The Lazy Genius Podcast - #291 - Your Path to an Easier December

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

Let’s walk through December almost like it’s a Candyland board, and plan for the potential challenges you’ll run into like a Lazy Genius.   Helpful Companion Links The 2022 Lazy Genius Gift Guide How to Decorate for The Holidays with The Nester #290: Managing Your Holiday Home #234: Ten Rules for Gift Giving #134: How to Be Happy With the Gifts You Give #42: How to Host a Holiday Party #130: The Lazy Genius Guide to Hosting Anything #288: How to Make the Rest of 2022 Easier #238: How to Get Stuff Done When You Don’t Feel Like It #136: Ten Ideas for a Holiday Reset #289: How to Lazy Genius Holiday Expectations #40: The Lazy Genius Navigates Family Tension #235: When You Disagree on What Matters #132: Ten Steps to Creating Your Own Traditions #79: The Lazy Genius Creates a Holiday Sabbath #44: The Lazy Genius Guide to Holiday Baking #129: How to Holiday Road Trip #89: Reset the House Instead of Burning It Down My books The Lazy Genius Kitchen and The Lazy Genius Way! 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

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 291, your path to an easier December. Today is December 5th, and for many of you listening, there are many, many, many, many things in front of you. Now, if you don't celebrate Christmas, if you live in the Southern Hemisphere, where it's not winter right now, or any number of other differences, the hubbub of this month might not be. be quite the same. But percentage-wise, I think a lot of you are definitely feeling the anticipatory energy of the next few weeks. So today, I want us to walk through the month of December and the potential challenges you'll run into and give you some resources for those things. I'm almost envisioning a Candy Land board, like you're on this winding path to that big red guy at the end who kind of looks like Santa. And you have lots of fun things along the way. But sometimes there's like a weird slide that makes you skip some stuff and maybe something happens in your life that makes you have to go all the way back because you forgot to get gifts in time and, you know, all the things.

So in the spirit of Candy Land, we're going to sort of go in chronological order and look at what you might be facing in kind of a particular way. All right. So another benefit to this exercise and the visual exercise of the game board is helping you think through your challenges in the right order. Now, the order that I present today, it might not be the order that you personally have, and that's totally fine. But the point is that you don't try to solve all your problems all at once. You can go in order. Not everything has to be tended to today. So this chronology will hopefully also give you permission to embrace whatever chronology you need and tend to whatever needs, tending to now, now, right? It's kind of like the holiday version of our to-do list categorization,

now, soon, later, and never mind. When things are undone and not categorized or scheduled or planned out in some way, everything feels urgent. Everything feels like it needs to be done now. And then we kind of give up and we like, just get gift cards for everybody, even though we really like giving personal gifts and we don't do the cookie baking we plan to do and we skip the party and we just get lazy but it's all by default not by intention laziness is fabulous when you do it on purpose if you do it because you saw everything with the same urgency and you just give up you're going to be bummed and i don't want you to be bummed i want you to have fun this christmas so let's walk our candy land board and see what sticks out for each of you.

Cool? Let's do it. All right, first up, early in December, you are probably decorating your house. And maybe you've already done it. Now, in my house, we put up our tree just two days ago because my middle kid has a November 30th birthday and does not enjoy Christmas stuff up during his birthday

because he feels overshadowed, bless, and also very understandable. So if you two are like just now getting on the holiday, decoration train. There are a couple of episodes that you might want to listen to now to help you with that. If you are wondering how to decorate without it feeling like a Hobby Lobby Isle, now there is nothing wrong with a Hobby Lobby Isle or a Hobby Lobby Isle House, by the way, if that's what you want. But if that's not what you want, listen to a bonus episode from just a couple of weeks ago called How to Decorate for the Holidays with The Nestor. I had a great, fairly short conversation with Michael

and Smith, also known as the nester, about how to decorate for the season, not just the holiday. Also, just last week was an episode on managing your holiday home. If you're already feeling overwhelmed by clutter and stuff, please listen to that if you have not already. Okay, that's like the first character on the Candy Landboard where, you know, if you draw the card for that first spot early on, it's like sort of gratifying, but you like barely go ahead a dozen spaces. It's a nice little advantage, but you know. So if you needed that nice little bump to think about your home and the stuff in it, there you go. But now let's get into the real challenge.

Next challenge. I'm going to guess for you chronologically, it's gifts. Now, gifts can be purchased literally any time. And if there is not a plan for how and when and what and who and all the other words around gifts, if you don't have a plan, if you don't have some kind of approach, you will be behind, you will overbuy, you will forget what you already got, you'll get stressed out because you don't have. you miss somebody, all the things. Now, I am not putting gift giving this early because I'm saying you need to have it done now. That's not true for everybody. Some people genuinely love getting gifts for

people the week before Christmas. You might even have that timing as like a tradition, right? I'm just putting it early on our board on our December path because it can be helpful now and later. Now, listen, y'all, I, I love giving gifts. Like, love it. I love finding things for people. I love rapping stuff. I always watch Lord of the Rings when I rap, which is like super dupe, not a Christmas movie, but I don't care. I love the whole thing, the whole thing about gifts, a lot. So my enthusiasm for gift giving is pretty evident in most of my gift resources, but it's okay if you're not as excited as I am. I still hope that one of these episodes or resources, gives you just like a little, like it keeps you from hating it more than you do if you hate it.

You know, I just don't want you to hate it that much. Okay, so first up, I did an episode last year around this time, actually, episode 234, 10 rules for gift giving. I just looked back at that episode to see what the 10 rules are because it was a year ago, so I obviously don't remember them. And y'all, they're good. These are some really good rules. They're like good reframing tools to help you see your gift giving.

as something that works for you and still has joy and life and sparkle in it. It is a great overall encapsulation of getting gift help and is a little more principle-based. Now, if you want something that is a bit more step-by-step, check out episode 134. I just realized it's episode 234 and 134. Episode 134 is called How to Be Happy with the Gifts You Give. there is a little more homework in that one, some specific tasks that you can do and in a certain order to help you think through gifts and actually get them done in a way that lines up with what matters to you. Just to note in that episode, I mention a free holiday gift tracker. That PDF is

no longer available and I'm very sorry about that. We are in the process of streamlining our website and what we offer y'all. And one of the things that we have decided to do is clean up and kind of clean out those existing digital resources attached to old episodes. Certain things might one day come back. But if you hear that in the episode and you get like excited, just know that gift tracker is no longer available. Womp.

But the episode, the episode is still great. Also, if you need gift ideas, there is a 22 lazy genius gift guide on the website that is organized by price point. We have a couple of gift guides from years past that we can also put in the show notes, but I don't know how many of those gifts are still giftable, you know, just so you know. A lot of things are like small business related. Also, I love our gift guides because they're not sponsored or anything. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but these are legit items that I have used or given. They are tested and loved. So, all right, so that's our gift challenge. That's the gift spot on the board. Further down, our Candyland December board, we arrive at the high.

holiday party house where Glinda the Gathering Fairy is ready to welcome you in. I know it's a stupid name. Just roll with it. Maybe you already have a holiday party planned. Maybe you're thinking about it, but are kind of overwhelmed making it happen because Christmas is less than three weeks away. I've got you. Episode 42, 42 of the podcast is called How to Host a Holiday Party. And it is what it says. It's how to host a holiday party. There is also episode one. 130, the lazy genius guide to hosting anything. So whether it's a party or a family gathering or a cookie exchange or a work Christmas party that you're in charge of, that episode will answer all of your gathering questions.

This is also an excellent place to remind you of the gift that is my book, The Lazy Genius Kitchen. There is an entire section on gathering as well as a couple of charts that are fantastic for hosting. One such chart is how to never run out of food at a party. It is literal party food math, and it always works. So if you have not gotten that book yet, here is yet another reason too. It is a resource for your life always and forever. We'll be right back. RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and counting. Your story could be next. If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics. Let's see what you've got. Sign up for free.

at rBC training ground.ca. 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, before we move on, to our next spot on the Candy Land board, just so you know, all of these episodes are going to be linked in the show notes of this episode, whether it's in your podcast app, or you can go to the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy, and you will see this episode. There's also going to be a Spotify playlist of all these episodes in one place. So if you would like that, it is there for you. Okay, so we pass Glinda the Gathering Fairy and the Holiday Party House, and now we are approaching

Mount Overwhelm. Mount Overwhelm is tall, kind of always looming, but it's right around mid-December when we still have holiday things to do and a lot of regular things to do. And it's just around this point that we rest in the shadow of Mount Overwhelm and we eat Christmas cookies that we haven't actually had time to make yet. So allow me to give you a free pass past Mount Overwhelm, because we don't want to stay there very long. First up is a very recent episode. episode number 288, how to make the rest of 2022 easier. It has homework. It is very practical and linear if you need actual planning help. So if you are on like, if you're on the top peak of Mount Overwhelm, please listen to that episode. Now let's say that you see Mount Overwhelm and

you're trying really hard to not let it consume you, but you also just don't want to do stuff that you have to do. There's, there's just big like, I don't want to energy, right? The episode that you should listen to in that headspace is episode 238, how to get stuff done when you don't feel like it. Because let's face it, holiday movie watching is way more fun than grocery shopping or making sure the toilet isn't disgusting. But sometimes you've got to take care of the toilet. So that episode helps you figure out how. And finally, if you are standing on top of Mount Overwhelm with a flag stuck in the rocky soil and you're like, I've done all the things. I have been an adult. I have conquered my list, which is great. Congratulations. But sometimes, sometimes, we can get so focused

on getting stuff done that we forget the season we're in. We forget those sweet, fun, memorable, sparkly things. So if that's you, if you're like verging into like conquer to do list robot territory. I want you to listen to episode 136. 10 ideas for a holiday reset. It's just a simple list of reminders about ways you can bring more joy into the holiday season. Okay, so we have left Mount Overwhelm, and we have now reached the bridge of passive aggression. It is surrounded by friends and family and people at the three-way stop at the Target parking lot who are just making you crazy and they don't know how to drive. That is a personal one for me. You're just over humans in general, right? I'd say this hits around like maybe December 17th. So I get that

energy. I also know that none of us like staying there for very long, right? This is a community that values connection. So here are a couple of episodes to help you with that as you get closer and closer to Christmas. First, there is an episode from a couple of weeks ago that could help. You might have missed it because it was during Thanksgiving week, but it's episode 289, How to Lazy genius holiday expectations. It is a great episode on thinking through how you are seeing the holidays, how others might be seeing the holidays, and how unmet or unspoken or unreleased expectations can cause a lot of stress on us that we might not have to have. So check that out if you're feeling like a little hamstrung by expectations. Another episode that is very old and still very

good is episode 40. The lazy genius navigates family tension. Expectations don't always have to involve tension. But if you're feeling like there's going to be tension in your gatherings this year, I think this episode will help put you in a frame of mind where you're focused on kindness towards yourself and others, but not in a way that sacrifices your own safety or your own relational expectations. And then finally, finally, Christmas brings us into a place where everybody is like just doing their own thing, it feels like. They're living how they want. They're deciding stuff that conflicts with what you want.

And it can be hard to do with that, especially if one of those people is someone you live with or work with or interact with on a regular basis. So enter episode 235 when you disagree on what matters. I get that question all the time. What do you do when what matters to you and what matters to someone else are really different? So this episode is the answer to that. Okay, we're almost out of our Candyland board.

Let's make a quick stop at Tradition Tower. I'm just going to start naming them now. When we get closer and closer to the holiday itself, I think we start to feel the pressure of traditions. Do we have enough traditions? Are they even good? What do we do last year that we can repeat? So please, please, please, please listen to episode 132, 10 steps to creating your own

traditions. They're not just holiday-centric either, that episode, but especially now, I think that episode will give you some good clarity on how traditions can fit into your life as it is now and what reasonable expectations are. It's also around this time that you start to get so overwhelmed with everything and everyone, even when the things and the people are beloved and fun, that you just need to not talk to a person or do anything for like 24 hours, you know? So if this is you now or is going to be you on, you know, December 19th, please listen to Episode 79. The Lazy Genius creates a holiday Sabbath. We are also approaching the cookies and goodies and all those fun things. So if you want

some direction in your holiday baking, episode 44 is the lazy genius guide to holiday baking. Not a lot to say about that one, except it's really helpful if you plan to bake. And then if you're taking a road trip this season, don't forget episode 129, how to holiday road trips. Those are quick stops. And then finally, I want to give you like a little fortune-telling episode. December 26th is where many of you start to feel the itch of all the stuff in your house, the presents, the things, and you just want to, you're just about to burn it down. Now, hopefully that won't be the case since you have already listened to the episode managing your holiday home. But if you didn't, or if you still are feeling big black trash bag energy where you're just grabbing stuff and chucking it, no matter what anybody

says, please save episode 89. So you can listen to you. it later when you're feeling that way. It's called reset the house instead of burning it down. Cool. Cool. So those are our stops on our December Candy Land Game Board. I hope you found some good episode resources to listen to wherever you are. And I also hope this helps you see that some things you can deal with next week or the week after, you do not have to deal with everything now. And also having to do a lot, it's just part of this season for so many people, right? There is regular life plus all the extra fun and frivolity and emotional labor and budgeting and crowds and all of it. So try to remember what you love about this season and focus on that as much as

you can while navigating the rest. This is a season of stress. It is. It just is. Fun and stress, but still stress. But also remember, this season is followed in general for most of us. It's followed by a season of quiet. January and February are pretty chill, you know? That's on purpose. So remember it won't always be this way. But while it's this way right now, try in lazy genius one or two things

so you can feel like yourself and you can enjoy the holiday season. Okay, before we go, let's celebrate our lazy genius of the week. This week it's Kathy Benin. Kathy sent me this on Instagram just last week. Here's what she says. Hello, just wanted to send along something we've been doing to make holiday movie selection,

little easier. There are two few weekends in December for movie watching, and every year it would be a big fight over whose favorite holiday movie we'd watch. A couple of years ago, we started voting on holiday movies. I would pick one night in November, make hot chocolate, and draw up ballots with everybody's movie selections. Then we vote. Tally it up and do a movie countdown with the movie that got the most votes Christmas Eve. It's made a difficult selection process. so much fun and the selection has become a tradition all its own. I don't know if that will help anybody out there, but it's kind of been life-changing for our family of six. Happy holidays. Kathy! What an incredible idea. Y'all, I am sorry that I didn't get this from Kathy until now

because this would have been gold like last week or the week before, you know, before we like really got into December. However, it still might be early enough for some of y'all to do like kind of a holiday movie vote. I absolutely love this idea. I also wish my kids fought over holiday movies. I wish that was one of our problems. Y'all, they still don't like movies, you guys. Like, just as a concept, if you are new here, my children all find movies too full of escalating conflict. That is their phrase. It is not mine. Oh my gosh. But I'm going to, I might just make my own holiday movie countdown based on the inspiration of this DM. So this is so great. Thank you for sharing this with us, Kathy. And congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. All right, y'all,

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.