The Lazy Genius Podcast - #439 - Chores I Do Every Day, Part 2

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Chores I Do Every Day, Part 1 is one of our most popular episodes we’ve ever done, but it was three and a half years ago. A lot has changed in our home and family in that amount of time, so I’m excited to share an updated version Helpful Companion Links Order my book The PLAN or ask your library to consider carrying a copy. Episode #254: Chores I Do Every Day Episode #91: The Lazy Genius Organizes Paper PlanetBox Rover Lunchboxes 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 to 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 is episode 439, Chores I Do Every Day, Part 2. Chores I Do Every Day Part 1 is one of our most popular episodes that we have ever done that it was three and a half years ago. A lot has changed in our home and family in that amount of time. So I am so excited to share an updated version. For a little extra something, I'm going to share a recipe that has been what at least successful in my family of picky eaters. We'll celebrate the lazy genius of the week, who has a great idea for a chore matrix.

And then we'll finish up with a mini pep talk on when your body doesn't keep up with your life. Before we get into all of that, here is your friendly reminder to sign up for our mailing list. So we do not send many emails, and the ones that we do send are meant to be wildly hopeful. Our main mailing list gets the monthly latest lazy letter, which is a newsletter that I write with personal essays and ideas for me in my actual life,

including the rest of you I'm going to share with you today. That was in the last latest lazy letter. And then we also send out an email about once a month that is some kind of helpful guide for that month for that season. For example, this month you guys are going to get an email about how to make the rest of 2025 easier. And then in November, we're going to send a guide to help you give gifts and a very lazy genius way. It's not a gift guide. It's really a gift giving guide. This is our favorite way to

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get all the best lazy genius things in your inbox just a couple times a month. All right, let's get into the chores I do every day, part two. Now, to do a good job, part two, I need to refresh you on part one. So chores I do every day, it came out three and a half years ago, like I said, and my children were in kindergarten, fourth grade, and sixth grade. So that's two elementary kids, one of whom was super tiny, plus a new middle schooler. Now, three and a half years later, I have an old elementary kid in fourth grade. I'm an old middle schooler in eighth grade. And I have a high schooler who is a breath away from getting his driver's license. Man, like that has a lot of change. Now, as you can imagine, when seasons of life change, so do chores, so do routines, so do homes and the way that we interact with them. It is deeply important to remember that the way you manage your home will not remain static for your entire life. be nimble and kind as seasons of life necessitate an adjusted approach to chores and homekeeping. So in that first episode, I shared that the three things that matter most to me about my home

are that it is cozy, that it is calm, and that it is ready for the next thing. Cozy, calm, and ready for the next thing. Now, those three priorities, they actually still ring true. The way that I approach them now looks like a touch different that the priorities themselves still hold. I actually wasn't sure they would. I was like, what were my, what mattered to me about my home when I wrote this episode three and a half years ago? Well, it's the same. Now, it would be fine either way.

It would be fine if it changed or didn't change. But I do still want a chore rhythm that supports coziness, calm, and being ready for the next thing. Now, in that first episode, I explain how I use. zones and I still use zones. I would say that our zones and our house are even more solidified now than they were done. I don't, y'all, I don't know how I would live and keep my house in a flow without zones. In fact, zones are such an integral part of our home that this episode could be called zones I use every day rather than chores I do every day. Zones are the backbone of how I tend to chores. And many of them are just like filling and emptying zones. Like most of my chores

are just filling and emptying zones. So since zones are so important and then you're like, what are we talking about here? Let's pause and talk about them for a minute. So you know what I mean. So I define household zones as a holding pin for something that is in the middle of its process until you have the time to tend to it. It's just where continuing. continuing tasks live. Now, the reason this is so helpful is because most of us don't get to tend to a chore from beginning to end at the same time. We don't dirty a dish and then immediately wash it and put it away. We don't sort and wash and dry and fold and put away a little laundry on the same day all the time. We don't really do it that way, right? We don't tend to every piece of paper

that comes through the door right when we get it. Now, there are a lot of reasons for this, lack of time or energy, schedules, personal preference, tiny kids who keep doing things around you. Zones just keep chores in process without you having to finish them all the way right now. They create a place for chores mid-process to land. And as we all know, lazy geniuses put everything in its place. But zones, they're just not the final place. They're a byway. they're a pit stop, that there's still a place.

And having a place to put things matters. I love zones. So here are some zones that we have that you can either consider using or adapt for your own home, but these are the ones that we use. So we have a dirty dishes zone, right? Because dishes are always going to be in mid-process between used and clean. So we just have one stretch of counter space that holds dirty dishes and dirty dishes only. until they are ready to be tended to.

Now, this does not seem like a big deal, but holy moly is it ever. It keeps dirty dishes from living all over the house, but you also don't have to finish the chore all the way to feel like your home is like a little tidier. The dishes are contained on that one part of the counter. And containment is a massive part of perceived tidiness. Just put things in one place contained,

by the edges of a basket or just by an invisible line on the counter. It doesn't matter. Containment makes a world of difference. And then those dishes just sit there and wait until it's time to move on. They don't have to move along until we're ready to move them along. So we have a couple of zones for laundry. There is this pretty metal container in the kitchen by the back door. That holds dirty socks and cloth napkins.

So those are contained and mostly invisible until it's time to wash them. because the kids, you know, they take their socks off by the door. And so rather than having socks all over the place, they put it in a little bucket. And then it's invisible. Invisibility is so good for chores. Now obviously hamper's, like laundry baskets and hamper's, those are natural laundry zones. Like those are holding your dirty clothes until you're ready to wash them. You can even have a zone for things that are not dirty enough to wash but too clean to put away.

We all have those. I have a little cubby in my closet that is for, clothes just like that. It's where I put my pajamas, like a pair of joggers that aren't really dirty. They could be worn again tomorrow to like work out or whatever. So you can have a variety of laundry zones for a variety of mid-process clothes. We also have several zones for paper. I did a whole episode on organizing paper. We'll link to that in the show notes. That there's a zone for urgent mail and school forms, a zone for non-urgent mail and school forms, and yet another zone for art projects and creative paper. Now, they're all just baskets, but I can put those pieces of paper

in their proper places right when they come into the house until it's time to tend to them. They have a place until then, and that place is not just piled on the kitchen counter. That is the idea behind zones. They hold chores mid-process in kind of a tidy way until you're ready to deal with them later. So you don't have to deal with the visual clutter of those things, but you also are not going to forget them because they have a place to wait until you are ready to tend to them. Okay. So before I share with you my actual daily chore routine, and before we take an ad break, which makes this episode free for you to listen to, so thank you sponsors for that. 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. It reminds you of a little extra something and it has a note for me to help encourage you through the weekend. So if you would like to get that recap, which is only available to people who specifically sign up for it, it's not part of the big list. You can go to the lazy genius collective.com slash listens. This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate launch. The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks.

Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. 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 into the chores I do every day, the daily rhythm of tending to my home.

For context, for anyone new, I'm married to a dude. I have three fairly large children. and anyone who has ever lived with a crew of humans knows that five people can create a lot of mess. Now, I will say, I do not concern myself too much with the mess in bedrooms. About once every week or two, I will maybe spur a kid on to tidy their room a bit. If that room is getting a little unwieldy, maybe encourage the running of a vacuum cleaner. But for the most part, we are kind of past the make a mess in your room stage. we don't have a lot of little toys anymore. Like, Sam writes music on his computer.

Ben practices his clarinet and he reads Percy Jackson and he plays video games. And he does art at the kitchen table. Like, the older the kids get, the bigger their toys become and, frankly, the less mess they make. Our days of, like, Barbie dolls and trucks and tiny blocks, those are mostly over. Nobody orders kids meals because it's not enough food. So, like, we don't even have those dumb little plastic toys filling every corner. or the house. We used to, and it's like a whole thing. But now that season has passed. Like, the boys do build Lego sets, but they only want ones that are enormous and super expensive.

So those usually happen, like, over Christmas break, because that's the only time they're going to get something that big and expensive. And then they build them on Christmas Day. So even Lego chaos isn't a thing anymore. So in conclusion, in conclusion, we're just not in a season of life with the constant tidying of tiny things. Now, if you are, the concepts of what I'm going to share are still helpful. You just might spend a little more time tidying than I do because you have more pieces in your home and that's okay. It is a season.

So I live with four other people. We tend to our bedrooms individually with occasional prompting from yours truly. But the rest of the house gets daily attention for the most part. Now, it's very basic attention, but it's enough attention that my home, on average, is only just a few minutes away from being tidy again. Now, hear me loud and clear. Hear me. I am not vigilant about this. Like, this is not required.

Our home is not some kind of soulless, well-oiled machine. But remember what matters to me most about my home, that it's cozy and calm and ready for. the next thing. Cozy means warm and welcoming. Calm means uncluttered where it can be. Ready for the next thing means that spaces are ready to take on the next meal or project or homework or game night or whatever. Now those don't have to be your priorities, but they are mine and they determine how I approach my chores. So the same is true of you. Whatever matters most in your home, it's going to impact how you approach the daily tending of that home. So for practical context, the main part of our house, it is set up in like a tiny loop. You can play chase really easily in our house. So we live in a one-story ranch. Half of that loop,

we call the L, our kitchen and living room are in the shape of an L, and it's where we do most of our living. So I have been saying, tidy the L for years. Y'all have heard me say that before. My kids know what that means. So if you, but if you keep walking that loop, it's, really an O. Like you hit our big dining room and den that completes the circle or the O. Now the dining room in the den, they did not get as much action in previous years just because they were smaller and we've kind of lived in the L. But as my kids have gotten bigger, they take more space. They also want more space from each other. So that means that the O, it could use daily attention because it's the whole thing's being used, the whole circle's being used, in order

for things to stay cozy, calm, and ready for the next thing for the entire family. Now, from here on, when I say anything about my house, I mean neo. I mean those main living areas that everyone uses. So here is the daily chore rhythm, like chronologically, from morning to night. And I'll throw in a few principles and house rules that we use as I go. So I usually wake up to a tidy home. Now that is a priority than I before, so that when I wake up, things are mostly ready for remember I like it when my home is ready for the next thing. That's how I keep my home calm,

which is another priority. So what does that look like? It mostly means that everything is in its place. That's a lazy genius principle, put everything in its place. You'll hear the specifics of how that usually happens as I go through the entire day. But in general, surfaces are clear, the floor is clear, things are put away. My home looks like it's waiting to welcome me into a new day. Okay. Now, we haven't even made it into the day. We haven't even started anything. And you might already be feeling bad because your home does not operate that way. You don't wake up to a home that's ready for you. I want to say very intentionally that that is okay. I think there's a chance that some of the daily things I do can contribute to more of a reset morning for you. But remember, this is simply

what I do. This is not what everyone does or even should do. We all get to manage. our homes in whatever way matters to us. So drop the comparison lens right now. I am someone with a lot of support and I have naturally high levels of executive functioning. So don't see any of this is prescriptive. Tightiness and order are not the rule. They are not better. They are neutral choices and the spectrum of that is very wide. Now if you would like to move in the direction of just like maybe a little more order or a little more tidiness on a more regular basis. I do think some of the things I share today they might help you with that, but it is imperative that you do not see that move in that direction as something morally superior. It is so important that you don't beat yourself up,

that you're not already doing that or you can't do it right now because of a multitude of reasons. Homekeeping is an enormous task and it must be done with partial. solutions and kindness every single day. So do not, I repeat, do not listen to the rest of this episode with a pencil and like tracing paper. The point is not for you to copy me. The point is to listen and notice what might work in your home to more intentionally support what matters to you. Okay? Okay. So back to the start of the day. I wake up to a tidy home. our morning of like making lunches and eating breakfast and everyone getting ready for school, we also put away the clean dishes that are in the dishwasher.

The kids each have a level that they unload. And then throughout the morning, we zone the dirty dishes. So anything that gets dirty from eating breakfast or making lunches, it just goes in the dirty dishes zone. Doing that instead of like automatically loading the dishwasher right after is necessary, partly because you don't have to finish a task right away. from start to finish, you don't need to. But also because my kids wake up at different times, like Annie, listen, Annie has been at school for like a solid half hour before Sam even has to get out of

bed. So she cannot load her dirty breakfast dishes into the dishwasher because that dishwasher still has clean dishes in it because Sam hasn't woken up and done his level yet. So the dirty dish is known, it helps keep things moving even when you're waiting for someone else. So throughout the first part of the day from breakfast through lunch, all we do is just really zone dishes. Usually at some point before the first kid starts getting home from school, I will clear that zone, aka I'll put the dishes in the dishwasher. But not always, though, like sometimes they sit there until dinner. That's fine.

They have a place. That's the point. They don't have to move yet. They can stay exactly where they are. Now, as for the rest of the house, during the week, it's just me. And I don't make much of a mess. but if I am doing something where I have a lot of stuff out, then I usually try to either put it away or stack or contain it before the kids get home from school. Again, that is creating a cozy,

calm home that's ready for the next thing. If my stuff is all over the kitchen table, which is where the kids eat a snack and do their homework, they can't easily eat a snack and do their homework because I'm covering everything up. So I either put something away or I just make it a little easier to deal with by like putting it in a tidy stack and setting it to the side of the table or maybe like sticking it all in a basket or something to contain it, which again is visually more appealing and very calming. So during school hours, I'm just zoning my own dirty dishes and then either putting away or stacking anything that I have been using before everybody else gets home. Now, when the kids get home from school, I have a phrase I use that they kind of hate,

but it's helpful anyway and I still say it. So a little house rule of ours is put it away, not down. So often we come in the house. This is true of everybody. And we just put stuff down. Backpacks, lunchboxes, mail, a million other things. But if it is possible to just put the thing away rather than putting it down, your home is going to feel so much more tidy more quickly. So backpacks, they don't just get dropped on the floor. I mean, they get stored on the floor. I mean, they get stored the floor. They just go to the part of the floor that's designated for them. There's an area where our backpacks are on the floor. So I encourage the kids to put their backpacks away, not down. Put it away, not down. I say this to my husband, too. He laughs and laughs because he is such a putter downer.

Like the man is always just putting things down. I don't really get mad at him because he's wired differently than I am. But saying it as like a kind reminder, as a kind prompt, rather than like a mean rule. It does make a big difference. So when the kids get home from school, we put things away, not down. They automatically pull their lunchboxes out. They stick the actual bento box part in the dirty dishes zone. And then they put away the cover and like the kitchen cabinet, which is right there across from the dishwasher. You just have to turn. You always still use those planet box lunch boxes. We're going on like 13 years now or something. So anyway, put it away. not down, saves us every single afternoon. Now, if a kid brings home paper, it gets zoned, right? It gets put in

the right zone based on its urgency. It doesn't sit around on whatever surface because then it's going to get lost. It's going to contribute to visual clutter. It also might not get done at the right time because it's not zoned properly based on when it needs to happen. So having a zone for paper is so, so hopeful. Again, we have one for urgent papers, non-urgent papers, and art. And kids are always stripping off their dirty socks. I already talked about this, but thanks to that little bucket by the door, which is where they take off their socks and shoes, the dirty socks do not clutter my floor. They go in that bucket in their zone until it's time for them to be washed. So let me pause here for a quick second. I have just shared several small

things that we do that help keep the home in a flow and a bit more tidy. I encourage you to notice a part of your daily rhythm that kind of clogs things up, either physical, physically or visually or even emotionally. This is a great place to create a zone or a house rule to stop that chaos from getting started. So if you hate the dirty socks on the floor, have a place for the dirty socks to go that's not to hamper all the way down the hall. Because we all know the kids aren't going to go all the way down the hall. They're not going to walk their dirty socks down the hall. Create a zone for the dirty socks right there.

Or you can have a house rule that eventually might change. behaviors. A house rule that we had for a long time was no backpacks on the floor. Now, that was when I had a toddler when Annie was tiny and she would go through her big brother's backpacks as soon as they got home, but she would also trip on them. And then she'd hurt herself. And then everyone was crying because she was crying and everyone was yelling and overstimulated. It was just awful. When we stopped putting backpacks on the floor, like the boys would walk in and I'm like, backpacks on the counter, backpacks on the counter. Like I would just repeat it like a machine. when we stopped putting backpacks on the floor, the afternoons went so much easier.

It was so weird. Now, now my kids are big. They don't need that house rule anymore. But creating those tiny solutions in the form of a zone or a house rule in a high traffic area of your day, it can do miraculous things. Like wildly disproportionate things. Okay. So it's the afternoon now. Everyone's home from school.

homework and snacks are happening. When homework is done, it gets put away. Now, sometimes I have to remind them, but the kids know where their homework goes. It goes in their folders or in their backpacks or whatever. They put the pens and pencils away in one of the many pen pencil jars we have in our house with so many. So that act is actually very easy to complete because there's like many options within arm's reach. We have several jars of pens and pencils. I love pencil pencils. Then they also put their snack dishes in the dirty dishes zone. Again, super easy. It's just dropping a plate off on the counter. It's not really doing anything with it. It's just putting it in a place. Things just get put away and zoned as soon as we're done. Why? Because I prioritize being ready for the next thing. Does that have to be

your priority? No, it does not. Not at all. But since it's mine, putting things away or zoning them for later, it is essential to keeping our home in like a ready flow. All right. So we get to dinner. It's the same. Dirty dishes get zoned. Stuff that has to go back into the fridge, that even get zoned. I talked about this in the lazy genius kitchen and my book about like organizing how you live in the kitchen. And we have a fridge zone, which is really just like the tiniest sliver of counter right in front of the fridge. I will stick things that have to go back in the fridge on that. sliver of counter and I will leave it there until I'm done making a meal. I'm not constantly opening and closing the fridge. Now, maybe not something like, you know, ice cream or milk or whatever, but for the

most part, most things just hang out until I or someone else can put them all away at once. It also, having that fridge zone also clears the rest of the counter so it can be used to actually make food. That's another helpful thing about zones. It removes what is unnecessary. from the space where you're doing something else. So dirty dishes and unused food, they don't clog up my prep cooking space because they have their own zones. They have their own place. Now, let's get real, because no one puts everything away instead of down, and no one zones everything automatically, and no one needs to live in a home where those processes are rigid. We also implement something that I call a two-minute tidy. If the L or the O are a little chaotic with just tiny

things, you know, socks on the floor, things that just can be quickly zoned or put away, I will ring our little bell. We have a bell. And I'll call for a two-minute tidy. I'm like two-minute tidy in the O or two-minute tidy in the L. And we set a timer for two minutes. And then everybody with various levels of willingness, they tend to those things. But they know it's only going to be two minutes. Two minutes is not that long, even though they complain that sometimes it is, which is ridiculous, but whatever. That's not my job to change how they perceive time. But then it's done. Then it's done.

It's like great. Good job, everybody. We just tidied for two minutes and it's way better than it was two minutes ago. Now, if a kid, I will do this sometimes. If a kid is like dragging his or her feet and obviously going slow so that everyone else does the bulk of the work, even though it's just two minutes, I will actually, I like turn on my best Mary Poppins voice. and I'll be like, okay, everybody else can stop. And then I will have the sluggish kid finished by themselves. Because I know they're gay.

I know what that is. I'm also good at like friendly roasting. So usually if I have to do that, it ends in laughter because the kid knows I know. Plus there's so little to actually clean up. So like the unfairness argument is very flimsy, right? But most of the time, two minutes is all we need because everyone knows where things are supposed to go. We have places and we have zones and it's done. And then finally, every night, Kauze and I share kind of the reset of things. The kids usually clear the kitchen

surfaces after dinner, like the kitchen table and the island and whatever. And then Kauze typically loads the dishwasher and washes any dishes that need it. I'll come back in and I will wipe down the counters because that matters to me more than it does to him and he usually forgets that. So I will just come back in and do that. One of us, will almost always vacuum the kitchen floor every day and occasionally maybe take the vacuum further into the living room if there's time or energy but like whatever and since we tidied before dinner there's very little to tidy after and if there is it takes like 30 seconds not a lot of stuff now i realize that there's more to do than just those things right so throughout the day

there are plenty of things that i'm going to notice a sink that's dirty like a bathroom sink that's got toothpaste on it. Plants are willty and they need water. There's a stack of laundry that needs to be put away, you know, that kind of thing. So throughout the day, because I work at home, if I see a task that needs to be done that will take less than a minute, and more tasks take less than a minute than you realize. I'll just do it. Like that's kind of my personal rule. Can I finish this in a minute? Yeah, just go ahead and do it. If it'll take longer, or I just don't feel like it, because sometimes I don't feel like it. Then I will text it to myself.

I'll text the job to myself since my phone is usually close by, like it's in my pocket. So I'll text myself that chore. Or I'll write it down on my playbook where I have like my monthly brain dump if it's something that takes a little bit longer. So like water the plants, refill the bird feeder, you know, that kind of thing. If I notice it needs to be done and it's going to take more than a minute, I'll write it down or text myself. If it's less than a minute, I'll just do it. And then one other thing I do every day is really just how I see. I'm a pile breaker.

Like, I do not let piles accumulate. Usually they don't have to because we have places and zones for things. But if I see that a pile is growing, I will break it down so fast. Y'all know this, but piles grow like a contagion. Like, I do not understand the exponential craziness of the growth of a pile, but we are all familiar with that growth. So I'm pretty vigilant when I see a pile forming. because I'm like, oh no, the rest of my family, they're just going to make that pile,

they're just going to add to that pile, things going to go bigger, give me more work to do. Also, piles don't contribute to a calm, cozy home that's ready for the next thing, right? Piles just don't go in the vibe of a house that I want with those things being what matters. It's not that piles are bad or evil or like don't actually even exist in my house. They totally do. That I keep an eye out for them to either dismantle. them or move them to a place that is less visible than the L or the O. Like I don't, I don't want to look at piles when I'm trying to watch Stranger Things under a cozy blanket with a candlelit. I don't

want to look at a pile. I want to be in my cozy calm home, ready for stranger things. So, in summary, we just keep things zoned all day. We put things away and not down. I keep piles to a minimum. I do prioritize clean surfaces and floors in our main area just because that matters to me and it also is very quick to do. We don't have a big house. We don't have a lot of stuff. And I have giant humans who make a mess, but like a very different kind of mess from when they were toddlers. So this is a season of life where keeping the house tidy, it's easier to manage than it used to be. But regardless of your season of life, zones and having places for things, it makes such a huge difference, as does that two-minute tidy. Man, I love that thing. Just give it two minutes and then be done for now. Like what a gift that is.

You can do it again tomorrow if you want. No harm done. Not everything has to be clean and tidy all at once, nor should you expect it to be. That's just not real life. So loosen your grip on that a little bit. So I hope this look at the chores I do every day is helpful as you think about how to kindly and simply tend to the places in your home that feel just a little bit frustrating. Clawful. or in need of a zone. And those are the chores I do every day, part two. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy.

Please sit and sit. Play. Post. Taste. View. And enjoy. Via Rail, love the way. All right.

For today's A Little Extra Something, I'm going to share a recipe that I shared in the latest, latest lazy letter. I don't normally share things from that newsletter here on the podcast. So you should sign up if you want to catch what's in there. But today I am because this recipe is just like too good to hide under a bushel. Now let me be clear the reason this recipe is so good is kind of the same reason that change your life. Chicken is so good. It's like not going to change your life and that it's the absolute most delicious thing that you will ever eat. Now granted, it's super tasty. Both of these recipes are super tasty. But the changing of lives is not via taste buds. It's via ease. We need meals that are actually quick and easy without requiring like a bunch of ingredients and meals that are still flavorful without requiring all those things. So this is our quest as people who cook. You know, we want meals that are easy and still taste good. Meals that take very little brain power and few dishes and few ingredients, but they deliver like pretty disproportionate results

in terms of flavor. Plus, this is one of the only meals that everybody loved. You all know that my metric for a meal that we will make again is if three out of five family members likes it. Three out of five, that's all I'm going for. Now, we do have a pretty decent handful of four out of five meals, but literally just three, five out of five meals before this one. So in the newsletter I said too, because I forgot about one.

But our three five-for-five meals are instant pot curry rice. That's actually on the website. So you can just Google it is my Japanese mother-in-law's recipe. Pork cutlets or katsu, which is also my Japanese mother-in-law's recipe. But you can like Google it. That's super easy to find. It's like pretty basic. And then the third one, which I forgot to mention in the newsletter, because it's kind of like new from the summer is steak and corn.

We had it for dinner last night. Really it's just steak. But corn is just super easy to make alongside it. Everybody's a fan of steak, but this recipe I'm about to give you has given us now a fourth, five out of five. It's like, it's not that people tolerate it. It's that everybody loves it. It's so fun.

I call it fire pork. And last week I used the same marinade on chicken and Ben named it lava chicken because, of course, he did. I think it's better with pork and the family agreed, but it's still like a solid choice, no matter of the protein. Okay, so here's how fire pork works. you make this will be in the latest lazy listens by the way so print it out so you don't have to think about it uh you you make the fire marinade three ingredients one part sweet one part spicy and two parts soy sauce now my sweet that i always use in like anything east southeast asian is mirin m i r i

which i cook with all the time i highly recommend it's absolutely worth like a coveted spot in your cabinet. And then the spice that I use for this is saracha. Now, you could use like sambal or something else. But I think that this particular combo of Mirren, saracha, and soy sauce is literal fire. It's so incredibly tasty. Also, don't get it wrong. It's not like super spicy. The fire is like, it's a candle, really. We have some weak constitutions in the Adachi house. So the spice level is like just enough to add complexity, but not a ton. of heat, so have no fear, but you can also just add more heat if you want to. Okay, so here's what I do. I make up that marinade. I take two pork tenderloins, which is like one package of pork tenderloin,

right? For that amount of pork, my one part measurement is two tablespoons. So it's two tablespoons of mirroon, one part, two tablespoons of saracha, one part, and four tablespoons of soy sauce, so says, two parts. So one part to one part to two parts. So I cut the port tenderloin into slices. Maybe like, I don't know, half an inch thick or something, but like don't get out a ruler. It doesn't really matter. I will season the pork with salt and black pepper if you want. I haven't done it both ways. And then I toss that meat into the marinade. You can let it sit for anywhere from half an hour to like eight hours. So it's great for prepping like before you go work in the morning and then you can just cook it however you want. Let me describe the different

ways you can do that. So pork tenderloin is kind of like chicken thighs. It's very forgiving and tender. Like the word tender is is in the name. So it'll take what you give it. I cooked the first time I made this, I cooked it in a cast iron skillet on the grill, set on the grill grates because it was a pretty day. It was nice to think about cooking outside. And I also did not want to deal with the potential like cooking smoke. But I've also done it on a skillet inside and it's fine, right? It's not that smoky. It doesn't matter.

Sometimes smoke happens when you cook. Oil splatters and smoke are just part of the deal sometimes. All right. So you can cook it. Yeah, you can cook it straight on the grill. You can cook it in a cast iron skillet on the grill. You can do just a skillet on your stove. You could even put it in the air fryer or under the broiler in your oven.

Different cooking methods are just going to. yield different results is all. Like they'll all be fine. You just get something different out of it. So if you, if the pork pieces come in direct contact with whatever they're being cooked on, so like a hot pan versus being under the broiler in the air fryer, right? You're just going to get more of a sear. You're going to get more color. You're also probably going to get more smoke, but whatever. Now, if you cook the pork in some of the marinade, let's say you don't, really drain any of the extra marinade and you just kind of like dump the plastic bag of marinated pork into a skillet. It is not going to sear. It's going to more like simmer and steam, which will

keep it tender. It'll actually be pretty tender as long as you don't like boil the life of it. Like keep the bubbles low. But you won't get any color, right? So it's, it might not look quite the same that you would want to. It's not going to have browning. But it's all kind of the same. It's all kind of whatever. Like just choose your own adventure. It doesn't matter what you do. But essentially, tender pork marinated in that one-one-two ratio of Mirren, saracha, and soy, it is deeply satisfying for being so simple. And if you want to make it super quick, you'll have those measurements are half a cup of marinade if you do the eight tablespoons for the two pork tenderloins that I just said.

So you could just eyeball all three ingredients inside of a half-cup measure. Like you don't have to use a tablespoon and keep pouring four tables. Like, you don't have to do that. You can just eyeball it. This is so easy, you guys. Serve it with rice and be done. Or you could, like, throw some frozen broccoli in the pan if you want, soak up some of those juices. You can put a bowl of baby carrots on the table.

I don't care. Fire pork is an Adachi favorite. And I'm so happy to share this very simple recipe with you. All right. Let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it is Sam. from Tucson, Arizona. Sam writes, I found myself recently in the throes of big genius energy trying to formulate a brand new cleaning schedule that would fix my entire life as a stay-at-home

mom of two kids under four with chronic illness. As you can imagine, that didn't go great. After years of lazy genius listening, I was able to redirect that energy into something that felt more kind and realistic in my current season. I decided that each day of the week, I would focus on a different area of the house with Sunday being a general admin or errand day. Instead of having a giant deep cleaning task list of every possible task that needs to be done and then feeling like a failure when I can't keep up with it, I'm choosing to think of my chores in the same lens I look at my meals. I'm picking from a chore matrix based on my energy levels. What matters most to me that day, what's dirtiest, et cetera. I choose what I want. I feel so much relief. I'm actually getting more done

because I'm not agonizing over doing everything in an unrealistic time frame and I have permission to focus on one space at a time. Y'all, it's a chore matrix, just like a male matrix. This is so great. You guys know I adore the idea of making plans based on your energy. It's just deeply important. There's actually multiple chapters about that in my book, The Plan. And so this is an excellent example of tending to that. And I've been saying this forever. When you operate compassionately with the organization of your time, with the management of your home, when you actually start letting things go, you weirdly get more done. I don't know. I don't understand it. But it's what happens because the pressure, so much of what takes up our time and energy is actually the pressure

that we're feeling. It's the guilt of not doing things as quickly or as completely, and it's keeping us from actually doing the things that matter to us that can contribute to whatever kind of home we're wanting to build. So anyway, I obviously get very excited about this kind of thing. I love it when people are making choices based on their energy and they're seeing benefits, not just emotionally, but also practically in their homes. So I love this idea so much, Sam. Thank you for sharing. and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. Okay, let's close with a very appropriate mini pep talk for when your body does not keep up with your life. So those of you like Sam with chronic illness or debilitating menstrual cycles or seasons of deep grief or hormonal migraines or you like pull a hamstring because you needed to run out your stress even though you haven't run in a long time and now you like low key can't walk very well.

there are so many things that can impact our bodies and our bodies are the ones doing all the things. So what happens when your body isn't keeping up with your life? This is not a time to hack your energy, just like Sam demonstrated. This is not a time to force your body to do things that cannot do. Now, I know that there are times we have to push through, but I also think we put too much of a moral spin on that phrase. We say things like, well, I care about my family, so I'm going to sacrifice myself for them because I love them, even though it's going to devastate my body and set me back. I'm just going to push through. Or we think that our list is way more important than it is.

We have too many essentials, and we think that somehow we're being honorable and responsible by still pushing through to get all the things done, even though our bodies are screaming for us to stop. Pushing through is necessary far less often than we think it is. So here's what I want to encourage you to do today. If you're in a place where your body is not keeping up with your life, where your body wants to stop, even though your brain and your schedule and your to-do list are telling you that you cannot. I invite you to pause and ask yourself this question. What's the worst thing that could happen? If I don't get this one thing done today, what's the worst thing that could happen. Now, if the answer is, my electricity will be cut off. Maybe you feel like

it's worth it to take two minutes to pay the electric bill. But if the answer is, the laundry is going to stay on the couch for another day. I would argue that you are more important than your laundry. Tending to yourself is more important than tending to your laundry, but we rarely allow ourselves to be important enough to be considered on the list. Even when our bodies are wanting, wanting us to slow down or even stop altogether. Don't forget, you've been raised by a culture of productivity. You live in a country where production and optimization and potential and big dreams, that is the currency. That's okay. And it's even sometimes really good. But if that is the priority in the air that you breathe, of course you're not going to think that you matter enough

to do something halfway to stop, to not have like a productive, wonderful. day. That those measurements are not the only ones. You can have a day that is not measured at all. You can have a day that is simply lived as it needs to be based on what matters to you, what your body is wisely telling you, what your people need, what that still small voice inside of you is whispering, slow down. Smallness matters. Daily bread is really all you need. You can resist the messages of hustle culture for a day when your body needs to move at a different pace. I want you to honor that different pace. What is the worst that can happen? And that's a mini pep talk for when your body is not keeping up with your life. 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 are enormously helpful. We thank you so much. 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. 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. Head to the lazy genius collective.com slash listens to get it. Thanks you guys 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.