The Lazy Genius Podcast - #265 - How to Come Home from Vacation

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

I am very excited about this episode, you guys. I think there are so many opportunities to just Lazy Genius the mess out of coming home from vacation, so we’re going to do what we often do which is have a nice little mix of practicality and permission.   Helpful Companion Links Check out The Lazy Genius Way and The Lazy Genius Kitchen Here’s where I break the principles down into three categories The Summer Docket 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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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 Every Day with Amazon. Hello everybody. Welcome 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 265, How to Come Home from Vacation.

I am very excited about this episode, you guys. I think there are so many opportunities to just lazy genius the mess out of coming home from vacation. So we're going to do what we often do, which is. have a nice little mix of practicality and permission. As we get into this, I want to say that the frustrations that you have coming home from a trip are shared. They are almost universal, at least in this community. I put a poll up on Instagram of what your biggest frustration was in like super broad categories, unpacking food stuff, whiny people, and resentment of your

life because you're home now. And the results of those were bizarrely almost equal, which doesn't really happen. I also asked for other broad categories that I missed, and a consistent one was just getting back into the routine of regular life. Also rest. Also rest. Many of our vacations are not super restful, but even if they are, you're kind of dropped back into life right away, and that can be tough. So first, we're all dealing with the same general struggles here and almost at equal weights. If we solve the unpacking laundry problem, great, but there are still several equally frustrating problems to deal with. It's not as simple as fix this one thing and you're good. It's kind of a broader experience for a lot of us.

As I started to break this episode and kind of map out what I wanted to say, it got real big. Like, I mean, it is real big. But I mean, we could do seven episodes on this, you guys. So instead of coming at this from every possible angle with every possible solution for every possible trip and every possible family scenario, I have. created a very simple little thinking tool that I'm calling the trip matrix. I really dig it. And I think you will too. Now, before we get into what the trip matrix is, I want to lay down some broader human permission giving thoughts here. I do not believe that coming home from vacation or taking a vacation or, you know, planning a vacation, doing literally anything having to do with

living your life, leaving it for a while, and then coming back, nothing around that is easy. I do not think it will ever be completely easy or seamless or pure joy the entire time. Leaving for a trip, being on a trip and coming home from a trip, even with the best tools and attitude and expectations and planning available to you, it is still work. It all still takes work. Intention requires effort, which is annoying. I know. I'm so sorry. sorry. But if we go into any aspect of a trip with the expectation that everything is easy and shiny and happens without any sort of friction or else the trip was just a waste and too hard and it didn't go well, you know, we kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater, we will not experience trips

and togetherness and experiences and new places. And even that energy of feeling like it's good to be home, we will not experience the goodness of those. If our expectation is that everything has to be easy and automated in order for something to be worth it, nothing will ever be worth it. I said this in a recent episode, but the goal is to set and forget your life, right? That's what we want. But life is too dynamic for that. The goal really is to pay attention to how you can make one area a little bit easier this time. It's just one choice by one choice, all under a very reasonable expectation of things being a little more pleasant, a little smoother, a little more fun, a little bit easier. So as I talk about the trip matrix and share some of these broader categories,

I want you to keep this in mind. Start small. Don't attack your trip and coming home from your trip, with big black trash bag energy, right? Where you're just like all or nothing. Everything's getting fixed or we're not going anywhere. Like, no, just take a breath. Choose an area that would be helpful to you personally in making coming home from your trip easier and be kind as you try things.

Also, I want you to tell yourself the truth. We tell ourselves we're not good at this, we're good at that. We're just not wired that way, you know? we don't have the ability to plan like that or relax like that, you know, we expect that that our families will respond only one way and we don't give them any credit when they surprise us, even in tiny ways. We can just get in our own heads and in our own way. So if you're telling yourself a narrative that is, you know, this is always bad or you're never going to be good at this or coming home from a trip has to work this way or it's not worth going. If there's anything

very this or that or all or nothing, or my way or the highway, or I'm a piece of trash and I can't figure this out, and then whatever's the opposite of that, I want you to just like stop and breathe and remember to be kind to yourself and honest with yourself. It's likely not as binary as you think. I know that's kind of like a strange way to start a vacation episode. It's like with a pep talk, but this is something that keeps a lot of us from traveling is this expectation that we can't do it. We're not good at it and it has to be a certain way in order for it to count. And I just want to tell you that's not true. Okay.

Now, let me explain this very simple but pretty rad trip matrix. I want you to get a piece of paper or a spreadsheet document if you love spreadsheets. And you're going to make five columns, okay? Five columns. Now you can add however many more you want depending on like what you need after we get through this. but the baseline here is five. Column one is where you put the thing that would make coming home easier or the challenge that makes coming home hard.

It's kind of the problem you're trying to solve or the goal you're trying to accomplish. For example, you want to come home to a clean home. So put have a clean home in the first column. That's your end goal. or you can put the frustration in that first column like laundry. There's so much laundry to do or whatever. Now, down that whole first column, you can brain dump the things about coming home that you either want, you wish didn't happen, or the things that you have to do that you find

frustrating, right? So column one is essentially the problem that you're trying to solve. Okay. Now, in the spirit of being a lazy genius, I think it's important for you to make that broader problem or goal as small as you can. So maybe it's not have a clean home. Maybe it's have a clean kitchen or have a clean bedroom or bathroom or have clean sheets on the bed or whatever the specific thing might be.

And it could be a few specific things. You know, you don't have to like get this down to this is the one problem I'm trying to solve. Like you can actually have multiple rows. Like go ahead and think through these smaller problems or challenges or goals that you have in coming home. So you could break it down like this. One general entry on that column one could be getting back into the swing of feeding people at your house.

Okay. Now, what are the smaller challenges there? You can keep going in that column one. Knowing what you're going to eat for whatever meal is next after you get home. That's a small challenge. Seeing what's in the fridge. That's one. Getting groceries.

Making a meal plan. So there are lots of smaller challenges to getting back into the swing of eating in your house again, right? So in that first column, imagine writing down all of those things, all of those end results you would like or the problems that you want to solve. Okay. Okay. Column two. Column two is where you write what matters most about that thing. You could put laundry in the first column, but what matters could be very different depending on the person about how you get your laundry done. Someone might want the laundry done within 24 hours. Another person might not want to do the

laundry all alone. Another person might not want to touch all the dirty clothes, like with their actual hands, but doesn't mind getting them with their clean. Like, that's a real thing. So as you make the challenge or goal more specific, be even more focused by naming what matters most to you about that thing. Try and keep that to one thing, okay? Maybe two if you have to, but make what matters smaller, smaller, smaller. We'll be right back. 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. Now, there are three more columns. okay we told you to make five there are three more columns and those three columns are labeled before during and after before during and after and that is before your trip during your trip and after all right what could you do before you leave to help with whatever is in that first column based on what matters what could you do during your trip that might help you with what's in that column first column based on what matters and then what could you do

when you get home to help. That's it. That's the trip matrix. Name the problem or the goal. Think about what matters about that thing. And then what could you do that could maybe make that thing feel a little easier before, during, and after your trip? Now here's why it's helpful, despite its simplicity, okay? Because it feels like, I mean, really? But here's why it's helpful. It's breaking down this bigger energy of there's so much laundry to do. And I feel behind when I get home. And jumping right back into regular life is exhausting. And vacation wasn't actually restful.

And the car is a disaster. And the house is a wreck. Like you hear you're spiraling. We're all spiraling, right? It breaks those things down in a few very important ways. Number one, it makes them smaller. And we know that small steps matter and small problems are easier to solve. So it makes them smaller.

The house is a wreck when we come home can be turned into. I'd like the kitchen counters to be cleaned off. Or I'd like my bed to be made. I'd like the house to be temperature controlled when I walk in the door. There's something really weird about coming home from like being in the car for a long time. Maybe you walk into your house and it's like a sauna and you're like, this is unfortunate. Like it's kind of, it's not as welcoming. You know, maybe that's important.

Maybe that's an important thing. And you can have somebody come and, you know, give somebody a key and they can turn your AC on before you get home. You can have several of those. several of these like smaller problems, right? But the smaller that you make them, the easier they are to solve, which is why you can have more than one. You can solve more than one problem, especially when they're tiny. Okay. The second thing that this trip matrix does is it breaks down your time. Okay. It does the same thing with like the big problems. It actually makes your your time seem smaller. You're considering how you might make that challenge easier to get through or that goal

easier to accomplish by breaking down when you do it. You're not trying to solve the thing immediately when you walk in the door. Things have their place, right? That's a lazy genius principle. Put everything in its place. And that includes these tiny tasks that help you support what matters in a specific time that you can do them. Okay? Third, you're thinking of small ways that you can solve this problem before they become a problem. Before you walk in the door and are stressed out. Before you've had to drive 10 hours in a minivan with children who are bored and ready to go home. Before you get behind in your work inbox. All of these befores. By thinking through all of the stuff before the actual stress, you'll be able to make more rational, helpful decisions.

Okay, so the trip matrix is basically a way to put all of your, coming home from vacation stress in its place. Give it a place. Give the solutions a place. Give the time that you might do the things a place, particularly before, during, or after your trip. Now, I want to be clear, I don't have a printable for this for this trip matrix, but this is really just columns and lines, right? It doesn't have to be cute or fancy. Just like, what's the thing? What matters about that thing? And then what can I do before, during, or after? not every box will be filled you know like some things will hold a few ideas and you only pick one you might not be able to do anything to solve a problem during your trip you know you just leave

it blind like it's not it's not something where you have to fill out every single box it's just a place for you to have like it's almost like having a controlled burn of all your stressful things right but now you have the tools to contain the stress to manage the solutions to put things in their appropriate place before you just feel overwhelmed by everything all at once. Now, one of the fun things about doing this is seeing how different rows of entries talk to each other, how they interact with each other. For example, and I will always share this tip because it is just so good. Let's say a goal when you come home is to recover by being in silence for a few hours. Like, that's a big ask if you have kids and have just gotten home, but it's also a big need

if you have kids and you've just gotten home. But write it down anyway, even if you're like, well, I can't make that happen. Write it down anyway, because you can. We can make this work. But write down, like, I would really just love to, I would just love to have some silence. Is there anything I can do before, during, or after my trip, to have silence when I get home, right? To have silence when I get home. Now, let's say another thing in that first column. is to unpack and get the laundry done and put away as soon as possible. What matters is speed. Not everyone helping or spreading it out or any of that.

It's just you just want to get it done. So during the trip, you can impact that laundry challenge by packing all the dirty clothes in one bag or suitcase. You know, a lot of us do that. That's been a really popular tip on the internet lately, which is actually super, super helpful. We do that too. That way you don't have to sort through every. everything, everybody's bag to find like every dirty sock, right? And then in the after column for laundry, here's the tip that interacts with that silent alone time and helps you get the laundry

done fast is, this is seriously one of my favorite tips I've ever heard in my whole life, is you leave your house almost immediately after getting home. You take all of your laundry to the laundromat and you do your laundry in silence. Someone shared this a couple years ago and it will always be one of my favorite ideas ever. It's so good that it captures what I love about it is it captures both the being alone goal, you know, that recalibrating your humanity after being in a car or a plane with loud humans and also getting the most annoying and kind of important task done as quickly as you can while you're enjoying that alone time. Like those things can intersect. And I think that will happen often as you look at your trip matrix once it's filled out. For example,

What if you fill out your trip matrix and you notice a number of things in that before column that are all pretty simple things that happen when you're home, you could batch those things. You know, you could take one or two or five hours the day or so before you leave and do all those things at once. Let's say you look at the after list and you notice that a number of those things do not have to be done by you. They just need to be done. So you can divvy out the jobs, right? Everybody has their task once you get home. You could eat. even give everyone in your family like a color and color code their entries on the spreadsheet or like highlight each task with a different color on your paper or just write their names on a paper

with their tasks or whatever. But then you could make like a list of each person's individual before, during, and after tasks if that helps your own people process those tasks because it's a team effort. Whatever works for you, right? And then going a little deeper than that, In the same way that we are anticipating what we can do to make coming home from a trip a little easier, I want you to also anticipate how you can make expectations of your people a little easier to, maybe even give this its own row, right? What can you do before the trip to help with tiny human attitudes or expectations? Remind the kids what they'll do when they get home. remind them how fun it is to get back home and be cozy in their room and encourage them to clean

off their bed so that when they come back, they can unpack their suitcase or whatever in a room that's like reasonably clean. Cleaning off the bed is the thing they do before. Okay. Opening their bag and taking everything out and maybe putting it in piles of like clothes, shoes and toys, whatever is like age appropriate, you know, for your kids to handle. That's what they do after. If you get home and then start shouting orders without preparing your people for your expectations before or during the trip, you're going to make things even more stressful than they already are. A couple of thoughts as we close. First, live in the season of re-entry. Live in the season of re-entry. It could be a season that lasts a few hours or a few days,

depending on the kind of trip you took, who was with you, how things were when you left, and what is in front of you when you get back. But regardless of those factors, your season of re-entry will exist. It will be a little challenging. It always is. So expect it to be challenging. But also celebrate that there are a few things that will show up in your trip matrix that are going to make it easier.

And you can do that. You can come home and recover from a trip. And it doesn't mean the trip wasn't worth it. Second, I want you to consider scheduling rest after your trip and maybe even before too. I personally, here's an approach that I personally like to take. I would rather take a week off, right? The whole family is like, okay, we're going on vacation for a week. But have a day on either side of that trip for preparing and reentry and take a four or five

day trip instead of a seven day one. and then I'm feeling rushed and then behind when we get home, right? Just because you take a week off for vacation doesn't mean you have to spend every single one of those days on actual vacation. Consider those on and off ramps too. Those count as part of your vacation mentally. So if you're able, make those count logistically too. And third, it is so common to get home from vacation and feel like you're behind in every area,

your home, work, food, all of it, and everything feels urgent. I want you to consider our lazy genius brain dump approach. When you get home, if you're feeling this way, take a beat and write down everything that's stressful and on your mind, okay? Everything that you feel behind on, big, small, everything in between. Then mark those things as now, soon, later, or never mind. if you have enough food in the house or have access to take out for dinner tonight and you have stuff for breakfast tomorrow grocery shopping can happen soon or later but it does not have to happen

right now you don't have to think about it right now so make your now soon later and never mind brain dump list to help put your thoughts in their place and one final reminder this is in the lazy genius kitchen book and in a post on instagram but i divided up the third lazy genius principles that you can read about in the lazy genius way, I divided those up into three categories of when you are out of order, out of rhythm, or out of sorts. So again, these are in the lazy genius kitchen and they're in an Instagram reel. So if you click on my reels in Instagram at the lazy genius, it's not too far down because I don't make a lot of reels, but it's named how to choose the right lazy genius principle for you. So out, I'm going to tell you what

they are, but if you want to see them, that they exist in both of those places. So out of order principles are for a quick win to restore to restore order to chaos. Okay. So those principles are, ask the magic question, put everything in its place, decide once, and start small. Out of rhythm, those principles are for when you need things to feel like they're flowing more. You know, there's a rhythm to it. Those are batch it, essentialize, set house rules, go in the right order, and build the right routines. And then out of sorts, that's when like your insides are a little upside down, you know, those principles are let people in, schedule rest, live in the season, and be kind to yourself. So this episode, I realize, has practically like zero specific tips or strategies for

coming home from vacation. But a couple things. I do think that this trip matrix will be more helpful for you as a tool than to name like a bunch of specific things for you. I think that what's helpful is for you to name what your challenges are and what matters to you about those things. And then you can decide like, well, what could, what's one thing I could do before? What's one thing I could do during? What's one thing I could do after? Who could help me with these things? Like you can kind of break down your own system using this trip matrix.

But the other thing, because practical ideas and tips are still super fun, I will be creating some space on Instagram this week to share some of your specific ideas with the community. So be on the lookout for that. I am at the lazy genius on Instagram. We can practical tip all over the place. And that is the gist of how to come home from vacation. put your thoughts and strategies in their place using the trip matrix and see how those entries talk to each other and create some great solutions for your specific situation.

Live in the season of reentry because it is a real season and it's not going to disappear no matter how hard you work, but you can make it a little easier. And then consider a now, soon, later, and never mind brain dump when you come home or even on the way home if your brain is still feeling swirly. And then you can use lazy genius principles to create space and solutions and systems that you need. Maybe if it's helpful through the lens of if you're out of order, out of rhythm, or out of sorts. You are doing great. You're doing great. And I hope this was helpful. Okay, before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it's Jenna Kullivito. She shared an idea. She had about traveling. So it's perfect for this

episode. Jenna wrote this. Life hack inspired by your episode that talked about giving certain categories of things their own bags. My family went on a weekend getaway to upstate New York where it is already very cold. I just need to say Jenna wrote this a few months ago, obviously. It's not probably not cold in upstate New York right now. I used a bag exclusively for hats, gloves, and scarves. Basically all the cold weather accessories that end up getting thrown at me the second we get out of the cold, but that they all need again quickly as soon as we get to our next stop. This was a game changer. I left the bag in the car all weekend and it was super easy to find everything, every single time

we needed to quickly bundle up. And I didn't feel like I was always having to figure out what to do with all the tiny pieces of clothing. Jenna, this is so great. This is so great. This is a combination of two lazy genius principles. Batch it and put everything in its place. It's batching because you're doing the same task finding winter stuff and getting bundled up.

or coming in from the cold and taking all those things off. You're doing that task all at once, right? And then you're putting everything in its place, which helps you easily make the decision of where things will go and where they are when you need them again. There's one place for all those winter accessories. It's in a bag in the car. This is such a great idea.

And I love, and this is true, this is true of a lot of lazy geniuses of the week. I love how simple it is. Like, you just put the winter accessories in a bag. It's not rocket science. but we overcomplicate a lot of things simply because we don't take the time to think about how we could name what matters, how we can calm the crazy, what principle we can apply that makes the most sense.

I just love this. Jenna, this is so great and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. Remember that it is not too late to get the summer docket, a digital downloadable guide to helping you name what matters about your summer and have fun doing it. It's available at the lazy genius collective.com slash store. It has been so fun getting your DMs and emails as well about your experience with the lazy genius kitchen, which has been out in the world for like a month now. You're cleaning out cabinets and fridges.

You're realizing that you can stop buying vegetables that you won't eat or planting meals that don't work for you. Being nervous to gather people because you think that you're not good enough at it. I had somebody DM me and she said, I realized something. having a family-friendly kitchen doesn't matter to me. I don't want the kids in the kitchen. And that was so much freedom. It's like, what a gift that you can name these things to make experiencing your kitchen even better.

It's so great. So thank you for buying the book. And if you haven't gotten it yet, there are some reviews on Amazon that you can read that can help you know if the book is for you, which frankly, I think it's for everyone, especially people in a tough season of life or a transitional season of life.

It's just a really great tool. It's a great gift. It's a great read. And y'all are great. Y'all are great for supporting me in it. So thank you so much. Okay, friends, 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. If 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.