The Lazy Genius Podcast - #349 10 Small Changes I’m Glad I Made

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

It’s the smackdab middle of January, and we all know about the January Feelings. Since many of those feelings tend to be big and expansive and beyond, I want to bring us in today. I want us to think about small things, small changes, small steps that can have a big impact.   Helpful Companion Links The hairbrush reel from Instagram #210: How to Lazy Genius Kids’ Screen Time #217: Let’s Talk about Your Body, Part One #218: Let’s Talk about Your Body, Part Two #301: How to Kindly Navigate a Changing Body #143: Your Body is Not Flawed 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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Hi 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 349. 10 small changes I'm glad I made. It's the smack dab middle of January, and we all know about the January feelings. Kate Bowler has been talking about January feelings on her Instagram lately, and we all know what those are, right? It's the potential energy. It's the goals. and the big changes and the fresh starts. We're in the middle of a season where we're trying to figure out which of those things and in what context they matter to us, all while just trying to get back into the swing of life after the winter holidays.

P.S. Why is it that when the calendar changes years, you can suddenly like visualize October and you're like, wait, what is happening? Somehow when I'm in December, the following October is light years away. But once I hit January, it's not that October's almost here. year, but it's a lot closer than it was. Like, it's so bizarre. Anybody else feel that way?

Anyway, all right. We're carrying lots of weird energy in January, having a lot of those January feelings. And since many of those feelings tend to be big and expansive and beyond where we are, I want to bring us into today. I want us to think about small things, small changes, small steps that can have a big impact. If you're new around here, there are 13 lazy genius principles. that I describe in my first book called The Lazy Genius Way, and one of the most impactful, albeit the most annoying, is to start small. We are slowly learning the value of not only starting small in our systems and our thinking, but also in how we make small changes. Like small changes don't have to have big impact to count, but we often don't notice how big of an impact

a small change can have on our lives until we're actively looking for it. And I've been actively looking for it. I've been noticing the small changes in my life recently, and I wanted to take the time to share those with you. This episode is 10 small changes. I'm glad I made. So you can see a variety of examples of the value of small changes. And at the end of the episode, I'm actually going to share a list of some of your small changes that you made that you shared with me on Instagram. Basically, I just want to give more airtime to small changes. And for clarity's sake, before we get into the list, I'm not talking about small progress. I'm not talking about taking small steps continuously in one direction to get to a big change.

I'm talking about literally one small change that was made and now it's done. And the consequences of that small change are ongoing. But these are just really singular changes that are small, but they're complete, right? They're complete. Like I feel like those ongoing small changes, that's another topic entire. So we are talking about small, complete, done changes that make a big impact. All right. Let's get into my list of 10. The first small change I'm glad I made is one you already know about if you follow me on Instagram. And it is the loose inspiration for this episode. Actually, it is having multiple hairbrushes in the house and particularly changing the color of the hairbrush that's always in my living room. Let me explain. My daughter, Annie, is in second grade. And she has very long, very tangly hair. Every night, we sit on the couch. It used to be her bed, but now she's pivoted to the couch. And I braid her hair while she watches, you know, guys yell about slime on YouTube. For a while,

I would, I would go to her room to try to find the brush and the comb. Both are required, as well as a hair tie. Often I would forget to do this before I sat down, which was kind of annoying. Also annoying was having to return the brush and comb to her room at some point before the next morning, you know? Otherwise, I would just have a hot pink hairbrush on my couch forever and then she would be looking for it in the morning. Mom's where's my hairbrush? Okay. So I got an empty planter, like a plant planter that did not have a plant in it in my house. I put it on the table next to the couch. It's real pretty. And I inside it, instead of a plant, I put a living room hairbrush, a living room comb and some living room hair ties. amazing. It's all in its place exactly where I need it. But the little bit of hot pink from that

hot pink hair brush, stick out of that planter and it got on my nerves. My living room is like, warm woods, light blues, rich blacks, you know, like hot pink is not part of the color story in there. So who cares though, right? What can you do? It doesn't matter. Well, a few weeks ago, I went to Target to get two more hair brushes since Annie and I both have hair that needs brushing and we both do it in two different rooms, especially because we're still in this bathroom remodel. And so we were down to just a living room hairbrush and then another floater that would go between all the bedrooms and bathrooms. No, thank you. That was not working for us. So I was like, you know what, we just need to get more hairbrushes. Now, since the two hairbrushes we do have are both

hot pink, I was prepared to just buy two more that were hot pink. Like, why would I do anything else? It's just what we, I didn't even think that hairbrushes would come in other colors. because we use the wet hairbrush, they're hot pink. Well, when I got to the store, they didn't have hot pink. They only had one white and one black. Well, I love a neutral, so I was like, well, all right, we'll go. We'll go with it. Even though I was weirdly disappointed, they did not have hot pink.

Because I thought they should all be the same. I don't know. Then when I got home, I realized that I could put the black hairbrush in the planter. The pink one could go to a bedroom or a bathroom where it was not a decoration, mattered, not an ounce. but the black one could stay in the living room and practically be invisible. Now, when I say that this small change has brought me the most tremendous joy, I cannot express the expansiveness of that statement. It makes me genuinely happy and genuinely grateful every time

I reach for that black hair brush. It's always in the planter, since it's the living room brush, and it does not get on my visual nerves. That brush was the best $9 I've ever spent. So you get the idea. These are the small changes we're talking about, super actionable in whatever way your life needs them. And hopefully the rest of this list will spark something that will help make a big difference in your life too. Because sometimes we're just like, well, yeah, we're just stuck with a hot pink hairbrush. Maybe you don't have to be metaphorically. 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. The second small change that I'm glad I made is similar, and it is that there are scissors everywhere. I mean, not like dangerously, but you know what I mean. They're all over the place in our house. we like many people seem to always be cutting stuff up, you know, cutting tags off things,

cutting stubborn snack bags open, cutting paper for crafts. Scissors are used often and in every room. Now for years, we had one pair of good scissors. Can you even imagine? That is no way to live. I was forever annoyed at my family for taking the scissors and leaving them in random rooms instead of putting them back in the little tub of pins in the kitchen. Well, now we have three pairs of scissors in the same room even. I have also have pens everywhere. There are three buckets of pens. Like when I say buckets, I mean, you know, just like little, not jars, but you know, like little little buckets, like little pin buckets, little pen vessels. And we have three of them in the same big space. There's one in the kitchen by the counter. There is one 15

feet away from that where the mail is. And there's a third 15 feet from that by the kitchen table in the living room kind of close to the craft capnicked. Now, I don't want to go far for a pen. I don't know. I just don't want to have to. I came to find, too, how lovely it was to not have to go far for a pair of scissors. So now there is a pair of scissors in every pen jar as well as a pair of scissors in my bedroom. Now, when I was making this list of my 10 small changes that I'm glad I made, and I was like, oh, scissors, three pair of scissors in the room. I realize that we still run into a scissors problem sometimes because there are not any of the boy any scissors on the boy side of the house. So like they'll take one of the three living room scissors, but they won't return it.

And then I'm like, where's my, where's my mail bag, my mail area, pair of scissors, you know? So you know what I did when I was making this list like a couple days ago? I ordered some more scissors. I ordered another three pack of scissors, like another eight bucks. All is good and true in the world. Like I'm so excited to be able to put these. I think they're being delivered today. I'm going to put these scissors.

in new places, and I can't wait. All right, the third small change I'm glad I made, which is also similar to the first two and the final of this general category, is that we have umbrellas everywhere. Like more umbrellas than I even know. I don't know how many we have. I got tired of needing the one umbrella that we had.

Again, one? And it was in the car, like where I had to run through the rain, which didn't make any sense, or it was in a car that wasn't even at our house. Plus, we have a family of five people. And if you've ever been a person, and especially if you've been a kid, you know how preferred and fun it is to have your own umbrella. I think we probably, I don't know, probably 10 in various

places. Like some are super cheap, some are not, some are tiny, some are huge. All are brightly colored, because that's a decide once I have. They're all really bright. But I never have to wonder where an umbrella is. There is always one where I need it, even when they move around. Rain is no longer stressful. So that's the third change. So many umbrellas. The fourth small change I'm glad I made is that I got good socks. For a long while, I only had like a few pairs of non-athletic socks. And they were fine. Like I'd get the cheapest but cutest packet target and I would call it good, right? But then they'd be like too thin or they'd slat off my heel, any number of annoyances. But socks are socks. So who cares, right? Clearly, you know that answer cannot stand. Sox are not socks, people. So last year, I've bought two packs of bombas wool socks. This is not an ad. I love bombas I've been wearing in them for years. But I had never got, I'd always gotten their athletic socks. I'd never gotten their wool socks. They are all I wear now. I have plenty. So I never worry about running out before the laundry is done. They are excellent quality and they stay put. They are so warm,

but they're not bulky. I just love them. And I did not realize how much good socks would make my days better, but they do. I got good socks, you guys. Okay, the fifth small change I'm glad I made is our our cup zone or our drink spinner is what we call it in the kitchen counter. So this has been a situation in our kitchen for years now. Here's the problem. Everyone in your house, even if you're the only one who lives there, everyone in your house drinks throughout the day, right? You might have your water bottle. You also might have a mug for your tea, but you get maybe more than one mug of tea during the day, then you don't want to get a dirty mug. So you have a mug. You might have like, you know, a juice glass, like whatever it is. There are just drinking vessels all over the living area, probably of where

you live, probably one or more for each person in your house. Now, for us, when I would go to tidy that living area, I never knew what to do with all the cups and the water bottles. I mean, we still need them the rest of the day, so they're not dirty, but I'm not just going to leave them lying around like some kind of animal. I'm joking. You can totally leave them out. But I personally did not want to, right? The visual clutter of that got on my nerves. And also, you know, water bottles are usually brightly colored in our house at least. And it was like the pink hairbrush thing. Like I just didn't want a bunch of like colors later on my living room. Also, no one ever knew where their drink was ever. I got so tired of hearing, mom, where's our water bottle? So I just used the lazy genus principle.

put everything in its place. And I made a cup zone. On our kitchen island, there is now a lazy Susan, or as Ricky Ricardo would say, lousy Susan. It is wooden. It is quite lovely, but it's the cup zone. It is where all the water bottles and the cups and the mugs and the things that are not done for the day, that's where they live. Right. Now, while it is still visible, it is contained. It has a place. Again, we call it the drink spinner. When the kids get home from school and they unpacked, their backpacks. It used to be that I would have to say like put your water bottles on the drink spinner. I don't have to say that anymore. Like they automatically do it. Now it's been so long. They just put their water bottles on the drink spinner. When they clear the table after dinner,

dirty dishes go in the dirty dishes zone, which is just a particular piece of countertop where we put dirty dishes. And then the cups and water bottles go on the drink spinner. They already know where they go. And that small change has been enormously, enormously helpful over the years. The sixth small change I'm glad I made is that I order an avocado in every grocery order. This is a weird one, but it's also awesome. So I love avocados, but as we all know, their lives are full of drama. You know, they run hot and cold. We just don't know what we're going to get and when we're going to get it.

Now, by ordering one avocado in every grocery order, which happens every three or four days, I'm almost always guaranteed, like at least a little bit of avocado that's ready to eat. You know, I do toast. I put it on rice bowls. I'll put a spoonful in a smoothie. And if we have several that are, you know, happen to be ripe at once, I'll make guacamole. This has been such a strange little small change, but one I very much love. I just always order an avocado. I don't even think about it. And that means I always have avocado. But like, avocado that's ready to eat. It's just great. The seventh small change that I'm glad I made is that I allow. my oldest kid to play chess and make music on his computer whenever he wants. So screen time with kids

is such a bear, right? If you want an episode about how to handle it like a lazy genius, we will link to that episode in the show notes. We have a kid's screen time episode. But ultimately, it's the deciding all the time, whether or not a kid can do the screen thing. Now, frankly, I don't mind screen time. For our family, we love screen time. We have it every day. But not all screen time is created equal, right? Like watching the yelling slime guys is different from watching Moana, is different from playing online chess, is different from making digital art. They all require the same screen, but they also require a different use of the brain. So a small change that we made for our oldest, who's in eighth grade, and becoming less and less interested in his family, as all middle school boys do,

is that he wants to play chess or make music. Those are his two favorite hobbies, and he wants to do them all time and he can. Like he doesn't have to ask. For a while, we made him ask, and now we don't even do that. We have start and end points for the internet on his computer and on all the devices, so like nobody can, you know, start earlier than this or end later than this, or keep going later than this. But the window for that's pretty wide. So if he wants to do either of those things, play chess or make music on his computer, he can. And that small change has been incredible for my parenting sanity. Incredible. The eighth small change, I'm glad that I made, is that I decided once when I move my body. Now, this is a new one, but shockingly helpful in a short time. I've said a good

number of words about exercise and, you know, body shape and how we feel about our bodies and all the things over the years. Leo, we'll kindly put some links to those episodes in the show notes for you, but ultimately, I feel good when I move. It took me a while to believe that and to not hold on to diet culture when I did that I was moving to change the shape of my body. But now really, that's not why I move at all, like at all. I love movement. It's good for my brain. It's good for my energy. It makes me calmer. It gives the caffeinated squirrel somewhere to go, you know. And so I love movement and I prioritize it whenever possible. That is a term that Kate Bowler brought to my attention recently whenever possible. It's such a kind way to couch our priorities.

while leaving room for our humanity, right? So anyway, I try to move whenever possible. But I figured out that the reason why this has been a challenge for so many years. Like I remember talking to my therapist about this like two summers ago. It was a long time problem about when to move. So I have three kids. I have a job that's flexible, but it's still a job. And it has just been weirdly tough for me to find a regular time to move because my days are pretty different from one to the next, right? Now, recently I was trying to plan a particularly busy week and I just felt like I could not get anything done. Like the entire plan felt complicated. There were no flags. There was just nothing to anchor to, but there was still so much to do. I got super frustrated that I could not figure this out.

And then I realized that the single thing that was making the planning tough was when I was, I would move. I was trying to tetris my movement into different spots on different days, and it just made everything complicated. It made work complicated. It made making dinner complicated. It made when I was going to get the kids complicated. Everything just felt complicated. So I decided to decide once. For a short season, I would try getting up at 530 whenever possible and moving before anyone got up. I'm not usually a proponent for, actually, I'm still not a proponent of everyone to get up early, like, please stay asleep for the love. But for me, it's like, you know what? I think this might work for this season. Andy does not get out of bed until 6.30 as required by Adachi family law.

So I know that I'm safe until then. So I've been getting up at 5.30 whenever possible. I go to the gym down the street. I walk super fast on the treadmill for like 20 or 30 minutes and then I go home. That's it. That's all they do. The other rhythms of my life, they already exist pretty much from 6.30 until I go to bed at night. And that was the problem. I was trying to insert a new rhythm into old ones that already had a flow and I just could not make it work without impacting those other rhythms and I did not want to impact those other rhythms. So by making the small change of deciding once when I will move, which is at 530, which in many ways is unfortunate, but also then it's done. And I start my day feeling a lot better. It's been good.

It's really been helpful. Now, will it always be that way? No, and frankly, I hope not. But it works for this season. And I'll keep doing it until it doesn't work that way anymore. The ninth small change I'm glad I made is that I put my dinner queue on my meal planning dry erase calendar that's visible in the kitchen. Okay, just a reminder, a dinner queue is just like a list of all the things that you could have for dinner in this season. I love to make a seasonal dinner queue, but frankly, our dinner queue has been the same for years and years and years. I have not added much to it at all, just a handful of things. But it's visible on my meal planning calendar. You have likely seen the dry erase calendars in my kitchen where I do my monthly meal planning. There's two months worth of them. And it's just nice

to see what we've had for dinner and what we will. I've used them for years and years. But in recent months, I added a permanent dinner queue to those calendars, you know, on the side where it's like place for notes. I wrote down all our brainless crowd pleasers. You know, those are the meals that are brainless for the cook to make. And then generally pleasing for whatever crowd is eating it, we usually go for three out of five family members who are fans of the thing. Three out of five is a great success rate, as well as putting some, you know, favorites that we have on occasion that are not necessarily brainless, but they're still favorites and we make them. It is made meal planning so easy because the meal ideas are just right there in front of me. I don't know why it took me

so long to think about putting them right there when a monthly meal plan. But that's what I'm talking about here with these small changes. It's not a big deal that they weren't there. But man, what a big deal it is now that they are. And then the 10th small change I'm glad I made is that I quit books I don't like or I adjust how I'm reading a book that I almost like. I mentioned this briefly in the last newsletter that went out last week. But a good example of this is when I read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark. I loved Susanna Clark's weird little book, Pyrronesy. So I figured I would like her other novel.

Now, it's maybe 10 times the size of Parenessy. It's also a completely different tone and writing style. But who cares, right? I mean, it's the same author. It's going to be great. I was wrong. I started reading it two years ago. I just could not get into it.

I could barely even hold it. The book was so big because I bought the actual book. So in that time, two years ago, I decided that a huge book like that was not for the season I was in and I quit the book for that time, right? Well, this past December, I figured the holiday month was a good time to try again. So I got the book off the shelf. Nope, still couldn't do it. So then I pivoted to the audio. Maybe I would find it easier to fit into my life in a different format. And while I did listen to pretty much the entire thing, I still did not love the book. I listened to about 80% of it. and it was long, so 80% still had like seven hours to go.

And I decided I had given it my best go and I could find a different path. So I looked up the synopsis. I read what happened at the end and then I listened to the final like half hour or whatever. Now, while that's technically not a story about quitting a book, which I do often do whenever I need to, it is a good example of like the small change that I can do what I need to do when I read. You know, I can quit, I can pause, I can try another form. format. I can read spoilers if I don't want to finish. I can read however I need to. Just like with all these things, there are low significance in the scheme of grand life, right?

We're not solving the world's problems here. But I do think the more we pay attention to small changes we can make and we experience the big differences that they cause, we're going to have a life with more space and less stress to do the things that matter. I will always, always be a proponent for small problem solving without apology or disclaimer. All right. Now, to wrap up my list of 10 small changes, instead of celebrating the lazy genius of the week with one person like we normally do, we're going to make it a whole slew of you. In the spirit of the collective part of the lazy genius collective, I'm going to read out a bunch of small changes that y'all are glad you made that you shared with me on Instagram. And I love that I can rapid fire these because the changes are so small.

It's kind of perfect. All right, here we go. and Harris, moved my books to the living room so I can read in the daytime when I'm not sleepy. Gina Melton. I wrote top and side with a Sharpie on my king-sized fitted sheets. Stephanie Hall. Scissors in the closet to cut off all the annoying tags. Stacey C. Kid socks kept downstairs by their shoes, not in their bedrooms. Amanda Neely, all baby spoons live on the kitchen table ready to replace the spoons thrown on the floor. Marie Noelle, using a small heating pad on my home office chair since that room is always cold. Martha Kent, I put a full-sized trash can in our bathroom instead of the tiny bathroom trash can. Julie Prius, every time I go to Costco, I pick up a

ready-made dinner. Laura Montagnas, I buy neutral tissue box covers so I don't have to look at the colorful designs, a woman after my own heart. Emily D. Done again. I bought a second and third water bottle, one for work, one for home, and one for hot water. Rebecca M. I take public transit, and I bought a badge holder for the pass. It's easier to grab with gloves on. Morgan Schlen, opening a new tube of toothpaste before the old tube requires tools to eke any of the leftovers out. Ivy, no last name, I switched our coffee maker with our toaster. Coffee is closer to the sink now and cleanup is easier. Laura Kohler. I can't my kids ADHD meds in the car and have an alarm to give them to them on the way to school.

Rebecca Jones, adjusting where I store cereal to a shelf my kids can reach themselves. And Kelsey Damren, moving our recycling bin to the garage. Our boxes actually make it to the bin now. I mean, you guys, and those were just the idea shared at the first 30 minutes of me posting, like, hey, guys, what are your small changes? Small changes, they make a huge difference. and the more you accept that and notice when you can let them hold the value that they do, you know, you're like, this actually matters. The collection of those small changes over time,

it really does create a beautiful life that still goes upside down and wonky. It still has tragedy and hormones and all kinds of things that cause chaos. But your regular daily rhythmic things, they feel smoother because of all these small changes. So you can maybe, make one today. Like move an appliance. Buy an extra set of scissors. Move your favorite candle from your living room to your bathroom and light it when you take a shower like Leah on my team does. That was her small change that she shared with me. These small changes make a huge difference. And I hope this episode encourages you to see the value in yours. A quick reminder that there will be no new episode next to Monday. We're taking a week off to deal with some logistical behind the scenes things.

but we'll have a new, very exciting episode on January 29th. Maybe you can even, like, go ahead and pick an old episode now that you'll download to listen to next Monday during your regular listening time, because I know a lot of you do that. You listen to the show, like during a regular rhythm of your day. And since a lot of what we make is seasonal, maybe you can check episodes from the last couple of January's and see if anything seems like a helpful idea for your next week. But thank you for listening to today. And until next time, be a genius about the things.

that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra, and I'll see you in two weeks. 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.