The Lazy Genius Podcast - #263 - How to Still Have a Weekend

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

Weekends are supposed to be restful and rejuvenating and fun, and yet our weekends are filled with more obligations and responsibilities and activities and things that are not restful or rejuvenating or fun! So how do we be grownups with responsibilities and still have a weekend? Let’s talk about it.   Helpful Companion Links Check out my latest book The Lazy Genius Kitchen (a New York Times bestseller!) Episode 238: How to Get Stuff Done When You Don’t Feel Like It Join the mailing list to get the next edition of the Latest Lazy Letter 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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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 263, How to Still Have a Weekend. Weekends are supposed to be restful and rejuvenating and fun, and yet our weekends are filled with more obligations and responsibilities and activities and things that are not rest or rejuvenating or fun. So how do we be grown-ups with responsibilities?

and still have a weekend. Let's talk about it. First, we need to make the problem smaller. There is a very high chance that whatever is preventing you from feeling like you're having a real weekend is different than mine or anyone else's. It could be that you work full time. So you grocery shop and you do like regular maintenance things on the weekends. It could be that you have kids in sports or activities that happen during the weekend. Maybe you work at a church. So weekends are never restful for you because you're literally working. Maybe you stay home with tiny humans every single day. So the weekend feels exactly like every other day.

Maybe you're a single parent and there's just not enough of you to go around to your kids and your responsibilities. So you are the first thing to go. It could be that you're partnered with someone who is a big time like weekend project person and likes to get stuff done on Saturdays and Sundays. And you're like, no, thank you. I would like to be still now. the point is there are a million different reasons you could feel like you don't have a weekend. And until you name that exact challenge, that exact problem, or at least an approximation close to it, you'll struggle moving forward with the solution.

We cannot name what matters until we name the problem. And that's a lot easier when we make that problem smaller. So that is your first question. why don't you feel like you have a weekend? And as much as you can, I want you to make that answer smaller. It is not unusual for us to feel like our problems are huge and unsolvable. But once we take a beat to think about it, we see that if we adjust this one thing a little, it doesn't make the problem disappear, but it sure does make it feel less oppressive than it was. So why don't you feel feel like you have a weekend. I want you to drill down and find a small answer to that.

I will use myself as an example as we move through this process. All right, so the thing that keeps my weekend from feeling like a weekend is if I don't get to do anything for myself without interruption, reading, taking a nap, going for a walk, watching a basketball game, more specifically, if I spend the entire weekend beholden to someone else's needs, it is hard for me to feel rested by the time I get to Monday. Now, I spend most of my weekends beholden to other people's needs. I go to my kids soccer and flag football games right now. I play Barbies. I meal plan for the week.

I play music at church. And those things are all really important and sometimes even energizing and preferred to reading or napping or whatever. But if I spend my entire weekend doing things where someone else is in charge or someone else determines what time I need to be somewhere or someone else is the arbiter of everything or someone else is saying mommy, mommy, mommy, I don't feel rested. I really thought the answer for this for a long time was I just had too much to do. But sometimes the busiest weekends are the most fun. I thought maybe it was like my kids' schedules.

But a weekend can feel not like a weekend when we're home the whole time, but they're complaining. And they're like needing me constantly. So really, it's not about what we're doing. It's about my own energy and how much of it is impacted by someone else. So that's my answer. So once you name why you struggle feeling like you have a weekend or don't have a weekend, in the smallest way possible. You can now begin our five steps to lazy genusing anything.

You guys, these five steps are in the lazy genius kitchen, a book that came out just three weeks ago, is a New York Times bestseller, and these steps have accidentally helped us figure out the right order to lazy genius, anything, not just stuff in the kitchen. Watch out because so many future episodes are going to have these five steps in them

because they work. It's pretty fantastic. So step one is to prioritize or to name what matters. Now that you know your challenge, you need to name what matters about it. And frankly, you likely already have by naming the challenge itself. What matters is probably the opposite of whatever your problem is, right? So for me, if a weekend doesn't feel like a weekend when I'm beholden to someone else's needs the entire time, what matters to me about how.

having a weekend feel like a weekend, is that I have time where I am only beholden to myself. What matters is that I have some time here and there to be released from anyone else's requirements or expectations of me. That is what matters to me. So what matters to you? You need to name that before you can move on. The next step is to essentialize or get rid of what's in the way. And here's where that small struggle is better than a big one. If I say, what's in the way of you feeling like you have a weekend? You'll have an enormous list, right? Chores, sports games, projects, chauffering children, still having to work because your job is over the weekend. But guess what? You can't get rid of those things. You can't get rid of chores or your

kids games or your actual kids or your job. Those things must stay. And because they must stay, you think you do not have any recourse. There is no solution to get you to a weekend that feels like a weekend, so you might as well give up. Does that sound familiar? It does. I'm sure of it. And we are going to lazy, genius this instead. We're going to do this a different way. and that happens by making the problem smaller and therefore solvable. So back to step two. If you're going to essentialize and get rid of what's in the way and also make sure that you have what you need to support what matters, what does that look like for your smaller

weekend problem? How can you remove something that is in the way? Or what are you missing that would help what matters? be what matters. For me, again, what matters is having some time for me. What's in the way of that? There are a few things, many of which I've already eliminated or added to our weekends over time. But one thing I will share right now was our early Saturday morning. My kids, even when they sleep in, they only make it to the late hour of 7 a.m. It is unfortunate. And 7 a.m. is even rare. My kids are, they're just naturally early risers. Maybe that will change when we're in a season of

more teenagers, but right now, they are up on average at 630, which means I also have to be up then because my kids still like to have me around. And also, Annie needs help pouring her juice, you know? Or do I? Or do I need to be around? They were super needing on Saturday mornings. The very morning, I wanted to stay in bed longer and doze and read and just be. Cause my husband is more that way than even I am. The man, loves his bed. He just let him live in his bed. He would be happy most of the time. So suffice it to say, Saturday mornings were cramping our style and also making it so the day started off early and based on the needs of other people. Now again, I am their mother. I do not mind being beholden to them.

In fact, much of the time I like it. Just not constantly, and especially not constantly on the weekend. So we started doing what my kids call Calvin Saturday. My boys love reading Calvin and Hobbs. And one day Sam was like, hey, mom, why can't we spend Saturday mornings like Calvin does? Just eating cereal and watching TV. I was like, dude, go for it. It's amazing. So our kids have Calvin Saturday. So that's what we call them. I usually make them hold off until seven o'clock to start because not everybody is always up by then. And then they just watch their shows and they figure out their own breakfast and I get to stay in bed for a couple extra hours. The existence of that alone is the kickoff to the weekend. It has been amazing for me. So what was in the way? Back to that step two,

essentializing. What was in the way? Kids needing me right away on Saturday morning. Let's figure out a way to get rid of that. So what is in the way of what matters? The third step is to organize, to put everything in its place. Now, this feels super helpful when it comes to weekend time management. because isn't that a lot of what this struggle is based on? We don't have enough time to do all the things we want and need to do. A way that a weekend can be productive in the ways that your responsible self requires, but also be fun and restful in the way that your kid self requires is to put your tasks in their places.

if you're able, decide once, lazy genius principle number one, decide once where certain things will go on weekends. Now, not every weekend will be identical, and for some of you, it never is. But for the most part, if you can put your tasks in their place, you know where they're going to be, and then you won't spend half the weekend procrastinating or wondering when you'll have the time to do something. It's kind of like planning your hot dogs. You're like, oh, man, I don't know what we're going to have for dinner. Should we have hot dogs? And then you like wonder about it all day and you feel bad and you eventually just end up having hot dogs and still feel bad. Instead, in the beginning of the day, go, we're having hot dogs for dinner. Done. It's pretty great. Put your tasks in their place.

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we have family chore time right after Calvin Saturday, assuming there isn't something that interferes with that timing. Sometimes there is, but not always. So once Calvin Saturday is over, I make a list on our big whiteboard of what chores need doing. Usually the kid who gets to the list first, they get to pick their first chore, which incentivizes the kids a little bit to get going quickly. So you do a chore, you come back and check it off, and then you pick another one. And all of us do that. Now, we have a house cleaner that comes once every two weeks to clean the house. So our weekend family chore time is a bit more maintenance than like deeper cleaning. By the way, I have an episode about using and hiring a house cleaner in the archives. We'll put that in the show notes if you're interested

in that. Also, I have an e-book in the digital store called the Clean Slate, the lazy genius guide to keeping your home. If you would like some specific help on figuring out what a cleaning routine and rhythm could look like for your home. But one of the things that I have said and will continue to say when it comes to cleaning is that you get to decide what clean means. Are there people who would come into our house and have a higher standard of clean between when the house cleaner comes? Absolutely. Are there people who clean even less than we do? Absolutely. Are any of us better than any other? Absolutely not. You get to decide what clean means for you and your home. And for us, 30 to 60 minutes on Saturday mornings as a family in between those house cleaning visits

every other week, it works perfectly for us. We just kind of like keep things generally clean. But the point of that is that I don't wonder when we're going to do chores. We do it after Calvin Saturday. Decision made. Another example is cause he mows the grass on the weekend. I feel like Sam, my oldest is about to get that job passed down to him, but for now, Kaas mows the grass. And do you know, I've never mowed the grass like ever in my life? Never. Isn't that crazy? Anyway, cause always mows during lunchtime on Saturday or Sunday, almost exclusively. Now, it depends on the weather and our schedule, and maybe it might be later in the afternoon sometimes, but he has a fairly set rhythm of mowing at one of those two times. So that really helps, too, to know where that's going to go. I get

ready for the upcoming week on Sunday afternoons, which keeps me from wasting energy on wondering when I'm going to do it, right? I just do it. And these kinds of decisions, organizing your time in this way, as much as you're able, it frees you up from having to use energy in wondering and going back and forth and maybe even like internally or even externally like whining and complaining about the things that you have to do, when the decision is made and you just do those things at a specific time as part of your weekend, it frees you up mentally and like actually tangibly and logistically to do the fun, restful things. You can also put things in a place that is unusual when we talk about organizing. You can rest on Saturday and do chores on Sunday. You can make Friday.

your domestic day where things are more or less like ready to go for a smoother weekend. If you work at a church, see if you can take Monday off instead of Friday. I feel like a lot of pastors and people who are on staff at churches, they get a day off during the week because of Sundays, but a lot of people automatically take Friday off. But then you have this like weird day off right before your biggest workday of the week. Maybe you could take Monday off instead. Basically, you can put things in whatever place you need, even if it's unusual or different from what you've normally done. Okay. So we have prioritized, essentialized, and organized.

The fourth step is to personalize, to feel like yourself. That might be like the low-key, ultimate goal of your weekend. To rest in whatever way that makes you feel like yourself. So make sure that happens. What do you need to feel like yourself? Do that thing at some point during the weekend, even if it's a short time. And the fifth step is to systemize, to keep things in a flow. We have, in our family, we have a pretty decent weekend flow at this point.

And while it's not perfect and it's definitely going to change because seasons change, our kids are going to get older, we have slowly created a flow of a weekend that serves our needs. My personal one being some time to myself where I'm not beholden to anyone else's needs, right? Because that's what matters to me. Now, the way that you can systemize your flow is to use lazy genius principles to create a rhythm or a structure that matters to you. Okay. You could use whatever one of the 13 principles that you like, or multiple. But I think here's some good picks, and some of them I've already said. But these are good, like, weekend rhythm principles to begin with. Decide once is the first one. Make one decision, one time about one thing, and then keep doing it until it doesn't work anymore. So, for example,

donuts for Saturday breakfast, take out or leftovers or find your own dinner on Sunday nights. The same snack bag gets packed and taken to sports games, Calvin Saturdays. Everyone is responsive. for one load of laundry before the end of the weekend. Whatever you want it to be. Just decide once. Another principle that would be great here is to batch it. A lot of our overwhelm with the weekend is having to do things we don't want to do when we'd rather be doing literally anything else. So batch those things. Do all the chores at once. Do all the laundry at once. Do all the meal planning at once. Now, this is not a solution for everybody, but it could be for you. Also, there is an episode called how to do the things you don't want to do or something like that.

That's in the archive. We'll put that in the show notes. But that's also a very helpful episode if you're just like trying to get over the hump of motivation of things that you don't want to do. Another principle that could help you in your flow is to start small. You have lived through thousands of weekends, my friend. You likely have thousands more to go. You do not have to fix it all right now.

You don't have to. You can slowly start to find yourself in your weekend. one small step at a time. And one last one to remember is to live in your season. If you are home with little kids during the week and the weekends are not much different, yes, that is a season that you are in. But maybe that also means that this is a season for hiring or asking for help on the weekends so that you can rest, not getting help during the week to get more done.

For example, a friend of mine who I haven't talked to in ages actually, hi, Stacey, when she was home with her boys and they were tiny, every Saturday morning, her husband Lee would take their kids out for a long breakfast. I'm pretty sure they went to McDonald's and then they like played in the play place for a while. And Stacey got to be in her own house alone for a couple of hours every Saturday. Like what a gift that is. So if you're in a season of tiny humans,

Maybe you find a way to find some time for yourself on the weekends during that season. Yes, it's the season you're in, but you don't just have to like, you know, buck up and make it through. You can find a solution in that season that helps you feel like yourself. Or if you are in a season of having kids on traveling sports teams, or you're working extra weekend shifts because finances are tight, or any number of things that can contribute to a unique season. remember that if you try and fit an old solution into a new season, it might not work. It probably won't. And what you often do is beat yourself up when it doesn't. No, thank you. No, thank you. I'm not going to let you do that. We have to look at where we are with kind eyes and more or less be okay with certain solutions that used to work. not working the same anymore. The honesty about where you really are, it does help.

So if you leave this episode with nothing else, I encourage you to drill down to the specific small reason your weekend doesn't feel like a weekend. There's just too much to do is not a small reason. It's not a small answer. Now, I get that answer. I understand that answer. I have said that answer, but that is not an answer that leads to any kind of hopeful solution. It's just too big. You have to make it smaller and adjust one thing at a time. So I get my couple of hours of uninterrupted time on Saturday mornings. We often get takeout on Saturday nights or like go out to dinner so that I can use my kids their afternoon screen time to like read and rest and do something for me and not cook dinner because we're doing something else for dinner. Somebody else is cooking dinner.

And I take a nap on Sundays after lunch. And I try and do my like weekly planning for the next week on Sunday afternoons so that Sunday night I can just chill out. Now those four short pockets of time are incredibly helpful and often generously helpful. Like they make such a difference in promoting what matters most to me and having a restful weekend where I am not beholden to another person's needs for a certain amount of time. So all of those solutions, all of those pockets of time, they did not come all at once. They have been built on for years. So start small. Be kind. Take it slow. Find your rhythm and do it in the right order. And that is how to still have a weekend. Now, before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week.

This week, it is Karen Howes. Karen has been a longtime member of the lazy genius community, and she sent me a meal planning choice that she makes that helps her stay sane and her meal planning, but keeps her family from getting a little frustrated by being hemmed in by a choice. So what she does is she actually chooses two meal options on the days that she's cooking

and writes both down on her like dry erase meal planning board, here's what she said to me. Some members of our family don't want to be hemmed in by a specific meal plan, especially too far in advance. So this gives the illusion of choice as I like to have two options for each day, but within the boundaries I can cope with. I really like this simple approach because it serves what matters most to Karen. She wants to have things planned,

but she also wants to honor the rest of her family by not choosing everything so strongly that they feel like their own ideas or desires or spontaneity are not being considered. So two choices it is. Now, this is another reason that I love this. This would not work for everyone because nothing does. But I think some of you are like, two choices. I can barely come up with one. But why I love this is because this works for Karen because of her own priorities. I love examples that are this specific because it shows how any choice is worthwhile and can work if you make it based on what matters to you. So congratulations, Karen, on being the lazy genius of the week. Also, a quick reminder that the next latest lazy letter will be going out a week from this Wednesday.

And I would love for you to join the mailing list so that you can get it. I only send out one email a month with the occasional extra, if there's something like really exciting or important happening, but most months you just get the one email. This month, I'm going to share the magical packing tip that has changed everything for me and streamlined what I'd choose to wear on trips. And I also have had one of my favorite months of reading in a long time, some great titles to share with you. So if you would like to get the latest lazy letter, go to the lazy genius collective.com slash join or click the link in the show notes to sign up. Okay, that is it for today. 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. 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.