playing pretend with Annie for literally three hours straight?

No, he does not. In fact, he kind of enjoys those things. and I, I do not. So while I hate paying bills, I can manage the hatred of it better than he can. The division of labor sometimes shifts in a marriage. But for us, I have always paid the bills. And I'm actually fine with that in kind of a broader context.

Because it's kind of like the time question. You know, if not now when? If not me, who? If not me, it's cause. and he matters to me. His sanity around this task matters to me more than my own. Now, I'm not sacrificing my own well-being for his, but in this situation, I would rather do it than him do it. And he feels the same way about other tasks. He would rather fold the laundry than have me fold the laundry because I would really rather not fold the laundry and he doesn't mind it as much as I do. Okay, so I pay the bills and

these are the principles that I use to do it. First, I do. First, I do. decide once. A lazy genius principle is to decide once. And I do that by naming when I pay all the bills. Most of our bills are due between the sixth of the month and the 13th of the month. So my decide once is that somewhere from the first and the third of every month is when I'll pay all the bills. Done. You know, decision made. That is the beauty of decide once. You make one decision, one time about one thing until that decision doesn't work anymore. So when I pay, bills, it's decided, like when it's going to happen. The second principle that I use is to put everything in its place. This principle is pretty self-explanatory in that things work more easily

in your home and your life when everything has a place and then is put back in that place when you're not using it. Now, here is something I learned about mail. Mail is a very broad category, right? Very, very broad. In fact, if I treat all of my my mail the same way, I will forget many important things. In fact, there is an entire episode about dealing with paper that I will link in the show notes, and a big part of that episode is dealing with mail. So all that to say, bills cannot go in the same place as catalogs and financial reports that need to be filed or shredded or something. In other words, bills are urgent, and they cannot be put in the same place as mail that is not urgent.

So we have two places for mail. We have one big basket for non-urgent things that I just go through when the basket is full. And then we have a smaller basket for urgent mail. And that's also where like keys and wallets go. It's kind of like the daily catch-all. Those two baskets are right beside each other because I want to be able to, you know, triage the mail pretty quickly, but I put the bills in their place. I put them in the urgent place. That way, when it's the first, the second or the third of the month, I know exactly where to find

all the bills that I need to pay without having to sort through a month's worth of mail. The third principle I use is batching. Batching is doing one thing all at once. I could pay bills as they arrive. I have an app on my phone. It makes it pretty easy. And I could pay one bill at a time when I have it in my hand, when I get it from the mailbox. And in fact, I actually tried that for a while, but it just didn't work for me. I dislike paying bills so much that being at the mercy of whenever one would arrive, it would kind of make me sad. And then also, sometimes I would be like, oh, not now.

And then I would drop the bill and assume I'd pay it later. But I didn't think about the when. I didn't ask like, if not now, when? I didn't plan that. And then I didn't pay it. and we got a, you know, a $45 late fee or whatever. You can get distracted by children. Like, there are just so many things.

So I personally would rather batch my bill paying. So I do. I grab them all. I open my app. I pay all the bills. I do like mobile deposit for any random checks that exist in the same place as the bills. And I'm done in 10 minutes. And then I don't have to think about it again for another month.

So here is our path. Do I have to do this right now? If yes, do it. Great. If no, ask. If not now, when? Then mark that time so you don't forget. And then if you would like to replicate that process or make that single task easier in some way, apply a couple of lazy genius principles to create like a small doable system. I would actually encourage you to look through the episode archives of the podcast at any titles that pop up of things that you really don't like doing. the bathroom, cleaning the kitchen, organizing paper like we've already talked about, meal planning, figuring out chores for your kids. Look through the episode archive, like on your

podcast app. And there might already be an episode that applies lazy genus principles to your specific struggle already. So it'll kind of give you a good place to start. Like you don't have to create a system. The episode kind of offers a couple of options for you. Now, as you go through this process, I would like to remind you of two other principles that are very important when talking about doing stuff we don't want to do. One is to be kind to yourself. It's okay to not like doing something. It doesn't make you a bad person. And when you put something off and the consequences are worse than you expected, please don't beat yourself up about it. You know, be kind, learn, move on. The second principle to remember here is to live in your season. Remember that certain seasons

are meant for certain things. This might be a season of a lot of. lot of chores because you're tending to your own home as well as the home of an aging parent. You might hate washing dishes and you have a baby who has bottles you have to wash all the time and you're stuck doing a task. You really dislike doing for a season. Some seasons will be more intense with this than others and that's okay. So just remember to be honest about your season, learn from it where you can and be kind to yourself in the process. And that is how you get stuff done when you don't feel like it. Okay, so before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week is Angela Kid Taylor. Angela shared this in the lazy genius Facebook group.

After Taco Night, I dump all the bits and pieces of leftovers into a taco soup bag for the freezer. When I'm ready for soup, I empty the contents of the bag as a starter. It saves time and the leftovers aren't wasted. That is such a great idea. And when I read this, I immediately thought of something else a way to maybe not take it a step further, but like a step in a different direction. If you have, you know, leftover meat and like sauteed onions and peppers, maybe beans, you know, something from taco night. You can put those in a bag for soup. Or you can put them in a bag to use as a topping for sheet pan nachos. Like in a few days from there, you can pull out a bag of tortilla chips, spread them on a sheet pan covered in foil and parchment

so the cleanup will be easier. I will always say that to you. Then you can sprinkle that frozen taco night leftover bag on the chips, cover that with handfuls of shredded cheese, and then put the pan in like a 400 degree oven until the nachos look amazing, like just a few minutes. And then you can top that with, you know, salsa and sour cream and pickled jalapinos, cilantro, line, anything fresh you have around.

I love taking leftovers and, you know, repurposing them. but in a way that doesn't require me to come up with like an entirely different meal plan. A lot of leftover repurposing approaches feel like it still feels like cooking an entire meal. This is the same kind of meal. It's just on chips instead of in taco shells. So it just feels easier in my brain. So anyway, I love this idea, Angela. Thank you so much for sharing it.

And congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. Okay, y'all, that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. Remember, you can buy the lazy genius way from wherever you like to buy books. And I do read the audiobook version, if that is helpful to know. Also, if you like becoming more of a lazy genius, be sure to sign up for the latest lazy letter. It's a monthly newsletter that I write with all kinds of lazy genius tips, perspectives, book reviews, all kinds of stuff I don't share anywhere else. I appreciate you listening and being part of this community. Until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things.

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.