The Lazy Genius Podcast - #440 - How to Make the Rest of 2025 Easier

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

It’s around this point, towards the end of October, that we all start feeling the pressure. The rest of the year is coming like a snowball rolling down a hill. Today, we’re going to tend to that energy and create some ways to make the rest of 2025 easier and also more joyful, grounded, and rooted in whatever matters to you. Helpful Companion Links Order my book The PLAN or ask your library to consider carrying a copy. The Lazy Genius Collective Facebook Group! Episode #339: How to Make the Rest of 2023 Easier Episode #392: How to Make the Rest of 2024 Easier Episode #330: How I Handle a Busy Season Episode #431: 5 Things to Avoid When Planning a Busy Season Episode #364: When Life Feels Like a Firehose Episode #385: How to Manage an Odd Stretch of Time Episode #395: How to Finish Last-Minute Lists Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism Episode #306: What We Need to Have More Fun Episode #347: How to Know What Brings You Joy One line a day journal One second a day app Learn about The Playbooks here. Find our digital products here (which are going into the sunset at the end of the year!) 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) Check out our network’s newest show, How We Made Your Mother 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

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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 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 then I'm so glad you're here. Today is episode 440, How to Make the Rest of 2025 Easier. So we've done this episode for the last three years, and it's one of our highest downloaded episodes all year long. It is around this point towards the end of October that we all start feeling the pressure, like the rest of the year is coming, like a snowball rolling down a hill. And we're all just like, oh my goodness, there are too many things.

How is this going to happen? Am I going to get crushed by all of it? So today, we're going to tend to that energy and create some ways to make the rest of this year of 2025 easier and also more joyful, grounded, and rooted in whatever matters to you. But not in the way that we have done it the last couple of years. More on that in just a minute. After we make the rest of our year easier, we're going to have a little extra something in the form of how I make visual clutter disappear without doing much of anything. It's a little trick I learned from Michael Lynn Smith, aka The Nestor, that I'm excited to share. As always, we'll celebrate the lazy genius of the week.

And we'll close with a mini pep talk on releasing the pressures of memory making. Before we get into the episode, two things. Number one, I apologize for the fact that I'm still, y'all have had a cold for, I think we're going on nine days now. It's a whole thing. We are recording literally hours and hours before this podcast episode airs and lands in your ears. So I appreciate your patience with my Phoebe Vocal Fry. The second thing that I want to share with you is very exciting. I want to give you a team lazy genius update.

So we have this huge Facebook group that has over 50,000 people in it at this point. It is a private group. So it is full of lovely people. They're all smart as a whip. Well, also smart as a whip is the newest member of Team LG that I would love to introduce you to. Her name is Kara Smith. and she is our community experience manager. She's a person who takes care of that Facebook group and would love to welcome you into it.

So if you listen, for example, to like office hours episodes and you're like, man, I wish there was a place that I could get answers to my questions like this all the time. The Facebook group is such a great place to do that. The folks in there are crawling with product recommendations, ideas for small solutions to small problems, they celebrate you when you need cheering on. Like it is such a great community, and we would love to have you join. So you can click the link in the show notes, and Kara will be the one to let you in. And you'll see her name floating around as the moderator, keeping things kind and in a flow.

So you can join that group if you would like. And also, welcome to Kara to TeamLG. All right, let's get into how to make the rest of 2025 easier. The episodes from the last two years have been incredibly practical. I have offered comprehensive, but like fairly straightforward processes for you to look at all the things that you have to do that is out of the ordinary during this time of year, triage those things and then make them happen in a way that hopefully doesn't drain you. So you can certainly go back and listen to those episodes. We are going to actually summarize those processes in an email that's going out later this week to our mailing list. So you can join that mailing list if you're not on it.

the lazy genius collective.com slash join. And that's really just going to give you like, here, here's what you do practically to make the rest of the year easier. Practical solutions are so helpful, of course. Now, in addition to those episodes from previous years, we have created a number of other resources that are practical solutions for your busy season. So you can check those out. There's the holiday docket. That is a printable PDF that helps you figure out what special seasonal activities you want to make room for. It's helpful to anyone, but especially to families with kids, younger kids, too. It is undated. So you can print it multiple times over multiple years. It's currently on sale in the digital store because it's not going to be sold again after this

calendar year. Another practical resource is the playbooks. Those are seasonal planners that help you focus on what matters most to you right now in this season. It helps you organize those tasks. not lose track of them in the craziness of life. They are the primary way I personally am staying afloat with all the things that are going on in the life of the Adachi family for the rest of 2025. But that's not all, said in my best shamwow voice. We also have a ton of episodes that are written specifically to make busy seasons easier. Episode 330, how I handle a busy season.

Episode 431, five things to avoid when planning a busy season. Episode 364 when life feels like a fire hose. Episode 385, how to manage an odd stretch of time. Episode 395, how to finish last minute lists. I am an expert on compassionate time management, so a good portion of the 440 episodes that we have made over the last eight years, they are going to be all about making life a little bit easier, more manageable and more rooted in what matters to you. So there is no shortage of practical information and resources for you. Now, why do I share all of those things right now? Because

today we're going to approach this differently. I believe that one of the simplest ways that you can deal with the busyness around you is not to get everything more ordered, more essentialized, or done faster. I believe that you can better deal with the overwhelm of your season by becoming more connected with where you are right now. When you pay attention to the small joys in your day, to what anchors you, to ordinary good things that exist in your life already, when we notice and cultivate those things, they make the rest of that busyness feel less frenzied. Being connected to where you are helps you feel more grounded, more like yourself, and more connected to the goodness of right now rather than the energy of what you didn't get done yesterday or what is waiting for you

tomorrow. There is so much power in the smallness and existence of today. And I'm really excited to share ways that you can do that. You can cultivate that. Now, before we do, we're going to take a quick ad break, which makes this episode free for you to listen to. So thank you for that sponsors. and here's your quick reminder that we send out a podcast recap email every other Friday. It is called latest lazy listens and it summarizes the episode. It shares the lazy genius of the week as well as other segments that we have on the show. And it has a little extra note from 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. enjoy. Please sit and sip. Play. Post. Taste. Taste. View. 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 jump into how I think we can make the rest of 2025 easier.

Yes, you can make helpful lists and triage your tasks with kindness and clarity. You can even create a little system for your life if you want. Lists and tasks and systems are very helpful when used with compassion. And if you need that kind of help, you can check out. any of the resources that I already mentioned. But let's stay a little closer to the ground today. I'm going to share five ways you can make the rest of 2025 easier that do not require much of you at all, not organizationally anyway. These five things, if you do them, they will make each day more alive, more full, more fun, more grounded in who you are, more connected to your people. When all these things are true, you are in a much better place to tend to the lists and the tasks.

in the systems. Being centered as a person, being a human being, focusing on the things that really matter, no matter who you are, finding joy in this life, these things create a foundation for the other stuff. So if these five ideas are present for you most days, even in a tiny way, your life is going to feel easier, like guaranteed. So let's jump in. Number one, you can make the rest of the year easier by putting non-essential projects on pause. This is the work of essentializing of getting rid of what's in the way. I first heard this word by Greg McEwen in his book Essentialism, that it was written more for the workplace and like entrepreneurs and stuff. It's a great place to practice essentialism. But I was like, man, I think this has bigger implications at home.

So Essentialize is one of the 13 original lazy genus principles and it works one of the 13 original lazy genus principles and it works wonders, especially during busy seasons. If you are entering one, but you probably are, I want you to simply choose to pause projects that are not essential right now. Let's say that last year around this time, you thought to yourself, or even said out loud to like a partner or roommate or somebody, I'm going to clean out the garage before this next holiday season. You have big project energy.

But then life kept happening and you kept putting it off until the next month and the next until you forgot altogether. And now here we are, a year later, with a garage that is still in the same shape. And you just remembered, because you're going in to get, you know, decorations or something, that you were going to clean it out before the holidays hit. Well, how essential is it? I know you want it done, and I get that. And I know that cleaning out the garage, like once it's done, it would probably make life a little easier.

But honestly, is this absolutely. necessary for you to make it through the rest of the year. Is it essential? If you can get into January with your garage still in its current state, I say press pause on the garage project. Why does this matter? Well, when you press pause on a non-essential project, you're giving yourself permission to not think about it right now. You are releasing the guilt of the undone project because you know that's a thing. see all of these like well-intended unfinished projects in every corner of our homes or on our to-do list or even just in our heads and the longer they sit the longer they sit the worse we feel that they stay undone the weight of that project guilt it only makes your busy season harder it's like

a back burner simmer but it's there you know you don't need to waste your precious energy keeping that guilt alive. Just press pause. Here's an example. So we have a porch swing on our porch that's still in the box. And it's been there for several weeks now. Our swing is old. The swing that's like currently there is old. It works, but it's like very old. And we scored a new one that I love when it was on sale during some like end of summer thing. Well, the box is still on the porch. Now here are two roads that I could take every time I look at that box. One road is that I feel guilt and the pressure of the undone every time I pull into my driveway or look out the window or walk out onto the porch. The box is like a talisman for something that I'm supposed to do. Okay. So that's the first road. The second road, which is much preferred,

is that I declare this swing in a box a non-essential project that is currently on pause. Our lives are wild right now. And hanging that swing is, not essential to surviving the wildness. Now sure, maybe there's like a Saturday where Kauze and I both have the availability and the energy to get new hardware and drill new holes and hang the swing. So we'll just unpause it and we'll get it done. But we don't have to. If we don't unpause it, it's okay.

It's just a box on the porch. It's no big deal. The choice is a mental one, that it is massively impactful. So simply decide to pause, not stop, not ignore. Just intentionally pause. Just make the choice. Because if you're living under the shadow of an undone project that is not essential to this season of life,

you're going to like really lose it with that backburner pressure. You've plenty of going on already, right? Adding another project to the mix, especially one that drains your energy and doesn't even elevate the season that you're in in a significant enough way to merit the effort. of doing the project, the project is not worth doing right now. Just drop it. Put it on pause. That alone is going to take so much pressure off of your busiest seasons. So that's number one.

Press pause on non-essential projects. Number two, you can make the rest of the year easier by protecting your white space. Last week, a friend of mine asked my kid how life is going, and he said, it's the calm before the Adachi storm, which made everybody laugh. But like, he's right. We are about to enter the Adachi storm. And it's going to be a wild ride. Now, it's pretty much all good stuff, like great stuff even. But it's still a lot. So it is a high priority that we protect our white space. We protect our empty times on the calendar. We protect our rest. In fact, we create white space so that we can protect it. I'm like, real vigilant about this. So our typical weekday, it does not have consistent white space for everybody. Like all three kids have various things before and after school on different days. Sometimes Kauz and I both do as well. We really only have one night a week where we get to have family dinner together where there's no place to go or someone's not coming in late. It's just Mondays. That's the only day that we get to really have dinner together. So there's no weekday with consistent

white space for our entire family. And because Sundays are generally like popping with church in the morning and community group at night, plus I'm often like planning the upcoming week on Sunday afternoons, Saturdays are really our white space day. Y'all Saturdays are kind of sacred. They can be because our kids don't participate in activities that typically require weekends since everything that they do is pretty much through their schools. But of course there are plenty of things still happening on any given Saturday. And when something is, we purposefully let go of everything that is not absolutely essential for the rest of that Saturday. So if we have something in the morning, we protect the evening. If we have something in the evening, we protect the morning.

If we have a full Saturday where everyone is just like beat and then we know we're like hosting community group on Sunday night, we'll probably skip church on Sunday morning. Our family needs open time at home. We need white space. We stay home and we take naps and we watch sports and we do like weird science experiments that Annie finds on YouTube. And we order pizza because I do not cook during white space time. And it's the best thing ever. We vigilantly protect whatever white space we have each weekend and we rest.

When my kids are like, are we doing anything today? And I say no. They literally cheer, like especially the younger too. They're both home bodies and they run out of battery after a long week at school, as does my husband. So we are a family. That's our makeup. It's not the case with everybody that our family enjoys, desperately enjoys doing nothing at home. Now, your protection of white space doesn't have to look the same as ours.

Obviously, it won't. But here's what I would encourage you to do, no matter your situation. Don't automatically fill what is empty. Sometimes folks are surprised when I say we didn't do anything all day when we had a free Saturday because of course there are so many projects we could finish. We'd hang that portion lane. But to me, I am happy protecting and prioritizing white space over a finished project. Now that doesn't happen every time, but it is a decision that we make most of the time.

So if you have a half a Saturday free, don't automatically turn it into project day or clean everything day or let's catch up on a million things day stop and think first maybe there are some essential tasks that would serve you well later that week that you can get done quickly but then you enjoy the rest of your white space so often we just fill whatever space is empty a lot of y'all aren't good at resting you got to be doing something you got to have some something to show for your day You can't just spend an entire Saturday watching football and doing a puzzle. What is this Christmas break? Well, it could be.

If you shift your thinking a little bit, I'm here to invite you to think differently about your white space. Just like you're pressing pause on non-essential projects, press pause on the thought that you have to fill all your empty space with something productive, and that rest is something to feel guilty over. It is not. In fact, the more you protect your white space, the more energy you will have for the noise of the rest of the season. I promise you. It is counterintuitive, I know, but it is true. Start practicing, protecting your white space. All right. Number three, you can make the rest of the year easier by looking for lightness. When we are stressed out and busy and overwhelmed by all there is to do, life feels heavy. To counteract that heaviness, we need lightness.

Now, what do I mean by lightness? We need to laugh. We need to have fun. We need to cultivate joy in ordinary ways. We need to act like kids and find wonder and small things. You might, because I'm recording on a Saturday, you might actually hear my neighbor kids being light and joyful outside and backing up in my backyard. We need to play games. We need to make the silly choice. We need to look for lightness and enjoy it. Lightness is why I stop what I'm doing and watch a chickadee. that lands in my bird feeder. Lightness is why I play wordle competitively with friends every day and keep score and talk trash. We're going on like four years now. Lightness is why I communicate in gifts as much as humanly possible. Lightness is why I play banana grams with my family at night and I get sassy when I beat them every time.

I'm like basically undefeated. Lightness is why I talk in silly voices and accents with Annie. lightness is why I watch the Great British baking show. Lightness is why I read. Lightness is why I slowly walk Annie to school in the mornings and listen to her stories. Lightness is why I stay up late and watch postseason baseball. Holy moly, go mares. Lightness is why I love a spontaneous cookout milkshake run with my kids.

Lightness is why I listen to Jacob Collier and Olivia Dean and 90s country. lightness is why I go thrifting. Lightness is why I frantically point when I see a rainbow or a pretty sunset or like a balloon floating in the sky. Lightness. Things like fun and play and laughing and joy and wonder. All of those things, they can be spotted and enjoyed every single day. Now, lightness can also be cultivated and created every single day. Maybe one of those is easier for you than the other. Maybe you're really great at noticing the lightness when it's just presented to you when it's in front of you, that you don't do as much like thoughtful planning of it? You know, there's a difference in the choice to make Wednesday night, trivia night during dinner, and then the choice to like spontaneously

hop in the car to try and get a great view of tonight's super moon, you know? One is created and planned. One is noticed and responded to. So maybe something you can name even right now is which one of those is easier for you to do, especially when it comes to lightness. Lean on what you're good at. You know, are you a planner? Are you a noticer? Are you a preparer or a noticer? If we look at our plan acronym. But also pay attention for opportunities to do the other one, to cultivate the other one. If you need a little bit of help with that, you can try episode 306, what we need to have more fun or episode 347, how to know what brings you joy. There's a guy I know who has become kind of like a dad to me. And when I met him, I asked him what his favorite thing was, the thing that made him

feel the most like himself. And he said, laughing. If I can get in a good belly laugh every day, that was a good day. And that's when I knew I liked him. Because who would say laughter? He did, because he knows that lightness and fun matter. So just like we choose to pause non-essential projects, and just like we choose to protect white space, I encourage you to choose lightness and laughter and joy. and that'll look different from person to person. But if you keep an eye out and enter into those moments, even if it's just for a moment, they're going to help balance out the busyness.

And as you plan your season, I want you to put like a big old star next to those things that you have planned that are fun and joyful and then be there in them when they happen. Be present when you're at the parade or you're at the movie night or you're at the Christmas tree lighting or you're on the couch watching football after Thanksgiving dinner or whatever it is, pay attention to the fun moments that you have worked so hard to make space for

and enjoy them. Be present in them. Invite in lightness as often as you're able. And if your life is missing lightness, fun, and joy. You probably feel their absence. So go find some. It's worthy work. Henry Nowan, he's a priest and a theologian. He says, laughter and play are divine. healing. And I want 100% agree. All right. So that's number three. Lightness. Number four, you can make the rest of the year easier by being kinder about chores. When lists and production, even for good things, dictate our energy and attention, we start to resent the ordinary things that keep life on its axis, things like tidying and meals and school runs and laundry and errands and homework and all that. They're in the way. They're a problem.

They're annoying. And I get it. The ordinariness of life is really tough. Home can be boring or discouraging, especially if you're experiencing some discontentment there. But your energy in your ordinary life at home, it is also kind of the essence of everything. Kathleen Norris, she's an American poet,

she says, it is a quotidian mystery that dailiness can lead to such despair and yet also be at the core of our soul. salvation. And if you stop and think about it, you know that's true. Like when you've gone through a season or even just an afternoon where you honor the dailiness of your life, where you remain present in the ordinary of your life, in the repetition of your chores, in the weird liturgical comfort of folding laundry, when you're in that place, you feel better. You feel more at peace. You feel more like yourself. You feel more content with your life in this moment. Being kinder about chores,

about their purpose, about their value, about your job, however much you share it as a homekeeper, it is going to make a big difference in your energy during a busy season. If you're like, boo, I don't have the margin to change my thinking here, you can hack it. You can actually hack it. This is why so many people imbue those ordinary moments of homekeeping with sensory things, with sensory delights. So if you're about to make soup and you're like, I've got to make dinner again, play Nat King Cole or light a candle or wear an apron you love or choose the wooden spoon that feels really good in your hand or pretend you're on a YouTube cooking show. I don't know, do them all at once. Engaging your senses while you're making your regular pot of chili or spaghetti and like pretending your Julia Child, that can help you be kind about chores. I'm often struck by my own struggles in this area, how I can get so resentful of the things that need doing at home, when there are so many other things that need doing outside of it, but home is where it starts. I want to create and tend to a home, even in its boring dayliness, that creates calm and comfort for my family.

The tasks of replenishing those good things like food and clean clothes, that's honorable. Those aren't just annoying tasks on my never-ending do-lis. I mean, they are, but that's not all they are. So I totally agree with Kathleen Norris that dayliness is at the core of our salvation. It's starting small, right? It's being content right here, right now, with the person I am in the life that I have

and honoring the good work of cleaning toothpaste out of the sink again. So be kinder about chores. Catch yourself when you're being resentful. your attitude around the dailiness of life, it really does make a difference. And finally, number five, you can make the rest of the year easier by remembering every day that good is here right now. So busy seasons create blinders. You know, we get so in the thick of getting things done and preparing for events and pivoting

plans because, like, who knew your kids' football team would get so far in the playoffs. Like, everything moves at a quicker pace during a busy season. and that quick pace makes it harder to stand still and see where you are right now. It's a bit of a cliche to say be present, but it doesn't have to make it any less important. The speed of a busy season, it makes it harder to be present. And presence is deeply valuable. Noticing the good that is here right now, it is helpful in managing stress because it slows you down and it grounds you where you are. so it's like good for your mental health.

Noticing the good that is here right now, it develops contentment when your pace is anything but content. It fights that productivity complex that we all live under, right? Noticing the good that is here right now identifies what all the hustle and bustle is for. It helps you see your people and your place with brighter, kinder eyes. And if you notice the good that is here right now by recording it somehow, you, You get built-in opportunities for nostalgia and reflection. Two of my favorite tools for this are a one-line-a-day journal and one-second-a-day videos.

Now, there are a million one-line-a-day journals out there, and none are more magical than another. Just get one you think is pretty. But the idea is that you write just one sentence, fragments even. They don't even have to be full sentences. Just write about the good of today. And since most of these journals are five years long, you have five years worth of daily presence. like right there in a book. I keep mine beside my bed and I write in it like really quick before I go to sleep.

Another idea is the one second a day app. It is a fantastic app like truly that allows you to capture one or two seconds from every day and it stitches them together in a video of whatever time frame you want. Now I want to tell you a story about that app because it might tap into some of the insecurity that you might be having about recording what you notice. So for several years I did one second a day pretty much every day. We have full videos of the entirety of 2017 through 2020. In fact, to confirm those dates, I just went back on my photo app to like make sure.

I was like, what are the years that we have these? And I watched them all. Of course I did. Y'all, I'm like 10 pounds lighter and 30% happier than when I started. I was already mostly fine that those videos, they are memories. They capture these ordinary things. the 2020 video was just like all of us at home in so many repetitive ordinary ways. There are a half dozen seconds of Annie making my coffee in the morning, and it is the dearest thing.

Life happens in those single little seconds. That's why they made the app. It really matters. But anyway, that's not even the story. Here's the story. So I don't remember how it happened, but essentially I lost all the videos from 2021, like all the seconds, all the little videos that I had taken for that entire year. And when I discovered that happened, I cried, I cried and I cried. I remember we were on a trip.

I think it was our train trip to Raleigh. And I was sitting in the hotel room in the dark with Annie, who was either sick or just going to bed at like 7 o'clock or something. I don't know. I was sitting in the dark and had time to kill. And so I was like, oh, I will stitch, I'll make our 2021 one second video. Then all the videos were gone. I remember texting Koss who was in like on the other side of the wall in a different

hotel room with the boys. and I just cried. It was such a loss. But what happened is that because I lost most of the year, I didn't think it mattered to keep capturing that year. I was a memory completionist. If I can't get them all, it's not worth getting any. Now, y'all know that sounds crazy,

and it's super not true. But also, I think we all get the feeling of thinking that memory keeping has to be so consistent in order to matter. matter. Like if you miss days or you start a tradition when your oldest kid is 16 or whatever, like what good is it? If your one second video only captures 30 of the 365 days of the year, what's the point? Well, intuitively we know, we know that there's still a point. It's so good for so much, especially in busy seasons. Because we're trying to be where we are and notice where we are and honor the good things that are here right now,

even running down a line a day or taking one second of a video a day for just the next few weeks, whenever you remember. It is still a worthwhile practice. It still puts you in a position to capture the good that is here right now. So if you've never done a one line a day journal

or a one second a day video or anything like that, because it feels weird to start in the middle of something, in the middle of a year, in the middle of a season, in the middle of like family dynamics or whatever. And you also don't even have the guarantee that you're going to continue. Please don't let that stop you.

In fact, if that's how you feel about it, I would argue that you need to capture those ordinary moments even more than other people. If you're a memory completionist like me, we need help seeing, even if it's just for a few days, or just one day. The smaller, the better even. We need that practice. and we need to remember that not everything has to be all or nothing or completely planned out. That's its own kind of practice.

So, to summarize, it's a busy season. The end of any year always is. It's mostly full of good things. That that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. So if you need help dealing with the busyness on a practical organizational level, you can check the show notes for some episode ideas or just hang tight for a couple days and you're going to get that email in your inbox with all kinds of practical help. But for right now, for everybody, it doesn't matter who you are, what your life is like,

what your season is, if you live alone or with six other people. Here are five things that you can do that require very little of you to make the rest of 2025 easier, maybe even on a different level, a deeper, more significant level than the practical stuff. One, pause non-essential projects. Two, protect and enjoy your white space. Three, look for lightness, laughter, joy, play, and wonder. Four, be kinder about chores and the ordinary life that you live. And five, notice that good is here right now and maybe even market somehow, even if you don't do anything past right now.

And that's how to make the rest of 2025 easier. It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet, from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. Begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent. WestJet, where your story takes off. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one.

For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flame thrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. All right, for today's A little extra something, I'm going to share with you a trick I learned from The Nestor, aka Mike Willan Smith, that has helped me continue to create spaces in my own. helmet I love. Michael Lynn has a fantastic book called House Rules. It's a hardback coffee table book with amazing photos and it's 100 rules on making your house into your home, no matter your style, budget, or season of life. She is truly the lazy genius of home decorating. Also, I do

not understand how this book is consistently around $10 online. Guys, this book is gorgeous. It's gorgeous and it makes an amazing gift. Anyway, one of her rules, one of her house rules, which I love and I use often is Rule 66. If it sits out, it's a decoration. This little rule has helped me easily make my home something visually pleasing based on my own style without a lot of effort. So busy seasons, they don't just impact our schedules, right? They impact our homes too. And most of us want to rest when we're in our homes. We want to enjoy our rooms and spaces and not be visually overwhelmed. when we've just come off of a day of overwhelm. Well, one of the things that can make any home feel more cluttered than it actually is

is forgetting this rule. Forgetting that whatever sits out is basically a decoration. For example, we have a coat rack by the back door. The coat rack itself is like simple and fine, but it's covered in coats. You don't see the rack. It's just full of coats. And those coats are always there because, you know, everybody needs a sweatshirt or a jacket on their way out the door. I need the coat rack to stay.

I do. The convenience of the coat rack, it matters more than the visual decoration that it creates. I mean, I would love for the coat rack to be completely gone, but we need it to be there. However, I always make sure that the neutral colored jackets are hanging on the outside, not like the bright red Kansas City Chief City, because in my kitchen is being decorated with a bright red Kansas City Chief City. This is why I decant hand soap into a pretty glass pump bottle. That's why I have tissue box covers that hide like the pastel flowers that exist on most tissue boxes. This is why our kitchen often feels more cluttered than other rooms because it's decorated by our drink spinner,

which is that lazy Susan with all the water bottles on it. But guess what? Some things that are left out are worth being out, right? And if I can make them a little prettier, if that matters, like putting the black coats on the outside instead of the red, then I will. You know, the drink spinner is wooden, so that helps. But the bottles and the cups themselves, they're all over the place in terms of color. Again, the kitchen is often decorated with a Kansas City Chief's water bottle.

Ben is a big fan, you guys. The point here is not to hide everything that's ugly or to change every single functional piece into something more aesthetically pleasing to you. It's just more about noticing. If you have a room that feels consistently cluttered, notice why. It could be that the things that are always out are just a bit more colorful or branded or whatever than you realized. And they've disappeared from your sight because they've become normal, but they still have a visual impact. So what do you do with that information?

Well, you might get a tissue box cover to hide the primary color swirls on your tissue box in your living room. You might move the tissues to a different room altogether without a cover because no one ever needs them where the box is anyway. Or you might say, you know, this doesn't really matter to me. It is okay that the tissue box is bright and not my style. But what that knowledge does is it helps you identify why your room might feel more cluttered, which helps you channel your energy into directions that matter. You might not need to rethink systems or feel resentful of a cluttered room when you notice that it just feels that way because you have a lot of things out that are kind of acting as accidental decorations.

You could totally do something about it visually, but you also don't have to. The knowledge sometimes is enough. So I love this house rule from the nestor. If it sits out, it's a decoration, and you can choose what to do with that. So that's a little extra something about a unique way to think about clutter. And now for the lazy genius of the week, this week it is Kathy. from Goshen, Indiana. Goshen is where my friend and delightful author, Shannon Martin, is from.

Shannon is the one who teaches us about counterweights and has a book coming out by that same title in just a few months. So that is so fun. So hi to Goshen. Hi to Shannon. Okay. Now back to Kathy, who writes, during the fall and winter, Sundays are soup making Sundays.

That batch of soup gets my husband and I through the week and I store the leftovers and quart jars in my fridge. If by the end of the week I'm tired of it, I throw it in the freezer. But not if there's dairy or pasta in it. Then later in the season, on nights when I don't know what to cook or I have no leftovers, I have jars of soup to pick from in the freezer. My future self thanks my past self. I love all the soup ideas.

Like bring me all the soup ideas, all the meal prep ideas. Because at some point you hear one and you're like, oh, that one is for me. That would work for me. So maybe this one from Kathy and Goshen is for you. you. Also, there is something so satisfying about a glass jar of soup in the fridge, I swear. The aesthetics of that are just like spot on. So having that is a little constant and your fall winter fridge is lovely. Thank you for sharing Kathy and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. All right. Now let's have a mini pep talk on releasing the pressures of memory

making. Now I already alluded to this, but we're going to hammer at home now. There is so much pressure to make memories. You need to prepare for them. You need to. You need to prepare for them. You need to You need to turn them into traditions. You need to record them for posterity and do the good work of your children and your friends and your people having this thing and printed on them for the rest of their lives. They're going to remember this forever. You guys, it's so much pressure. It's too much pressure. If you were to think about some of your favorite memories as a kid, even as an adult, I bet you have way more small, ordinary ones and big ones.

You probably remember the ordinary things. there's just so much beauty and value there. So as we enter this busy holiday season for many people, this season where memories are supposed to be made, magic is supposed to happen, and you feel in charge of all of it, I am just here to invite you to take a breath and let it go. Let go of the pressure to manufacture and capture.

Let go of the pressure to make everything memorable. Let go of the pressure to label something as a core memory, before it's even begun. Just live your life. Be yourself. Enjoy your people. Be present where you are. Mark it when it's easy and small.

Without the pressure of continuing on forever. And chances are you will remember what matters. And that's a mini pep talk on the pressures of memory making. If you liked this episode and thought of someone who would also love this episode while you were listening, why don't you go ahead and share the link with them. Most podcast apps allow you to share an episode with just a click or two, so go ahead and send this to a friend. Even to a friend who might already be a lazy genius listener, some of us sometimes stop

listening to shows that we usually listen to because of a busy life. So maybe a nudge from you to your friend might be just the thing that they need right now for a little bit of encouragement. You can also leave a kind review on Apple Podcasts, which helps the show get in front of more people, and then we're really grateful for that. It's a small, easy way to support this work. in a really big way. This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office Ladies Network. And speaking of the Office Ladies Network, we are so excited to extend a warm welcome to the newest

show joining the family, How We Made Your Mother. It is a super fun rewatch of the hit TV show, How I Met Your Mother, hosted by Josh Radner, who played Ted Mosby, and co-creator Craig Thomas. You can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts. Josh and Craig, welcome to the Office Ladies' family. 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 latest lazy

listens. It's an email that goes out every other Friday. You can head to the lazy genius collective.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. 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.