The Lazy Genius Podcast - #438 - Office Hours: Routines

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

We have an Office Hours episode once a quarter where you send in your questions and I answer them here on the podcast. This is the first time we’ve had a themed Office Hours episode, so that is very exciting. Before we get into a whole episode answering your questions about routines, remember that a Lazy Genius routine isn’t about the steps. It’s about where you’re wanting to go. Helpful Companion Links The PLAN is $1.99 on Kindle right now! (If Amazon isn’t your vibe, you can find it for $1.99 on Kobo right now, too.) Other episodes like this one: #402, #426, #413, #315, #354, and #327 Office Hours with the Office Ladies Sign up for our every-other-week podcast recap email called Latest Lazy Listens. Sign up for my once-a-month newsletter, The Latest Lazy Letter. Grab a copy of my book The Lazy Genius Kitchen or The Lazy Genius Way! (Affiliate links) Download a transcript of this episode. Want to share your Lazy Genius of the Week idea with us? Use this form to tell us about it. 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're listening to the Lazy Genius podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi. This podcast isn't about hacking the system to find more time or hacking your energy to get more done. Hustling to be the best or make the most out of every opportunity is exhausting and unsustainable. So here we do things differently. On this podcast, we value contentment, compassion, and living in our season. We favor small steps over big systems. Here we are lazy. geniuses, being a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. And I'm so glad you're here. Today's episode 438, Office Hours Routines Edition. So we have an Office Hours episode once a quarter where you send in your questions and I answer them here on the podcast.

Well, this is the first time we've had a themed office hours episode. So that is very exciting. We're going to talk all about routines today. So you can get excited too. for a little extra something today. I'm going to share my current routine and system for telling the family members all the things. I am the life manager of the house, but everyone else still needs to know stuff that's happening. Now, since that is kind of a routine, and this is a routine episode, I will share how that works for us in the Adachi home. And as always, we'll celebrate the lazy genius

of the week and we'll end with a mini pep talk for when life just doesn't seem to have any breathing. room. Now before we get into that, here is your quick reminder that my compassionate time management book called The Plan is currently $1.99 in the Kindle store. If you've been curious about how to manage your time like a lazy genius, you can check it out for pretty cheap right now. We will have a link in the show notes or you can just search for it. I think it's supposed to last another day or two, so hopefully you will catch it in time. All right, let's get to Office Hours Routines Edition. Now, briefly, I want to start by sharing how I look at routines. I look at them a little differently than most people. So one of the 13 lazy genius principles that I teach in my first book,

The Lazy Genius Way, is build the right routines. You don't need a routine for everything. Like, you don't. You only need a routine in places that matter the most. So start with that freedom. You don't need a routine for everything. Now, I also think that routines are not as helpful when we see them as do this, then this, then this. If your routines are based on order and maybe even a little complicated, when you forget something or you don't do half of your routine because life is doing what life does, you're going to feel like the whole routine is a waste of time. And it needs to be revamped. Now intellectually, we know that that isn't true, but it sometimes feels true. So before we get into a whole episode answering your questions about routines,

it's really good for you to remember that a lazy genius routine is not about the steps. It's about where you're wanting to go. What are you hoping to feel, experience, or accomplish at the end of your routine? Some routines are task-oriented like grocery shopping or meal planning. So the pieces do matter a little bit more. But other ones, like a morning or evening routine, those have a lot of potential pieces and few of them are probably essential. So instead of focusing on the pieces, think about the experience you want to have when you wake up in the

morning or the feeling that you want to have when you climb into bed at night. Sometimes you can accomplish that without many tasks at all. So hold the linear definition of routines loosely and remember that the purpose of a routine is to get you somewhere, not necessarily to do all the steps in order every single time. Okay, so when we usually do office hours episodes, we save the kid related questions for the end so that those of you without kids can stop. But now that we have our new segments at the end of each episode, we are going to start with our kid and parenting questions today. Then we're going to have an ad break followed by the rest of the questions. So if you'd like to skip ahead, you're welcome to.

But we're going to put all of these parenting related questions together. All right, let's get started. First is three days and a Danish. I don't know what that means, but I kind of love anything that involves a Danish. So three days in a Danish says, ugh, the homework after school routine. They don't have homework every day. They don't have activities every day.

But some days they have one or both. How to establish a rhythm while still letting them come home and chill out a little after school. Kids are grades three and seven. That ugh at the beginning of this question is very real. Okay. Now reading between the lines, it sounds like what matters most here, because that's where we like to start, right? What matters most here is having something predictable every day, some kind of rhythm that can absorb different activities or homework levels or nothing at all, right?

It also feels like part of that predictability needs to center on resting and chilling out after school. So let's drill down a little and make this smaller. Let's say that Danesh wants to create an after school routine that always has something predictable and always has something unproductive and restful. Now, on days without homework or activities, that's going to be easy to come by. But the other days, they could be tricky. So this is just an idea, right? But let's say your kids like reading. Maybe the predictable thing, no matter what, is that the kids get a snack and a book right when school is out.

It could be that the snack and the book happen on the drive to ballet practice. It could be the snack and book happen for 20 minutes before homework starts. or it could be the snack and book can take their time on afternoons when nothing is happening, that having something restful and predictable every day that's portable and doable might help create the experience and the feeling that you're wanting for your kids. Again, that is exactly what lazy genius routines are all about. You're not trying to have ordered tasks the same way every single day no matter what you're doing.

And you don't have to throw out a rhythm just because circumstances shift like an after-school activity. So identify the experience or the feeling and create one small thing that can create that feeling no matter the circumstances. So that's a great question. All right. Next is Ashley Ann Mooring. Bedtime. This is the time of day that is the biggest pain point in our family and often results in arguments, sometimes yelling and lots of frustration for everyone. I have a 12 year old son and he stays up later now. By the time he's going to bed, I am done. I am exhausted. I've set a fairly simple bedtime routine to follow,

written it out, and had him write it in his own way, etc. But I find that if I don't give multiple reminders for every step, it doesn't happen. My son also has ADHD, which presents some additional challenges. He is able to manage his morning routine on his own and even sets his own reminders. How can I help him do this in the evening? I'd love to have a more peaceful bedtime for all of us. Please help. Okay, I definitely hear the frustration and even the desperation here.

it is so hard to end the day on a tough note. I do want to say for anybody who is struggling with bedtime routines or really any routine at all, if you Google lazy genius bedtime routine, Google lazy genius routine, you will find a number of episodes that could specifically be helpful for you. Maybe if you're struggling with bedtime too, but this particular situation is not quite the same as yours. There are episodes out there for you so you can go check those out. Okay, a couple of things that I am noticing here that I want to point out in this question. So the first is that it sounds like you and your family, Ashley, are in a new season of life. You mentioned that your son stays up later now.

The now in that sentence indicates to me that he has not been staying up later for as long and that this is a bit new for you guys. I think that's really important. It reminds everybody to be patient as you figure out a new season together, right? They're figuring it out. The second thing that I want to point out is that you said by the time he's going to bed, you're done and exhausted. I get that. What's funny is chances are he also might be done and exhausted. It's just going to come out differently. He also might be having a harder time with like self-regulation

in the evening compared to the morning. And that is on top of his own level of doneness that looks different than yours. So that's just another place to be patient and compassionate with each other as y'all are figuring this out. Essentially you're in the same boat. You want the same things. it's just coming out differently. Now, for a practical take here, let's start really small as we do in trying to make this routine work. So you said that you have created a simple bedtime routine for him to follow, but he still needs reminders. I'm guessing you're the one giving him those reminders, and that's probably frustrating. So this is probably a bit of a pain to hear.

But a lot of kids, especially at the end of the day, and double especially if they take medication. vacation and it's wearing off at night. On top of being tired and overstimulated from a full day, kids often need reminders. The reminders might not ever stop. I still have to remind my son, who's 15. I have to remind him of things at night for the very same reason. So I wonder if adjusting your expectations rather than trying to fix the routine could be a small place to start. So if you say to yourself, I'm going to need to remind him and I'm going to do it kindly. Like if you remove your expectations that a simple routine for him is not going to require your involvement, if you take that expectation away, you actually might feel more okay when you do have to remind him. So also in your message, you said all of us instead of both of us.

All of us want better here instead of both. So all might indicate that there's another parent in the mix. if that is the case, share the load of the reminders. You know, you can keep it kind. It's not a reminder that your son forgot to brush his teeth again. It's a reminder to your son that he needs to brush his teeth. Because honestly, he doesn't care. Like, kids don't care about dental hygiene.

It's so annoying, but it's the truth. So everybody can work together to be like a prompt, like a human bell, to go, it's time to brush your teeth instead of it's time to brush your teeth what are you doing why do I have to tell you this every single night right those are two very different energies and the last one is just not fun for anybody one other thing is to maybe find a non-human prompt for him you know maybe it's a timer or about something that cues him to do his next thing he might still need some verbal prompting but he might not that takes some of the responsibility off of you um so ultimately rather than trying to change the routine,

I wonder what would happen if you adjusted your expectations. I know that's not as fun, but it also might be a little bit more sustainable and kinder as you begin. Our final kid question is from Elizabeth Huber. Communicating weekly updates to the household. Like next week, the husband is traveling three nights with different carpels.

Maybe there's a random dentist appointment. Things I have tried and used with moderate success, a wall calendar, a shared family calendar on phones, shared phone reminders. Teens don't check the calendar and delete the reminders because it's, quote, annoying. And when I demand that at return, they ignore so many that the alert no longer matters. Okay, so I am going to share what we do as a family and a little extra something later. But my first idea here is just to have a family group text that's just for these kinds of updates. Teenagers are always connecting to their texts. So maybe doing that instead of calendar reminders

might help. It could be that at the start of the week, you send out all the relevant reminders. that the entire family has to know, and you just do that all at once. Then you can text anything that changes or like a time sensitive reminder if you feel like it's important. Now, I know sending a text is kind of boring. It's not organized. That not everything has to use a specific app or have like a categorical solution. You can just text. Now, I know it's also a pain to be the one that probably manages that. But just like with the couple questions before here, if you change your expectations from I hate having to deal with being the one who reminds everyone of everything all the time.

Two, it's time to make sure the family knows what's going on this week. It does lower the temperature just a little bit. All right, before we get into the rest of your questions and before we take an ad break, which makes this episode free for you to listen to, so thank you sponsors. Here is your quick reminder that we send out a podcast recap email every other Friday. It's called latest lazy listens, and it summarizes the episode. It shares the lazy genius of the week, as well as, other segments we have. It has a little extra note for me to help encourage you through the weekend.

So if you would like to get that recap, you can head to the lazy genius collective.com slash listens. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that and enjoy. Via rail, love the way.

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. Let's get to the rest of your routine questions. This is from Carus Havens. cleanouts. I would love to do this routinely, but it always just gets to the point where we run out

of clean glass storage containers. And my husband or I say, we have to deal with this tonight about four or five times and then we do it. It sounds bad, but right now, minimizing food waste is not what matters most. So I've taken just tossing leftovers after dinner if I know we won't eat them in the next day or two. Is there a way to do this on a routine basis so that we don't end up in the situation every week or two. Okay, the first thing I want to say is not everything has to have a routine. You can absolutely respond in the moment when you're like, man, it's time and just do it. Not everything has to have a routine, everybody. It's really, I think we want it to because that sort of taps into that whole press your big red start button, right? You've got everything organized

and then your life just flows. That is not sustainable nor necessary. So there are things in your life that you can just respond to as needed. And that's great. Okay, the other thing I'm hearing here is a little bit of guilt in the phrase, it sounds bad, but when you're talking about throwing away leftovers, I think we have to be kind with ourselves and each other that not everyone is going to care about the same things. So you can let that go. You can absolutely let that gil go. Okay, so the main problem I think I'm hearing is that the fridge clean out, it feels compulsory because you're out of containers or you have like a fridge full of leftovers that no one is eaten and now they're going bad, right? So my suggestion, if just saying like, oh, we don't need a routine here,

that could be the solution. It's to be like, ah, we don't need a routine. We can just do it when we need it. That's fine. But if you feel like you want a little bit more of a rhythm to it, my suggestion is to make the problem as small as you can by limiting leftovers that just sit in the fridge. And there are three ways I think you can do this. So number one, you can start making a little less dinner. Sounds like you're not a leftover couple. So don't worry about running out of food, right? Make less dinner. And if you get hungry, like eat something else afterwards. That is what, that is cereal's actual job. So you can just make less dinner. Number two, you can label the leftovers, not with what they are, but with when you're going to eat it. So for example,

in our fridge right now is a tiny container of leftovers. spaghetti, it will just sit there. But if I label it afternoon snack for Sam, or I just know that's going to be an afternoon snack for Sam, and I'm going to remind him that there's a little bit of leftover spaghetti in the fridge that he can have when he gets home from school, it's going to get eaten. So you could label the leftovers that you do have with like Karras's Tuesday lunch or tiny dinner on Wednesday before we go out with friends. Now, you're not going to write all those words, of course. But you know what I'm saying. So identify where the left leftovers are going when you do have them. And then the third way to kind of limit your leftovers in the

fridge is to do what you're already doing, which is to throw away the food that is not going to get eaten. Now, I know that's not ideal based on what you shared. But if you do the first two ideas more often, I think throwing away food, it will happen less often. And then one final idea is to choose one night of the week. Maybe it's Thursday since it's like later in the week. But it's not into the weekend when you might want to go do something fun and just have like a leftover container night. You know, you don't cook dinner. You just eat whatever's in there. And then you go out for a drink or a favorite ice cream or you do something really enjoyable after to balance out kind of that like leftover dinner energy to do something fun that matters, right? So that's my idea there.

Great question. Next up is Frog Angel with many fours after. Four, four, four, four. I have a good tidying routine and my house has never looked better. Now I want to find a way to add in intentional body movement of some sort for most days. The problem is I don't really enjoy it, but I know I need to do it to keep myself in good health as I age. How do I add something to my routine that I should do that feels more like a chore to me than actual chores do? I get this for sure. Movement is hard. yesterday, y'all, my body was so stressed out. And I told Cause, like, right as we were about to sit down to dinner as a family, I was like, dude, I've got to go run. Like, I think I have to go run. And it was getting dark, you know. And so I just, I left my family at the table and I ran in the woods for like five

minutes with five to ten minutes of walking on either side. And I felt like a new person. It's so dumb. I I hate that movement can be so hard to make happen, and it also is like so good for us and feel so good when we do it. Okay. Now, if you don't know what kind of movement you like to do, but you do already have a tidying routine, I'm going to start by saying combine the two. Maybe when you tidy, you put on the music of your youth, you know, put on a bop and just like dance yourself silly while you tidy.

Or maybe before you leave a tidied room, like if you're tidying your whole house or whatever, before you leave one room, like do a few squats or something, like do it to the beat. I don't know. Start small with something you're already doing and have fun with it. Now, I think with movement, I think we all expect that our movement routine is going to be predictable and regular and the same types of movements or else it just doesn't count, right? But that's not true. You can just move while dancing and cleaning for the next couple of weeks and then never do it again. that it's better than stressing over trying to create a routine for your movement and then not actually move and you could be dancing. You could spend two weeks dancing. How fun is that? Here's another question about movement, so we'll keep talking about it. This is from Coco to Carlo,

a routine for working out at home. What matters? Getting regular movement into my day consistently. What gets in the way, my work schedule is variable from day to day and week to week. And my husband's work travel schedule can vary greatly. Just got a consistent school after school daycare routine established in a new town. Okay, I really do love the framing of this question because the solution for this one is really fun. You're looking for consistency in your movement, but the days themselves are odd and inconsistent, right? That's our problem. Rather than try and find a movement routine that is consistent, I want you to create a movement choice routine that is consistent. In other words, you might not move the same way at the same time from day to day, but maybe every day at the same time you decide what movement you will do that day.

Right. So, for example, maybe the night before when you're looking ahead at the next day, you decide then when and what movement you will do tomorrow, right? It could be yoga in the morning. It could be dancing while you clean. It could be a walk with a friend after dinner. The movement itself is not consistent day to day, but the choosing is, right? That could be. the routine that you create. That also allows you to be kind based on how your body's feeling from day to day rather than locking yourself in to something that happens on a certain day. Okay, this next one is such a relatable question from Gina K1, two, three. I would love to hear your insights on when routines are impacted by living in your season. I'm generally happy with most of the routines in my life. I've done the work to carve out rhythms for the things that matter to me and the

things that must get done. But when life hits and those routines are disrupted, I have a hard time adjusting. Examples, I do laundry during my two work from home days every week. It's a great routine. But if work requires me to be in the office all week, then my family has no clean clothes because the routine is disrupted. Or I was in a good routine for a while with moving my body in the mornings. But if I get hit with an illness, injury, or heavy hormone cycle, then I get out of the routine and have a hard time getting back to it when the disruptive event has passed. That is so relatable, right? Now, in some ways, I think these two examples that Gina gave are different.

One is about pivoting a task to a time that works better, like the laundry. You know, it's something that has to get done. But the other, the movement one, it's about getting back into a personal routine that, honestly, you could drop if you wanted to, and many people do. Like, it's a little more about perceived need versus actual need. Most of us would say we need clean clothes. It's like non-negotiable. Not all of us would say we need to move.

We know we should and we know it helps. But we could get by without it, which is why we often put it off. So those might require different approaches, right? So for those routines that change their timing, like the laundry, I wonder if you might have a like a pocket plan B. for a typically fixed routine that could change. So start small with one, one that does throw you off big time if it does get disrupted, and choose now what you're going to do instead. So if it's the laundry, like you already mentioned, and you know that this week you're going to have to go in all week to work,

go ahead and know what your plan B is going to be. Knowing it's there is so helpful. It could be any number of things. You know, it's like doing one load of laundry a night after work that week. It could be getting another family member to do it or at least get it started. It could be that you do a laundry pickup service just for that week. Or even, this is one that we ended up doing because the cycles, our laundry cycles were too short. We just got everybody more underwear.

And it extended the life of the laundry because most of the kids have enough clothes. But it was the socks and underwear that were kind of causing the problem. So like, we just got more underwear. and it gave it bought us a few more days if we needed them so go ahead and think through what your plan B is going to be so you don't have to stress out about it when that happens now for other routines like movement where you know we fall out of rhythm and then we have a hard time getting back in I think that this often comes down to the productivity culture mindset of consistency we're taught that consistency matters so much so when you fall off track you feel like you're starting over

is an expectation thing. And it's just not true. Like getting out of rhythm is not the same as quitting or like being doomed an inconsistent person or undisciplined person or whatever. Like those expectations are rooted in greatness culture and every single day being built on the next. And if there's a break in the line, then you have failed. That's just not how it has to be. So I would actually cultivate just a different way of thinking. If you take a break from a routine because of sickness or life or whatever, it's because some rest was needed. It's not like a binary on-off switch here. You just like pulled off at a rest stop. And now it's time to keep going at whatever pace you need to. You don't have to floor it right out of the gate, right? The hurdle with these kinds of routines really often comes down to

all or nothing thinking. And fortunately, that is not the only way to live. So if you just adjust, just your thinking, it might be a lot easier than you think. Okay, our next question is from Jiv Jules. I wanted to say that right. I don't know that I did. Jiv Jules writes, evening bedtime routine. I just cannot get consistent with it. I think this is an adult one, by the way, you guys. By that time, my willpower and energy are rock bottom and it's too easy to go on my phone wind down rather than reading, skincare, et cetera. I manage for maybe a night or two, and then it's back to square one. It's a vicious circle of poor sleep, low energy, poor routine, etc. Okay. First, I want us to let go of that poor routine bit. I know that what you're doing

is not ideal for you, but I do want all of you listening to be kind to yourselves as you're figuring out what works, right? Plus, as you've already heard, even great routines, they don't happen consistently. It is okay to stumble through this without making yourself feel bad about it. Okay, so this is one of my favorite approaches to a nighttime routine. It is simply to shift when it happens. I think we look at bedtime routines as adults as like the calming things that you do before you get into bed. And then when you do get into bed, there's lotion and a book and contemplative journaling and no screens because that messes with your sleep. And then you go straight to sleep with like a slight smile on your face like you're in a mattress commercial. Bedtime routines do not have to

look like that. The timing can be like a little subversive. Like so what if what if you're trying to get ready for bed, you know, your face stuff and the tending to your dirty clothes and whatever. whatever else you're doing. Like, what if you did that right when you got home from work or right after dinner? That way when you move to actual sleep, you can just go to sleep. You don't have to worry about it. But ultimately, the nighttime routine that we typically see, it doesn't have to be the norm. It does not have to be multi-step. It doesn't have to be the same thing every night. Maybe there's like one thing that you lock in on. Like, maybe it's setting a screen restriction on your phone after a certain time of day or an amount of time on an app and then anything after that one choice that you make is

extra it's just icing right just be kind guys start small here not every routine has to matter the same it doesn't have to matter the same you can just wash your face and get into bed and it's okay all right our next question is from denise rhoda my grocery shopping routine is all out of whack i was typically going every Sunday. Unfortunately, some of the quick pre-packaged salads I get for lunch are going bad before going shopping again. So I'll eat them for dinner. But then I have to figure out dinner for my husband and son. I have since tried to add a grocery pickup midweek, but it's not consistent. My husband also occasionally shops midweek, and it ends up feeling like we have a hodgepodge of different foods and probably are spending more on groceries than we need to. Help. Okay, Denise, I'm

wondering about the salad situation. This might not be what's going to. on here. But sometimes when one part of a routine does not seem to be working, like the bagged salad's going bad, we can easily feel like the whole thing isn't working. So what if you were to just focus on the salad problem? What if you only did salad lunches the first two days of the week and then something else that can last longer for the end for the rest of the week? It sounds like the salad is upending some of the other things and making it feel harder. I don't know. if that's true, but focusing on the smallest problem you can find often makes the other problems in your routine feel a lot easier. Okay, one final question that is also about meal planning and

grocery shopping. This is from Angela Ray 325. The routine of meal planning, grocery shopping is the bane, bane is all caps, of my existence. Every time I think I have a routine going, it somehow mysteriously, mysteriously vanishes for my brain like it never existed in the first place. It feels like there are too many steps and I can't seem to get a handle on it. And yet people demand to be fed every single day, multiple times a day. Angela, I know. It's like the worst. Honestly, though, that's why I wrote The Lazy Genius Kitchen. Like cooking and feeding and shopping and planning and all the things are just so complicated. And no one teaches you how to do it. You guys, no one does. So I wrote that book to help put those things in a more helpful order and a kind of perspective. So grab it.

If you don't already have it, it is an adorable book. It has like illustrations, lots of guides in the back. Like the appendix is gold. It is a reference you will lean on again and again. And it's usually less than $15 like the hardback. So go go look for it somewhere. But for right now, I encourage you to do what I've said for every single question, which is to make the problem smaller. I want you to identify the most frustrating, annoying, or important aspect of getting a meal on the table. every single day and see how you can kindly solve that. The reason your routine vanishes from your brain is because you're starting too big with too many steps. You've got to start small. It takes longer, but also lasts longer. And that's the end of our office hours routine edition.

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Okay, for today's a little extra something. I'm going to share our family's routine for getting the information out to all the people. I guess it's a little bit more of a system than a routine because we don't necessarily do like the same things every single day. So I lean on the lazy genus principle put everything in its place here. And this is how it all works for us. The thing that everyone wants to know the most is what's for dinner. Oh my gosh. What's for dinner?

Mom was for dinner. What's for dinner? They ask it multiple times a day, even though they already know the answer. It's like it just leaves their brain. So we have a dry erase calendar, like a monthly calendar. There's two of them actually on the wall in the kitchen. And that is where I write out our meal plan every week. I do like to weekly meal plan because it works better for our life.

But that is not required for any person. It's okay to choose day to day. It's okay to do it a month at a time. It's okay to repeat. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you do. But what I do is on Sundays, the next week's meals go on that meal planning board. I don't usually write them down anywhere else.

That's just the place that they go, right? And then if a kid asks what's for dinner, I'm like, look at the board. Look at the board. Look at the board. The other thing that the people in my home sometimes want to know is if there is something going on today that is different from the norm, right? That is where our essential calendar comes in. So we have this seasonal wall calendar.

We have used it for several years now from the company Essential Calendar, which I love this company so much. It's a three-month calendar. It's so great. I love setting it up, like filling it all out before the next season. hits because I do plan seasonally. That's where the playbooks come from. Is we're planning seasonally. We're looking at our life, our life three months at a time and the season that we're in and the calendars line up with that really well. So I love setting it up

for the next three months. And then I just add things as needed once it's time, right? It is where we put things like home football games that we're going to go to because not every Friday night is a football line. It's where we put the nights that I'm not home for bedtime. Those are for Annie, who is obsessed with me and always wants to know when I'm not going to be home. Trips and concerts. All the unusual things. We do not put repeated things like lessons and practices because those are normal. Like those are just part of life.

Everybody knows those. We only put the extra stuff on our essential calendar. That's how we make it work. I think that helps keep the stimulation lower because if we put everything that we do, we wouldn't be able to see it. Right? so it's just the extras. But if someone wants to know what's going on that day, that's extra, they can look at the calendar.

It's on there. It's by or back door. Most of the kids look at it like before they leave for the day just to kind of see. And we X off each day in the morning, right? Annie or Ben will do that before they leave for school as they'll X off the previous day. Now, as far as things like who's picking a kid up from school or a reminder that like a kid needs to eat all their lunch today because practice is going to be late and they're going to be hungry or whatever.

those things happen from my mouth to the person's ears before they leave for the day. Occasionally I will text my boys info too, but I'll just tell them stuff. I'm like reminders, I'm the reminder. I don't mind. I don't mind that. It's a way to connect with them too before they leave for the day. And then the final piece to our system of like all the people knowing all the things is that if a week has too many moving parts that do not naturally align with the parts that are already moving, then Kaz and I will have a conversation about the week.

I will initiate that. And I'll be like, hey, can we talk about the week? And then we'll see where we need to like swap tasks, things that I normally do that I need him to take, if we need to let something go, making adjustments, whatever. So that's on an as needed basis, basically. So I fill out the, here's the order. I fill out the essential calendar once a quarter when it's time for a new page in a calendar and I put things on it as they come.

I fill out the meal planning board every Sunday. I plan the details of the week every Sunday as well, and I will tell the people the things they need to know usually on the day of the thing or with gentle reminders earlier on if gentle reminders earlier on are needed. And when that's too much for me to manage on my own, then I call on my husband to share the load. So we share the general load evenly in other ways. So it's not like I carry everything, but I do typically carry the management of our family

calendar and the logistics. I like it. I'm good at it. And I'm home more to do it. It just makes sense and it's fine. But sometimes I need support and I never hesitate to ask for it. And that's a little extra something on how we manage our family details. All right, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week it's Bailey. Bailey writes, the last few years my family and I have gone on a spring break vacation someplace warm to make the packing of going on this vacation a little bit easier every fall is I'm putting away my summer clothes for the year. I make a separate pile of clothes.

I know I will want to bring on vacation the following spring. This makes packing for vacation so much easier, and I don't have to go digging through all of my summer clothing tubs to find items I will need. It's a favor to my future self, and I'm excited to see what I set aside for our vacation. What a great idea this is. This is definitely using the magic question. So I would never have thought of doing this. I think probably because we rarely travel over spring break,

but also we don't pack up seasonal clothes. Everything's just there all the time. But for those of you who do either one of those things, what a smart way to ask the magic question? What can I do now to make something easier later? Because it is going to make traveling easier later because you don't have to dig through everything. So it's a great idea, Bailey.

Congratulations on being the lazy genus of the week. All right. Now let's close with a mini pet talk for when life doesn't seem to have any breathing room. So September was quite surprising to me. I'm not sure why. Like maybe I don't mentally categorize September as busy. Like I do May.

You know, everybody knows May is busy. But it really did sometimes feel like I was being dragged behind a moving car. Like, just hang on, hope we get where we're supposed to go. And logistically, we did. Details mostly did not get dropped. Plans mostly worked out. Everyone was mostly rested and fine with some like vigilant protections of our limited white space so that we could rest. Which that's just a high family value.

on paper and honestly even in practice everything was like mostly fine it was busy but it was fine but inside myself I often felt like I was still being pulled behind that moving car I just could not seem to catch my breath my sleep started to suffer because I had more cortisol in my body than usual my creativity suffered because my brain just couldn't keep up I'm still feeling that a little bit I mean like for real my work tasks have taken easily twice as long as usual over the last few weeks. And when those things happen, it's just hard to not feel like you're completely behind. And when you're behind, what do you do? You speed up. You try and fit more in. You push a little further so you can catch up to the rest of the pack, to the mile marker where you thought

you would be. And that hustle makes you slow down and sleep worse and creatively suffer even more. So a faster pace is not the answer. That is your reminder today. When you cannot catch your breath, going faster is not going to restore that breath. If you're literally running on a treadmill or a trail and you can't catch your breath, you don't speed up your pace. You slow it down. You might even walk.

You have to slow down to catch your breath. Now this is counterintuitive when you're trying to get more done. At least that's what we infer from productivity experts telling us to like stay consistent and discipline and keep up and all the things. But I'm just here to tell you you don't have to do that. You can't actually do that, not without negatively impacting the health of your body and soul. So I know that you have a lot to do. And I know that you might feel like you're being pulled behind that moving car. That the answer is not to hold on tighter. It might be honestly to let go. Like fall to the ground, catch your breath.

and then just let the pace keep going slowly. Like, restore your strength slowly. Having the permission to not have to finish right now might be all you need. And then just begin again where you are tomorrow. That's all. So that's a mini pep talk for when you can't seem to catch your breath. If this episode was helpful to you

or if you've been looking for a way to support the show, it would mean the world if you would share this episode with a friend or you can leave a kind review on Apple Podcasts. Both of those things seem small and in some ways they are, but we know here that small things make a big difference. So thank you so much for sharing the show with your people. This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office Ladies Network. This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, and executive produced by Kendra Adachi,

Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production and special thanks this week to Akira Smith. for the gathering of our office hours questions. If you'd like a podcast recap every other week, be sure to sign up for the latest lazy listens email that goes out every other Friday. You can head to the lazy geniuscollective.com slash listens to get it. Thanks y'all 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, and I'll see you next week. 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.