The Lazy Genius Podcast - #275 - What’s Saving My Life Right Now

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

I love doing these episodes because they are a reminder for me as I create them and you as you listen to them that we can always pay attention to what’s saving our lives. What’s giving us joy and hope and rest and fun? It’s easy to survive every day or focus on what’s productive, but we also want to notice, maybe even way more so so, the things that make life really really good. So today, I’ll share mine.   Helpful Companion Links Previous What’s Saving My Life Right Now episodes: #251 (February 2022), #236 (November 2021), #203 (March 2021) Stranger Things The Trespasser by Tana French Eufy Robot Vacuum Sherry from Young House Love Get the Latest Lazy Letter Download a transcript of this episode.   This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon presents Laura versus Fruitflies. Swarming your fruit and terrorizing your kitchen. These little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say, yo. Chill. But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Hey there, you're listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 275. What's saving my life right now? I love doing these episodes. We do them about once a quarter maybe because they are just such a good reminder for me as I create them and hopefully to you as we listen to them that we can always pay attention to what is saving our lives in the season that we're in. What is giving us?

joy and hope and rest and fun. It's really easy to survive every day and focus on that or focus on what's productive, right? But we also want to notice probably more than those other two things what makes life really, really good, you know? So today I'm going to share my things. These are in no particular order and they are quite an array. That is why I really love this list. Number one, Stranger Things, particularly watching an episode of Stranger Things season four and then chasing it with an episode or two of 30 Rock. Okay, Kaz and I are a little late to the game and that we just finished Stranger Things season four in late July. Like we, we weren't able to just jump in the minute that both of the like seasons were released. Now, our two oldest kids,

they do not go to bed until 10 o'clock during the summer. And their constitutions are not quite up for something as scary as Stranger Things. So we have to wait to watch until they go to bed at 10 o'clock, which is my bedtime. I mean, getting started with your night at 10 o'clock is crazy town. But it is also the new season of life that we're in. And it's only going to keep getting later as the kids get older. So, you know, might as well start getting used to it now. So all that to say, it took causing me a while to get started on Stranger Things because we had to gear up. We had to know we were going to stay up late. And some of the episodes are movie length, y'all. But I'm so glad we started. because we could not stop.

It was a fantastic season. And I have actually now started the series over. And I'm watching from season one, like as my blankie, which is so fun. Now, the reason this has been saving my life is, it's a few things. Stranger Things is something that Kaz and I have enjoyed together. We like a lot of the same things. But also, we don't have a lot of dead center loves that are the same. same. Like his favorite, favorite things are not mine and vice versa. We have plenty of things that we both

like, but we don't have a ton that we both super love when it comes to pop culture. And Stranger Things is one of those things. So it's super fun to have something to watch together. I also loved it because I cared about the characters and the story so much. You know, that's one of the reasons we love stories, right? We love to get in deep with the caring. I cared a lot about Stranger Things and it felt really good. like I needed to care a little bit. And finally, because season four of Stranger Things is like not a chill hang and it is quite intense, we would watch an episode of 30 Rock right after. 30 Rock just left Netflix a week or so ago. It was very sad. So when we realized that that was going to happen like a few weeks before, watching an episode after Stranger Things, it just

felt like the perfect place to put our last hurrah of 30 Rock. 30 Rock is another one of those like dead center loves that we both have. It's maybe my favorite half-hour comedy ever, and some of those season two to four episodes are just like actual gold. My favorite episode is the bubble in case you were wondering, by the way. But sinking into those two shows for a couple weeks with cause, it was just so fun and enjoyable and so good for my soul. And I loved every minute of it, even though I was having to stay up late and losing sleep because of it. Okay, number two, it's another pop culture one. and it was the novel, The Tresspasser, by Tana French.

Now, I haven't even finished it yet. I have the last like 50 pages, but I did not know how much I needed to sink into a longer novel that I could hold in my hand. Tana French is a novelist who writes mysteries that center around a detective squad in Ireland. Now, you do not have to read the novels in order, but the occasional detective shows up in more than one story, you know, but no matter. You can read them all as stand-alone, so it doesn't matter. So Tana French is an interesting writer to me because her writing is somehow dense, which I don't do dense, but it's also propulsive, which I love propulsive, right?

We talked about bookwords a few episodes ago. Propulsive is one of my bookwords. I think reading her is like, it's like walking through thick grass, but your muscles are strong enough to do it. like it's hard work to read her stuff, but it doesn't feel like hard work. I don't, I don't really know how else to explain it. And her novels are not short. I mean, they're not door stops, but this one I'm about to finish. It's probably, it's like 450 pages. And it's taken me almost two weeks to read. It's long. But, and I don't usually do long either. But I didn't know how much I needed a story to sink into for a long time. My last few novels, I have been great. By the way, I share all like book reviews

and stuff of things I read because I read a lot in my latest lazy letter, which I send out once a month, and you can sign up to receive that at the lazy genius collective.com slash join. But my last few novels that I've read have been kind of fluffy. They have felt like water skiing, even though I don't really know how to water ski. But you know what I mean? Like they've been surface skimmers. We're just going fast and having fun. But there's nothing to really settle into.

And I really like water ski novels. I really do. But this book, The Trespasser by Tana French, is like, man, I don't know, I don't know what it's like in this water sport metaphor. I don't do enough water sports to have the right analogy. It's not a lazy river because it's more intense than a lazy river. Maybe it's like, it's like a moody hike to a waterfall. It's hard work, but not really. And also you get this amazing reward at the end when you see the waterfall.

but also, y'all, this metaphor is actually like really, really working. Also, you can hear the falls before you see them. You experience the benefit of the end indirectly and gradually before you even get to the end. And that is sort of how Taana French writes her novels. Like she does a slow burn so well. And then when you turn the corner and you see the waterfall, you see the end, it is like so deeply gratifying. So anyway, that was a lot of words to say that I'm really like. loving this book, The Traspasser by Tana French, but I just needed that kind of book right now. And I'm so glad I picked it up. It's been on my shelf for over a year. So you just never know when a book is going to land in your life at the right time. Number three is being with friends. I've had several

really great times with different friends and groups of friends during the month of July. And the cumulative effect of those has been an actual lifesaver, like so emotionally fulfilling. I could just feel my spirit kind of buoying a little bit because of that. So I went to a birthday dinner with like a dozen women, only a handful of whom I really knew. So it was fun to be around some new faces. And then the next week, one of the women who I knew the best in that birthday dinner group, she invited me and two other women from that same birthday dinner group to get drinks like a week later because she thought the four of us would really connect.

And we did. Like we had loose connections sort of with. each other, but those drinks were like a first date. We even said that out loud. It was like, this is a first date. Will there be a second date? And there will be. There will be for sure. We hung out with our cocktails for over three hours and we could have gone another two if it was not like ridiculously late and we needed to go to bed. So that was just a gift. You also might have seen on Instagram that I spent a couple of days with our favorite Emily P. Freeman at her mountain house, which is also like literally down the street from her sister's house.

The Nestor is her sister. She is also one of our favorites. Spending time with them like good, long, real time was so needed. Now, I know that leaving home, even for drinks, but especially for like a couple of days, I know that leaving home can feel like it's not worth the trouble sometimes. but for me it is worth it every single time. I cannot remember a time it's not been worth it. Now, if you are a dude listening to this, you might not feel the same resistance to going away or going out, but for sure if you're a woman, and perhaps especially if you're a mother or a caregiver,

the gift of going away by yourself or especially with a friend or two or 10, like it is beyond measure beyond. It really is. And it doesn't have to be fancy, you know, like you can stay in a borrowed house, you can split a tiny air and be at be with like a lot of people, or you can just take like an entire day in your own city and just sit somewhere, you know? You can just go to different places and sit there. That's absolutely free. But finding extended time to spend with your friends and with yourself is just never a bad call. I think it's worth planning. That's why we schedule things like this. That's why we schedule rest, right? That's a lazy genus principle. Schedule rest. Put it on the calendar. Make it happen. Like, I'm not trying to be, you know, mean and bossy here. I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be like

your, your kind big sister, you know, being with a friend is worth making the time for. And you can decide what that looks like, but I would love for you to prioritize that as often as you can. Now, about that, this feels important. I'm not trying to be simplistic here. I realize that there are a ton of things, a ton of things that can interfere with prioritizing time like this. You could have tiny kids. You might be a single parent. You might be single and you want to go on vacation with friends, but all of your friends have partners or kids. So it feels weird to ask them to go with you. You could have a very limited budget slash no extra money for something like even just going out for cocktails. You might work multiple jobs and you don't have any extra time. You might be caring for

an aging parent and you cannot leave them even for a day. You could live far out in the country where it's harder to find community. You might be in a season of working through your faith and you're not in a church and you realize that you don't know how to make friends outside of that institution. It could be so many things. So I don't want to communicate that it's like super simple to make friends and you just need to try harder. I'm not saying that, let alone saying that everyone should go on a weekend trip. What I am saying is that taking the time for connection, whatever that looks like for you is a worthwhile thing. So maybe the takeaway from my experience is just to think about it. Just consider it. What might taking time for connection look like for you? We'll be right back.

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All right, number four is kind of an offshoot of that last one, and it's a new thing for me that I will share with you. So we all have different personalities and relationship needs and friendship dynamics and life stages and resources and all of it, right? We know that. So as I share this fourth thing, it is saving my life because it works for me, not because it works for everyone. But I also want to share it in case there's a way that you can kind of manipulate it a

little bit to work for you. So one of the challenges that I have in my relationships is that I feel like there's not enough of me to go around. I feel like I've shared this somewhere before, I think on the podcast, but no matter. Basically, I am an extrovert who loves people and who desires like really meaningful relationships with individuals. I usually do things one-on-one as opposed to groups. I've never been like a friend group person. Like I love hanging out with more than one friend, but like generally, I'm like one to one. That is the one-to-one or sexual subtype of the enneagram in me. So I just feel more at home with one person as opposed to six. I still love the six.

I just feel more at home with one. Now, I'm also married to a pretty strong introvert who has very different relationship needs than I do. I love having a lot of friendships. Cause needs like two. And I could be one of them if push comes to shop, you know? So our social life, it happens together sometimes. but more often it's just me and my own friends. I also work like mostly full time in a job where I am kind of being social and sort of a weird Instagram way, you know? So that's weird. That's draining in a different way. I am the full-time parent at home in the summer when the kids are here right now, but also when they're in school. Like I'm the parent who's home when they come home from school. I am the domestic captain of our house. Cause does a ton of stuff, like laundry,

cleaning the kitchen, anything in the yard. Like he does a ton. But I'm the house boss, you know? I like keep the long game running. So I have things to do with my house. I also have three kids with three different schedules and three different sets of activities and interests and social needs and all of it, you know? Basically, I have what some of you might have more desire for relationships than time to give them, right? But I'm also realizing that saying, I don't have enough time isn't fully accurate. I have some time. I do. But what I identified this summer is that because I have what feels like so many people I want to spend time with, including obvious people like my mom and my sister or my best friend, I am paralyzed when it's

time to hang out with someone because I don't know where to begin. You know, if I'm free for lunch one day, I freeze and I don't know who to ask to go with me so I don't ask anybody. I have realized that I've tried to be a genius about investing in my friendships, but ever since this new season of life I'm in where I'm working kind of full time and my kids are not at home as much because they're like all in elementary school and middle school now, also the consequences. of COVID, I have become very lazy, very all or nothing, right? Very extreme. If I cannot invest in my relationships the way I want to all at once, I might as well give up completely. And pals, that's just not what we do. That's not what we do. So here's what I did. Here's what I did that's

saving my life. And maybe this or like some version of this is something that could help you too. I looked at the rhythm of my schedule for when school starts because summer rhythm is different than fall. and I decided once, right, that's lazy genius principle. Number one, I decided once when I would do things with people. I made a list of times, okay? Times like, you know, two Thursday lunches, two Friday lunches, one night a month, one Saturday morning a month, things like that. Like that felt doable, you know? I created space in my calendar, kind of like combining two other lazy genius principles, schedule rest, and let people in, you know? I created space in my calendar for people, and now I have a place, which is another way to do you know's principle to put everything in its

place. Now I have a place for thoughtful time with my people. I have those spots carved out, and I can spend time with anyone inside that space. Then I made a list of people in my life who I want to spend more time with or just spend time with it all. You know, I already mentioned like my mom and my sister and Emily Freeman. I have other friends who I want to connect with pretty regularly. And then there are people who, you know, I like women at church maybe, who I really love talking to. I really like them, but we don't really interact outside of church or have a whole lot of reason to. But just having breakfast with one of them like once this year, that would be so fine. That would be amazing, right? So I made a list of my people. It was shorter on paper than it was in my spirit.

it. And now I have scheduled time to spend with them, you know. So at the beginning of the month, my plan is to invite people to hang out during those times and then just let it roll. Now, full disclosure, have I done this part yet, the scheduling part? No. I haven't actually done the inviting. But I've done the listing and the scheduling. I've put my desires in their place and I have decided once when I can hang out. Now, it's not that I can't hang out other times than those that I've set aside, but if I don't schedule something that matters within the priorities and rhythms of my life, it likely won't happen. Or I'll fill my time with other things first that are less valuable than being with my people. Does that make sense? So I've made a little system. I am fully prepared for it

to not work out of the gate. This is simply a place I'd like to start. I already tried starting even smaller than this and like just inviting someone to do something more spontaneously. You know, like if you think about it, just do it. But that was not working for me. It just wasn't. I need more structure than that. Not a lot more, a little bit more. So I will keep you posted on how this goes. But even the existence of these scheduled social times on my calendar, even though they don't have actual people attached to them yet, it has created so much space in my soul. And I'm really happy with it. All of these have felt very long. And that was a long number four. So let's just do one more to finish up. The fifth thing that I'll share that saving my life is our robot vacuum.

I will link to it in the show notes, but it's the Ufi robot vacuum, E-U-F-Y. It's the one that Sherry Peterson from Younghouse Love told us all to buy, and she was right. Our kids named it Sucker Buddy. And Sucker Buddy has been a surprising little lifesaver. We have him set to run every night at 7 o'clock, like just in the main living room kitchen area of our house that we refer to as the L, because it's in the shape of an L. So we have our little routine to get ready for Sucker Buddy where we pull the chairs out from the table.

We move this like one little side table out of the way because he always gets stuck inside it because it's like a circle that's just slightly bigger than him and to get stuck. We move the big coffee table to the hallway to block Sucker Buddy from the rest of the house. It's really great because it helps us keep that area tidy for longer. And the kids, they still like still,

love getting a room ready for sucker buddy. And they don't realize that they're super dupe cleaning. So we let him run in different rooms, like less often than every night, you know. But every night, we get that little hum of our little sucker buddy vacuum. And the whole rhythm of having sucker buddy has been surprisingly lovely for everybody. Now, could I vacuum the L, like with a handheld vacuum and way less time than it takes sucker body for sure but that's like 10 15 minutes you know that I could spend vacuuming that I now spend instead reading ton of French or playing a game with my kid you know I would rather do that

then have the vacuum being done more quickly right so those are some of the things that are saving my life right now stranger things followed by 30 Rock which I can't do anymore because 30 work is gone but it's okay stranger things ton of French is the trespasser or like any type of hiking to a waterfall read, spending time with friends and making time for friends in the future plus soccer buddy. What a list. I hope you enjoy making yours, even if it's like in your head. It is just such a lovely practice to do this regularly because the things that save our lives, they usually shift as much as our lives and the seasons do, right? So I hope that this helps you pay attention just a little bit more to what matters to you. Before we go, let's sell you. Let's

celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week it is Melissa Solis, who sounds like Solis, like she has no soul. That's not what it is. Like soul like the sun. It's fine. She emailed this. I have lazy genius the problem of music, short version and music matrix. I stay at home with my baby and we listen to music most of the day while he plays. The problem was that I found myself scrolling through Spotify trying to decide what to listen to for easily 15 to 20 minutes. it's at a time all day long or just listening to the same three albums all the time. I created a music matrix, just like a meal matrix, to both limit my options and also encourage the kind of variety that matters to me. And here it is. Mix it up Monday. I listen to those

mixes that Spotify makes featuring artists I like with some others mixed in. And I note anything new I like in preparation for, try it Tuesday. I listen only to artists and albums that are new to me. I try new things. Well-loved Wednesday. Time for all the old favorites that used to be my music rut. Throwback Thursday. All music published at least 10 and 15 years ago. Fun Friday.

Welcome all the quirky, weird and random. Musical soundtracks, yes. Veggie Tales albums, yes. Brittany Spears, yes. Anything that sounds fun to me. And on weekends, I just play it by ear, pun intended. I love this idea so much, Melissa. I think any time we find ourselves,

spending more time trying to choose something than we do on the actual something, it is a great place to create a matrix. I love this music matrix, Melissa. I'm sure it will inspire people listening to do something similar. You know, you could create a music matrix or even a, like even a listening matrix. Like Monday and Tuesday are for music. Wednesday is catching up on all your favorite podcasts, Thursday and Friday or listening to an audiobook. You know what I'm saying? Like whatever works for you. So thank you for the inspiration. here, Melissa, and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. All right, guys, that's 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.