The Lazy Genius Podcast - #332 - How to Enjoy Your Evening Hours

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

I’m really excited about this topic because it is something every single person likely struggles with. The evening especially feels like time that we can use however we want. It’s not dictated by someone else, and that freedom often leaves us flailing. It’s so precious and valuable, and you want to make the most of it. How do you do that? That’s our episode today.   Helpful Companion Links Episode #331: What’s Saving My Life Sign up for the Latest Lazy Listens email. Grab a copy of my book The Lazy Genius Kitchen or The Lazy Genius Way! (Affiliate links) 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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Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. 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 32, How to Enjoy Your Evening Hours. I'm really excited about this topic because it is something every single person likely struggles with. Most of us have a typical weekday, and that weekday is probably fairly exhausting. Whether you work at an office, work from home or work as a stay-at-home parent, most of us live our day. And that weekday is probably fairly exhausting. Whether you work at an office, work as a stay-at-home parent, most of us live our day. kind of the same. You know, we're getting our stuff done. We're in some kind of rhythm or repetition dictated by someone else, whether it comes in the form of our job at a desk or our job on the floor, building the 72nd Tower of Blocks with a tiny human. Once the evening comes, though, and meals have been eaten and desks have been left and routines have been completed, we feel a little frozen. It's almost like evening hours or off hours of any kind suddenly belong to us. The evening especially,

feels like time that we can use however we want. It's not dictated by someone else. And that freedom often leaves us flailing. It is so precious and valuable. And we want to make the most of it. So how do we do that? Well, that is our episode today. If you were to list all the things that you could do during your evening hours, it would probably be a very long list. Tidy the house, actually scrub something in the house. Prepare for tomorrow's schedule. or tomorrow's meals or outfits or projects or whatever. Work out, relax and just be still. Go to bed early. Do something fun like watch a show or see a friend or read a book. Tend to a hobby. Play a game or watch a movie with your family. Do that skincare routine you keep thinking about. And those are just the

obvious ones. There are a lot of things you would love to cram into your evening hours. And unfortunately, the decision fatigue of that time of day, it just piles on to the existing exhaustion of the end of the day. Last Sunday, I was texting with my friend Amy about cross-country carpool for our kids that week. And after a very comical exchange where I did not have any of the cross-country meets in my calendar, I didn't have anything written down. I said to her, I need two Sundays because we were texting on a Sunday. I said, I need two Sundays. I need a prep Sunday and a rest Sunday.

And then I thought for a minute and added and a church Sunday. I need three Sundays. Sundays. And I think most of us feel that way about evenings. We need a chore evening, a workout evening, a fun evening, a self-care evening, a connection evening, a get ahead of this crazy life evening. We need a lot of evenings. And when we feel that kind of overwhelm, it creates a sense of urgency in our brains that we just can't shake. Suddenly everything feels equally important, if not vital. And the paralysis of not choosing and therefore not doing any of it leaves us feel. feeling more overwhelmed than before. Plus, now we're also behind or tired or not emotionally

filled up or we have a dirty face. We've wasted another evening, not doing any of our things well, and we keep getting progressively worse off and also feeling really bad about it. That's how it often feels in our bodies and our brains. So I think this topic is just incredibly, incredibly relevant. So our process here today is pretty simple. We are going to apply the five lazy genius steps to our evening hours. Those steps were originally created for my second book, The Lazy Genius Kitchen, but these five steps work for so many things, especially overwhelming things. Now, I don't know that I've ever said this before, but this is a really important statement I'm about to make. Whenever you feel big system energy, big black trash,

bag energy. We're just going to throw everything away. Big, I'm doing this all wrong and I need to start over energy. Like basically when you want to sell your house, use these five steps. Some problems are smaller and therefore the solution is pretty small. And in those cases, you just apply a lazy genius principle like start small or ask the magic question or decide once and you're well on your way to feeling better. But when things feel big, when you're just overwhelmed and find yourself getting a new notebook to create a new approach to something that you will probably abandon in 48 hours, or again, when you think about selling your house, spend that frantic problem solving energy here. Spend it thinking through these five steps. You will actually land somewhere helpful.

It's a great way to honor your big system energy and even utilize it a little bit without creating something that is too big to actually work. These five steps are the lazy genius way to leverage that kind of energy for good. So that's what we're going to do today with our evening hours. However, the first thing that you need to know before applying those steps is the problem. You need to know specifically what it is you're trying to lazy genius. In this case, it's not just evening hours in general. We're not trying to lazy genius evening hours. That's too broad. What is the real problem here? A likely answer is that you have what feels like too much to do in what feels like too little time. Now, I don't want to say that you have too much to

do in too little time because that creates a sense of scarcity and urgency within you that you don't really need right now. So it's not really that there's too much to do in too little time. Now, that would be true if your goal is to do it all and still go to bed at nine o'clock. That is an unreasonable approach to this problem anyway. We need to add some elect. plasticity, not just to our evenings, but to how we see them. So let's inject honesty and fluidity into what's really going on here by saying that the problem is that we feel like there's too much to do in what feels like too little time. Now, if you have a different angle to take on enjoying your evening hours, by all means, use that. It's your problem. And so you should tend to your

specific problem. But I do think that the one I just said is fairly relevant to a lot of people. So as we move through this, I really want you to have confidence in what you choose for your evenings. Like that's what I hope by the time we get to the end of this episode. I want you to trust that however you approach your evenings is a good way that works for you. You shouldn't force yourself to fit into someone else's box. You shouldn't shame yourself for spending your evening hours in a way that you assume someone else would see as wasteful. This whole exercise is so you can see what you need and move. toward that decision with confidence and kindness, you can choose what you need for you.

Okay. Now let's apply the five steps. 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. All right. If you are new here, the five steps to Lacey Genius Anything, especially anything, are one, prioritize or name what matters. Two, essentialize or get rid of what's in the way. Three, organize or put everything in its place. Four, personalize or feel like yourself. And five, systemize or stay in the flow. All right, we're going to start with prioritize or name what matters. This is a vital component, our first component, but you might need a little more direction than a big general priority. So for this situation and really any other, it never hurts to narrow it down a bit by asking yourself what matters in this season. It's to name what matters without any parameters. And you might think that you have them, you have those

parameters by naming what matters about your evening hours. However, if you are in a new job, if you just had a baby, if you've got a crazy project at work that's getting you home later for a stretch of time, if you're recovering from sickness, if you're doing anything that impacts how you might need to see and spend your evenings, you need to name that. Name that season. It could be a week, a month, a quarter, whatever time frame you need. Live in your season. That's one of the 13 lazy genius principles. And in order to know what matters this season, you need to name the season.

So set your scope of time, all right? My guess is that it'll be easier for you to go through this process on the smallest scale, like a week. So if you're listening to this episode on a Monday, ask yourself what matters about my evening hours this week. Don't set up some big system for the rest of the year or the rest of your life. Choose small solutions and make specific choices for that finite amount of time. Maintaining choices during a small time frame is so much easier. Oh my gosh. But also those small timeframes, they build on each other.

And they create rhythms and routines and trust in your own choices over time. So rather than ask, what matters about my evening hours for the next six years of my life? all my kids are suddenly teenagers and up later than I am, start with just this week. In other words, start small. As I thought about what matters most to me about my evening hours this week, I had about four or five things come to mind as it usually goes. So what is our process when we can't land on one thing that matters? This is also in the Lacey Genius Kitchen and in lots of podcast episodes. It's pretty much a process of elimination. Name what could matter. then what does matter, and finally what matters most. Choosing the thing that matters most does not

eliminate the other things. It simply shows you what this weeks or however long you're thinking, what the priority is for this stretch of time so that you are using that time wisely on something that genuinely does matter to you more than the other things. You prioritize the thing that matters the most so that if something does have to wait or fall through the cracks or happen next week, it's not the thing that matters most. It's something that matters, but it's also okay. For me, some things that could matter for this week are sleep, being with my family because I'll be out of town over the weekend, getting the logistics of our life set up

for my being out of town over the weekend, and a lone time to be full of energy because I'll be out of town over the weekend. That's four things. That's a lot of things. And that doesn't include what I really wish matter, which is routine, honestly. We'll take a little rabbit trail here. I really like repetition. Sometimes I feel wonky because my evenings don't always follow the kind of predictable pattern I wish they did or that other times of the day do.

And I think they should. I don't have a regular bedtime. I don't always do my skincare or put on my pajamas or read at the same time every night. most of the time I'm really present with what I need and what my family needs and I go night by night. And honestly, that actually works for me. I really enjoy my evenings. I don't always know what they're going to look like or what order I'm going to take, but I really do enjoy them.

So this is permission to myself and any of you that just because your evenings aren't super structured or routine, it doesn't mean they don't work and it doesn't mean that you don't enjoy them. Routine does not have to matter. You can let that go. So if you already enjoy your evenings without that, fantastic. Okay. So of my list of things that could matter, what does matter this week? I have four things.

Let's narrow it down a little bit. I think that it is being present and around my family and also feeling rested. So I will have energy for my weekend. The logistics of my being gone, those can fall to the side. I'll tend to a lot of them probably, but like my husband, he's a grown man. Our usual division of labor, it has me handling logistics, but he is very capable of doing it. So if something gets dropped, he can pick it up. I don't need to break my neck trying to get that stuff done, especially at the expense of rest and just being with my family.

So it's rest and being present. That's what really matters this week. Okay. Now, what matters most of those two things. And I think it's being present. Because I'll be gone for several bedtimes in a row and some of my kids get really bummed by that, I don't want to skip any bedtimes that I could be part of just because I might want to go to bed early. I can maybe do some things to tend to both. But when push comes to shove, being present with my kids, particularly around the good nights is the most important thing. Okay. So that is how you can narrow down what matters most. All right, step two, and we'll move through these faster now, hopefully. Once you name what matters, the rest of the steps kind of fall in place fairly easily.

So that's why we'll be able to speed it up a little bit. But step two is essentialize or get rid of what's in the way. What is in the way of your evening hours being enjoyable? I think it's likely a version of one of these three answers, okay? One, you're trying to do too much. and you haven't really named a priority. Two, you are paralyzed by the decision for so long that you don't do or enjoy anything. And three, the internet. Those three things, or at least a version of one of them, is probably the thing in your way. So you need to either remove the pressure to get it all done.

You need to remove the decision paralysis by just picking something. Or you need to maybe somehow remove the internet from. parts of your evening. Even in working on this episode, I have probably, like, quote unquote, wasted 20 minutes getting distracted by stuff on my phone. I had to look up a couple of things for the episode and I've gotten sucked in to all the things on my phone. It just happens. Y'all, it's made to do that. The internet and our phones are built to keep us there. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. But what that means is that if your phone or the internet is in the way of what really matters about enjoying your evening, assuming that's true, you might have to work a little

harder to remove that obstacle. So you can use downtime functions on your phone, or you can charge your phone somewhere far from you. You can get one of those light phones, like capital L light phones that doesn't have the internet, you know, when you want to go light, that's like the tagline or whatever. There are ways to remove that distraction. But I'm also here to tell you that it's really hard. and you're not a simpleton or giving into the man because you enjoy scrolling Instagram and you look up 45 minutes later confused and how much time has gone by, just like the rest of us. The phone and the internet, they are made to do that to us. So be kind to yourself when it happens. If you'd rather it not happen, think about how you can creatively remove that distraction just this week. So step two is

essentialize or get rid of what's in the way of what matters. Step three is to organize or put everything in its place. What needs to be in place for you to enjoy your evening hours? Is it a choice that is already made for the TV show you're going to watch? It's nice when you get into a show with someone because you know what's next, you know what you're going to watch next. I mentioned this last week in the What's Saving My Life episode, but we've been watching Marvel movies as a family. Like when the boys come into the living room. We don't have to ask what to watch. Unless football's on, we already know. Like, it's been decided. So maybe you need to have that decision made for you too before you even sit down. What else needs to be in place for you? I think that by the time we get to the evening, we are just

tapped out, right? We have so little decision-making ability left. And we're also the most tired we've been all day probably, that means that perhaps you need a loose plan in place long before the evening arrives. You can decide earlier in the day. What do I need tonight? What would be an enjoyable way to spend my evening hours? Decide that at breakfast or lunch, you know, do some kind of midday check-in and decide. The decision is the thing that keeps us from the enjoyment, I think. So just make one. Other ways you could organize might be to have. like a little checklist if you love those. Maybe every night you shoot to do like one chore, prep one thing, care for yourself one way, and do one fun thing, you know? Like you could use

categories like that, chore, prep, care, fun to help you make sure that you're catching the pieces that matter the most to you. But the purpose of step three of organized is to make sure that you have the things in place to enjoy your evenings. Most of the time, what you need is just a decision that's already made. We'll be right back. Okay, step four is to personalize or feel like yourself. This is a great place to remind you again to do this the way you need to. Your definition of enjoyment, your parameters of what an evening is. Those are up to you. They are personal. You can do the same thing every night. You can change it every night. You can make a plan and then pivot as you go along. The point here is to feel like yourself in the process of whatever you're doing.

I also think that the evening is the place where we most likely are trying to find ourselves again. Like throughout the day, we're tending to so many things, answering so many voices. And the evenings are when we want to come back to ourselves. But we often feel guilty, especially as women, doing that because there are still things that we could be doing. I mean, can you really like, quote unquote, waste your entire evening painting or reading or going for a long walk or whatever you want to do and not pack lunches for the next day or clean up a room or do whatever responsible thing you think you should do? That's why evening hours in particular hold so much pressure. It's the time we need the most to come back to ourselves, to feel like

ourselves. But then when we try to, we feel bad about it. The cycle is so dumb and I hate it. Instead, what I want us to do, I want you to honor what you need to feel like yourself. Now, I'm not saying shirk all responsibilities. I mean, y'all don't do that anyway. But if you need to do something responsible during your evening, feel like yourself by first being kind to yourself. Staying grounded is more important than staying on task. At least that's what I think.

But use your evenings to enjoy being with yourself. to enjoy feeling like yourself and to enjoy things you love. Now, not all three of those can happen at the same time, but honor your own humanity as you enjoy your evening hours. I enjoy washing dishes a lot more when I remember first that it's a privilege to care for my family, that I have the tools and water to clean the dishes, to know that it never takes as long as I think it will. And then also to listen to a great audio book while I do it.

See what I'm saying? Like you can personalize your evening hours and feel like yourself, even if you have to do responsible things sometimes, but ultimately stay grounded in yourself. What do I need tonight? Ask yourself that. And finally, step five is to systemize or stay in a flow. Now, this might not happen, nor does it have to. For me, the only thing about my evenings that are really in a flow is that we clean the kitchen before any rest usually happens because that helps my brain. and then I always do my skincare. Now, I do it at different times, but I always do it.

The kitchen sometimes gets cleaned right after dinner or two hours later. Sometimes I do it. Sometimes cause does it. Sometimes we pull the kids into help. Like it all varies. But the flow itself lies in those two things being done. Outside of that, it's a bit more of whatever I need on that day. And I've done this enough to have really good practice and permission to enjoy those hours.

I read, I watch TV, I paint. I sometimes go to the gym if I need to get some energy out that I didn't have a chance to do earlier in the day. Now, the guilt, it does eventually give up. I'm proof of that because you shouldn't feel guilty enjoying a nice evening at home or wherever you're going, no matter what it is you're doing. So you might not need much of a system. Now, if you do need more of a system, more of a flow, you can use things like alarms or

calendar settings on your phone to help remind you of what you would like to be doing or not doing at a particular time. You can have a friend that you text at seven every night and you're like sharing what you're going to do that night together, you know, not like with each other, but you're sharing the thing that you're doing. You can put theme nights in your calendar. If you do that whole breakdown, I said almost jokingly earlier of like a chore evening, a fun evening, a rest evening, that kind of thing. Whatever it is that you have decided to try, notice if there's a way to help keep that thing in a flow with some kind of reminder or rhythm.

Honestly, I feel like I could talk about this topic for hours. But I will stop here. Ultimately, I hope that you recognize that this is not just a you problem. This is something that so many people struggle with. How do I use this time, this special evening time? The funny thing that I didn't mention earlier in the episode at all is that you will get probably many, many, many evenings. How you spend this one doesn't have to impact how you spend the next one. It doesn't have to be perfect every single time.

That's just not a thing. So just notice what you need. Name what matters. Honor yourself in the process. And you will slowly learn to enjoy your evenings. All right, before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it is Hannah Hantau. Hannah writes this.

My decide once of being helpful to a friend who is moving is to always offer to take their donation items to the donation place for them. I work near one, so I'm there often, and it's getting one errand off their plate and stuff out of their house, which is already in chaos from the moving process. I love this idea, Hannah. It is such a kindness. It's something that you can easily do, which makes you more willing to help probably. And it truly is such a load off for people who are drowning in boxes and overwhelm.

You can apply to decide once to so many things. And how to help someone in a move is yet again another example. So thank you, Hannah, for sharing this. And congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. Okay, 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.