The Lazy Genius Podcast - #441 - What to Do When Everything Is a Little Annoying

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

Sometimes I feel like it’ll take just one sassy comment or one missed homework assignment or one line at the store that’s longer than I expected before I just lose it. Sometimes life is like that, and it’s normal and okay. But most of us don’t want to stay there for very long. Today, I’m going to share with you five things to remember and five things to do when everything is a little annoying. Helpful Companion Links Order my book The PLAN or ask your library to consider carrying a copy. Learn about The Playbooks here. Episode #409: How to Parent When Your Kid is Annoying 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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Hey 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 genius. is being a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't and I am so glad you're here today is episode 441 what to do and everything is a little annoying so I feel like my personal levels of annoyance are at an all-time high these days part of that is that I have been sick for what feels like a month so my storehouse of patients is she's starting to wear thin other things like you know busyness in the news a hard season of life hormones children There are a million things that can contribute to us all feeling like low-key irritated kind of all the time. We're fine, but like, are we?

Sometimes I feel like it'll take just one sassy comment or one missed homework assignment or one line at the store that's longer than I expected before I just kind of lose it. Now, sometimes life is like that and it's normal and okay, but most of us don't want to stay there for very long. You know, we don't want to be at the back-end call of our annoyance that also might flip quickly into anger. We don't want to be keyed up or tightly wound or on the verge of having a mini come apart in the carpal line. We want to be calmer and kinder and more at peace with whatever annoying circumstances or people cross our path without it knocking us off the path altogether. So today I'm going to share with you five things to remember.

five things to do when everything is a little annoying. You don't have to remember or do all of them. It's just a collection of reminders and ideas that might help add that calmness and ease. After that, we'll have a little extra something where I share our Halloween plans, particularly our costumes and our candy strategy. This is important stuff, you guys. Then we're going to celebrate the lazy genius of the week with a great post-it note to do list strategy. And we'll end with a mini pep talk for when you're starting to feel numb. Now, before we get into all that. I have a very exciting announcement. Okay, so you guys know about the playbooks, of course. They are fantastic little notebooks broken into three-month seasons that help you plan your life

based on what matters to you right now. They don't necessarily replace your planner, although they have mine, so they could. But they are perfect companions to whatever planning tools you have to help you see your season, to triage your essential tasks and actually do what matters to you. There are places to write down what you're going to decide once about, what your seasonal ceremonies might be, even organized to do-lis week to week throughout those three months. The seasonal playbooks are just fantastic. And since the winter playbook runs from December to February, now is a great time to go ahead and order your winter playbook before December starts, so you haven't in time. But you guys, that is not, that's not the exciting news. I'm just telling

what you already know. Many of you use the playbooks, but you ask things like, hey, could you have a section in the playbooks for trips? Or could you have some pages for like planning like events and parties and stuff? Or could there be a space where I can plan on a project that I'm working on? I would get those suggestions and I would have to play at coy and be like, oh, that's such a great idea all the while knowing that we have been working on four brand new playbooks for months now. And they are now ready for you. Today we are launching four brand new playbooks that are single purpose notebooks based on four areas of your life that you often ask for help in. Travel, projects, celebrations, and yearbook. So here's a quick rundown of what's inside them.

So the travel playbook is a gorgeous green with adorable illustrations of like passports and suitcases and an old VW bus on the inside. It's so cute. So there's a travel list in the front where you can keep track of like all your bucket list places that you want to go. And then a place in the back where you can list out things that you like often forget to pack, you know, that fun ways to answer the magic question, right, for your travel. But the bulk of that travel playbook, it is space for you to brainstorm and plan up to five trips. You can plot out ideas for them. You can keep track of details that you might forget. Now, obviously, a lot of folks use all kinds of like online services and mapping apps to manage

trips, and you still will. But for me, I also just want to like jot down ideas before heading into the abyss of the internet. Like, I want to remember why my trip matters, like what everyone's top priority is so that we can make sure that we hit what matters to every single person going. Even write down some of those to-dos so they don't get forgotten in the rhythms of everyday life. That is what your travel playbook is for. So the celebrations playbook, that's the second one. It is bright pink. It's got cake and disco balls on the inside cover. It's so fun. It has a similar list in the front as the travel playbook with like ideal celebrations. that you're hoping for. So some things you might write are obvious, like birthdays, but you can also

write down things that are less obvious, like celebrating finishing grad school or hosting a movie marathon party or throwing a gathering for your friends just to celebrate each other. Someone recently asked, like, how do you make space for actually planning out these things? I'll have these ideas, but then I don't know what to do with them. This is the purpose of this celebrations playbook. So there's planning space for six celebrations. You can name the purpose of that celebration. what matters about it, what details you even want to remember. At the end of each one, you can even write down like reflections after that celebration is over. There's space you can paste in a photo if you want to.

And then in the back of the celebrations playbook is a space to keep track of recipes that worked, activities and traditions that worked. And then a few blank pages for your own list too. It's like your own little party slash holiday handbook. Then there's the projects playbook. It is orange because orange gets stuff done. So this playbook takes a lot of its organization from the chapter, how to plan a project in my book, The Plan.

So you have space to answer questions to help you know if this project is actually worth doing. Then there is space to, you know, set deadlines and priorities, plenty more space to actually break down the project into its decisions and its tasks. You can fit five projects in the project's playbook. And it is great for things like a renovation, setting up a will or trust, helping your kid figure out where they're going to going to go to college, getting all the holiday gifts. This is the playbook for those things that are just like too big and unwieldy for a planner or a post-it note, but they still like, you need to get

it done, right? And then finally, the yearbook playbook is kind of my personal favorite, just because I think every grown-up needs her own yearbook. So this one is like the prettiest bright blue. It's kind of like a collegiate blue. And the whole point of this one is to create space for you to reflect on and remember what your life is like right now and the joy and fun that it has. So it's like your personal compilation of what matters most. You'll answer what is true of you right now. You can list your favorite things. There's a place for like your Someday list, which is my version of a bucket list that I talk about in the plan. It's a place to capture things you want to remember from this year. It is so tender. It is so fun. I love it so much. I love them all so much. They look great.

They are perfectly lazy genius in helping you focus on what actually matters and let go of what does not, and they can be great companions to your seasonal playbooks as you continue to have a life that matters to you. So you can find all the details about the four new playbooks as well as order your winter playbook if you're up to it at the lazy genius collective.com slash playbooks. And if you already planned on getting the entire seasonal bundle of all four seasons, and you also have an eye on like multiple new playbooks, all eight, you can buy all eight packaged together at a discounted price. But still, all of them are extremely affordable individually anyway. Like, you can totally just get a winter and like a yearbook to get you ready for 2026 and not

use another playbook ever. Like, they're very, very affordable individually. So that was a big overview. Thank you for listening. And really for supporting not just our small business with your purchase, but also another. Our partner in design, printing, and fulfillment for these playbooks is an amazing small business out of Asheville, North Carolina, called Otter Pine. They, like the Lazy Genius Collective, are woman-owned, mission-driven, and full of integrity, and a dedication to excellence. We love working with them. And both of our businesses are extremely grateful, extremely grateful for your support of us. So thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, let's take an ad break, which makes this episode free for you to listen

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with Amazon. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sit. Play. Post. Taste. View and enjoy. Via rail. Love the way. Okay, let's talk about what to do and everything is a little annoying. So being annoyed, I mean, listen, that's not the worst thing in the world, but I think most of you listening would not mind the frequency going down a bit. But maybe you're just like a naturally annoyed to person. Some of us are like that. I'm kind of like that. So if you can't really control the frequency, if you're like, this is my lot in life, maybe you would like to not stay annoyed for as long as you normally do. You know, maybe for you, it's like the duration. So even if you're going to feel it, which is expected, you would like a path to move out of it, kindly and quickly, if possible.

because for some of us, annoyance left unchecked or untended, it leads to things like anger, resentment, blame, a host of other things that can impact our energy and our relationships. If my annoyance turns to anger, I definitely, like, I don't want to start yelling at my people because of something silly. You know, I don't want that to happen. I don't want to escalate like that. Obviously, it does happen, but I would like to happen, I would like it to happen less, right? and have some tools that help it not last as long.

I think of annoyance, kind of like a mosquito bite. Like if you scratch the annoyance, if you irritate it further by either like yelling or escalating or letting the next annoying thing pile onto the first, the itch gets worse, right? The irritation gets worse. So instead of stimulating the irritation, we need to soothe it. Just like you do with a mosquito bite, you don't scratch. watch it, you so I want to share five things to remember and then five things to do when everything is a little annoying that can help soothe that irritation. You don't have to remember all

10 of these things. Just listen for like even one that feels like it would help you when you feel annoyed, especially in whatever season of life that you are in. So let's start with the five things to just simply remember. Number one, remember that annoyance is in the eye of the beholder. I said this in the episode about parenting when your kids are annoying. Kids are not inherently annoying. People are not inherently annoying. That is not a person's identity. In fact, you might be in the same situation as another person like a long line at the store and you are annoyed and the person in front of you is not or vice versa. Annoyance is in the eye of the beholder. It's really about your own engagement with whatever is disrupting your peace or your plans. So genuinely, when you are

annoyed, I'm just encouraging you to remember that the operative approach here is that you are annoyed, not that the person or circumstance is annoying. When you center your own response to the situation, I think it might help you have more kindness towards that person or more serenity about the situation. You are currently annoyed. They are not annoying. You can see this difference majorly in our house when it comes to homework. So I get so easily annoyed by kids complaining about homework or procrastinating on their homework or whining through the entire process of doing their homework. It's like the frequency of my body is directly tuned to the frequency of their resistance to homework and I just get so tightly wound about it. Like my voice gets.

gets faster and higher. My body moves faster. Like I'm clearly, clearly annoyed and I'm like, homework is annoying or my kid's response to this homework is annoying. Really, I'm just the one who is annoyed. It's very normal. Their response is actually very normal. And then, cause, my husband, he's not annoyed at all. We're literally standing next to each other, looking at a kid who is to me being completely illogical about their two hours of AP math homework. And Cos is over here calm and and even sits there to help field homework questions for this kid. It's like the same situation, but our responses are completely different. The annoyance is originating with me, not the situation.

If it was about the situation, Kau would also be just as annoyed as I am. So I just find that to be like a genuinely helpful thing to remember. People and situations are not inherently annoying. The level of annoyance actually comes from me. It weirdly puts things in perspective and it starts to calm me down. So that's the first thing to remember. The second thing that you might want to remember, annoyance is usually cumulative. Imagine that you have started the day and nothing has made you annoyed, right?

Everything is moving like fairly smoothly. You slept. Your personal storehouses are full. You're just like happy to be living life. Everything's fine. Okay. then let's say a kid spills a cup of milk in the kitchen or a co-worker is late getting you their part of a project before you can start on yours. If you have had a fairly like unannoying

day so far, those circumstances they might not set off much annoyance in you. Like you're probably not going to explode over the spilled milk or you're going to give your coworker like passive aggressive dressing down. You'll have more patience and kindness available to you because you haven't gotten bit by the mosquito yet. You know what I mean? But, let's say the milk happens after you realize you're out of coffee and after one of your other kids got on the bus without their lunch and after you found a zit on your face, even though you're 38 years old, the milk spill might require a few more deep breath from you to not get all out of sorts about it. Or maybe you do get out of sorts because you have already had an accumulation of annoyed responses to a series of things.

same as true of the coworker who's late with a task. If you sat through a useless meeting to start your workday, and then you found out the staff room coffee pot was out of coffee and nobody brewed another one, and then your co-workers said they didn't have their part of the project yet. I mean, you can picture it. You might even be able to feel it like in your body. At the bare minimum, you're letting out a very deep sigh. That coworker is going to know you're annoyed, even if you try and be diplomatic about it.

Because you've already had a series of things that made you a little bit annoyed. And when you have a series of slight annoyances build up without metabolizing them, without getting them out of your body, we just get more and more annoyed. Annoyance is cumulative. Now, the reason this reminder is helpful, it's two things. It helps you sense your big black trash bag energy. like if you have an accumulation of annoyances and then you start to solve really big problems with really big strong solutions, you can look back and go like, oh, no, wait, this is an

accumulation of annoyances. This isn't actually a big problem. Then I need to try to solve right now. We don't want to do that anyway, but you can see that better, right? Now, the other thing it helps you do is it just puts your level of annoyance like into perspective, right? You can just ask yourself, like, have I had a series of things that have made me annoyed? You know, like, are you annoyed by this rather benign thing that would not have bothered you yesterday at all, right?

If you're a person who likes to understand your patterns of behavior, recognizing the accumulation of annoyance might be a really hopeful tool for you. It's a line of dominoes, y'all. They start falling real fast after that first one tips. And there's kindness in that knowledge. It helps you be more compassionate towards yourself and towards yourself and towards. towards whatever is actually happening around you. You can go like, oh, it's not the thing itself. It's my response to the thing or to the accumulation of the things.

So that is number two. Anoints is cumulative. Number three, you can remember that you can be annoyed without being mean. For me, y'all, that line is like kind of razor thin. If you're an enneagram person, I'm a one, which means I'm in the anger triad. I don't really feel shame that much. I don't fear very many things. Those are the things that primarily exist in the other two enneagram triads.

For me, it's anger. For some of you listening, whether you care about the anagram or not, you have a direct line to anger. So you're likely to get annoyed and more quickly move to anger than other people. Now, being angry does not equal being mean. Sometimes we need to get angry. There is nothing wrong with anger. But again, the line can get muddy where we feel annoyed and then maybe.

maybe escalate quickly to anger, which can turn mean really quickly. You can be annoyed. I can be annoyed without being mean. Remember that. You can experience annoyance at something silly or benign or even something that does kind of matter. You can even express that you are irritated by that situation without being mean to the other person about it. The other day I was home with two of my three kids. It was coming up on dinner time. We were all a little tired. I was still a little sick. And so I was like, hey, what do you all want for dinner? I'm going to go, I'm going to go get takeout.

What do you guys want? Let's pick something out. Well, the two kids who were home with me, they chose fast food because, of course, and they chose a restaurant I don't love. Because frankly, I don't love a whole lot of fast food except for Arby's because that rice beef sandwich is delicious. But I also was like, I was great getting a burger from this place. It was no big deal.

Plus, this place has a particular dessert that I love. I haven't had in years, which would make this dinner work for me. You know, it was going to be fine. It was going to be fine. So I order our food in the app. I go to the drive-thru to get the food. The guy at the window tells me that the food is not ready yet and to pull up a little. I do that with a smile on my face. No big deal. Waiting is fine. It often happens at places. No big deal. 20 minutes later, I am still sitting there with no food. Now, as those 20 minutes tick by, I'm actively trying to not be annoyed. Like, I know that things happen out of my control, right? It's also 20 minutes. Like, it's fine. But I'm also thinking, Hmm. I bet they made my special dessert when the other order, like when the rest of the order came through. And now that special dessert has been sitting there for 20 minutes, melting. So the day, the guy comes out with the bag of food and a tray of special desserts, because my kids had never had one of these special desserts before.

And the special desserts are for sure melted, for sure. I say to him, hey, it looks like these melted while the rest of the food was being. made. So can I get new ones, please? And he said, well, the machine has to be, it had to be reset. You got the last one. So it'll be like another five or ten minutes. And I definitely deep side, because of course, I'm feeling now. The accumulation was happening, right? So I took the food and I was like, I know it's not your fault. I know it's not your fault. But I really wish these weren't melted. And he said, I'm sorry, ma'am. You can definitely wait. He was like kind enough about it. It was great. Now, I decided to not wait because I had been gone for a long time already, and I just needed to, I just wanted to leave. So I pulled a hat to leave. But then I was like,

let me check the bag of food. I didn't check the food. And an order of fries was missing. Now, I don't know if you've ever ordered fast food for children before, but fry math is essential. Like, there are no missing of fries. You don't show up at home with fewer fries than anticipated. So I definitely felt the annoyance level rising because I had already waited for a long time and I still had the wrong food. But I also did not want to be mean. You can be annoyed. I can be annoyed without being mean. So I pulled back into the parking lot. I took a deep breath before I did because I actively was like, I don't want to be mean here. It's okay for me to be annoyed and to get what I need. But I don't want to be. I don't have to be mean to make that happen. I'm just like,

be kind, be kind. You don't know the whole story here. So I walk in and the manager is there. The manager's behavior was definitely impacting the whole room. She did not seem very happy to be there or happy to, you know, help the people that were waiting for food. But that's not for me to change, right? I'm still going to be aware of my own behavior. And so I was like, I was truthful, but I was also kind. I was like, hi. I just came through the drive-thru with an online order. I'm missing an order of fries. I wasn't mean because being mean is not a value that I hold. I don't want to be mean. Now, I can be annoyed. And I can even be angry without being mean without degrading another person or shaming them or blaming them. So I waited for the fries for a little while. And while I did, the guy who

brought me my food outside, you know, and told me about the special dessert machine. He walked up and I was like, hey, I ended up having to wait for some missing fries for my order. Can you check the machine again and see if I can get fresh special desserts? Again, not me. Now, he knew that at this point I had been there for 30 minutes. Like, the annoyance was real. That I didn't have to be mean to him and asking for what I wanted and what I think was also perfectly within my right to ask for. I share that story because it is a common one, right? We're out in the world. We expect a certain level of like attention or speed or service or something, wherever we are. and we don't get it and we get annoyed. That annoyance almost certainly accumulates because usually a tough customer service situation, it doesn't have just one element to it and that accumulation builds up very quickly. But we can still be in that place without being mean. And I think reminding ourselves of that is another pathway to kindness and calm. You don't have to be mean. You don't have to ignore or swallow the frustration. You can kindly share the frustration. You can acknowledge the irritating circumstances without assigning blame to a specific person. And all of that can

happen both within you and outside of you without being mean. I just think that's really good to remember. I know it is for me. That's why I was like, be kind, be kind, be kind. Meanness here doesn't help. And it's also not a value I want to hold. It's not who I want to be in the world. And I don't think it is how you want to be in the world either. Okay, so that's number three. Number four, remember that you have a say here just like that story i just told you have a say and how you're going to respond to being annoyed now sometimes you need a minute to breathe and access some softness so that you're not mean or so that you don't say or do something that will require repair but you do have a say in how you are going to respond other people do not force our hand when it comes to our behavior

Now, the caveat here, which I think is obvious but also needs to be said, is that there are obviously like abuses and traumas and mental illnesses. There are things that are much more complicated about the sentence I just said. Like I very much own that that other people don't force our hand in those situations. That's a different conversation. What we're talking about today is things that are just annoying, right? They're not abuses. They're not anything deeply tied to. our mental health. We're just annoyed that the cashier's taking so long or that the person waiting

for their prescription is obviously huffing and puffing about having to wait, even though everyone in line is having to wait. And clearly, they're short-staffed back there. These are the things that we do have a say in. We have agency in how we choose to respond, because it is a choice. Hopefully, this list of reminders, and in a minute the things that we can do to help us recognize that choice, they help us slow down enough to remove ourselves from the emotional response of the situation and instead make like an aware, behavioral choice. Because again, I know that you guys listening, you're a group that wants to be kind in the world. Like that's so beautiful.

It's so beautiful and necessary and impactful. And we're also human beings that need tools to help us do that, right? So that's number four. Remember you have a say. And then the fifth thing to remember is that this is manageable. This is manageable. Sometimes annoyance grows exponentially until we're making like broad generalizations about a person or a situation. We might say things like, you always do this.

Or I'm not dealing with us anymore. Or this happens every time. Like we remove ourselves from any responsibility or any offering of support when we start to think that the circumstances. itself is too annoying for us to even deal with. We just like walk out, sometimes literally. But this is manageable. Annoyance is manageable. If it's not, there's probably another layer underneath that might need some professional support, and that's really good to know. That again, in this like daily, regular, everything is a little annoying season. Remember that

this is manageable. Your response can be managed. You can be managed. You can find a way to kindly and calmly and honestly deal with whatever annoyance you're facing. It's not just that you have a say, that you have agency and your choices. It's also that the situation itself is probably something that can be fixed or tended to or left without a fix or attend, but it's manageable to stay, let's say, in a line of grumpy people waiting in the pharmacy line and not feel like you have to change their minds and make them all willing to see that we're all waiting here. It reminds me of the serenity prayer.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. So whether we, the situation can be managed, or our response to the situation can be managed by recognizing, I'm not going to change people's minds here. Like, that's not for me to do. Like, it's manageable maybe to stay in line.

and even be grumpy yourself, but not be mean to the person who eventually offers you whatever you're waiting for. And then you can leave without being mean. Like all of that is manageable, right? Nothing is beyond a small solution, even if that solution is just like kindness, right, in that moment, right? It's manageable. So the things to remember are annoyance is in the eye of the beholder. Annoyance is cumulative. You can be annoyed without being mean. You have a say in how you respond to whatever you're annoyed by. And this is manageable. I don't know about you, but like even saying those things, like I feel I feel more at ease in my body. Like it's calming. Like we're just remembering the truth. And it's a really helpful truth. Now let's talk about some of the things

that you can actually do to help you deal with life when everything is a little annoying. We'll run through these a little more quickly because they're going to make a ton of sense based on what we've already said. So first, slow down. Slow your breathing, slow your speech, slow your body, like slow your walk. Just slow down. Annoyance can often feel frantic and fast moving. You know, I don't see anyone who is relaxed and annoyed at the same time, you know. So counteract the speed of your annoyance by slowing down. Just take a deep breath, pause before saying anything in response to a person, you know, look at the person in their eye, like for a beat before you say anything. Maybe put a smile on your face.

If you feel like you can do that, slow your unkind thoughts about that person or about people or about the situation. Just slow down. The second thing you can do is to notice when you are exaggerating or generalizing and stop doing it. So when you catch yourself using words like never and always and every time, you know, your annoyance is going to become more annoying. Like you're just scratching that mosquito bite.

So instead, soothe the annoyance by speaking the truth about the situation. Don't exaggerate it. Don't generalize it. Take it for what it is right now. Back to the homework example. One of the things that I find myself doing often is generalizing one of my kids' homework patterns. So I see his resistance to doing his homework as a pattern. of disrespect.

It's a pattern of disrespect. Like every time he argues about it, I connect that argument. Well, actually, not every time. Not every time. But a lot of the time, see, I'm catching my own generalization. A lot of the time, I connect that argument from him with the one from the day before and the day before that and the day before that. I do often generalize that he is constantly being a person.

pill about his homework, that it's about the homework. It's about him and the disrespect and the homework. It's this triangulation situation. That really, when I slow down and back up and not make everything general or exaggerated, really the consistency is that he has ADHD. He does not have the same executive functioning skills that I do. He's also probably an Enneagram 7. Sorry from our anagram talk. Basically, this kid is wired to look at the next fun thing. Like, his favorite thing is what hasn't happened yet. He loves dreaming and looking ahead and homework will never be his first choice. Like, he will never do it without being annoyed that he has to because there's so many other things he'd rather be doing. It's just how he's made. Plus, his executive functioning challenges,

they don't supply him with the natural skill set to have the discipline or the habits to do his homework the same way every day. So for me, by stepping back and noticing where I am generalizing in saying things like, he just never wants to do his homework, instead I can be like he is wired in such a way that homework is going to be a struggle most of the time. And I need to stop expecting him to just do it without prompting or with a great attitude. This understanding helps me have compassion for him. It helps me see the truth about what's going on, not some exaggerated or generalized assessment that is immovable and forever going to be annoying. So notice when you're using words like always and never and every time and making blanket statements about something that is annoying you. Pause that thinking,

slow down and look at it critically, just right there. That is soothing instead of creating further irritation. The third thing you can do is to check your expectations. That connects to the homework story too. Like, what are your expectations of this thing? Your annoyance is going to be tied to your unmet expectations. So examine them. Like, what am I expecting right now? Like, that's a really I mean, I know I tell you all to ask what matters right now. I also think another valuable question to ask in the moment is what am I expecting right now? And is that expectation, like a little more than I'm probably going to get. Like I must set myself up to be annoyed here.

Manage your expectations. That's usually easier and longer lasting than becoming exponentially annoyed as those expectations are not meant. So that's number three. Check your expectations. Four, disrupt your funk. Okay, this one is super practical. If you are in your home and you have a slew of things that have gone against your plan

or just that your annoyance is like out, outlive and loud. And you're just like, something you can do is just disrupt the funk. So last night, we were watching football, as we often do in the Adachi house, me and Kha's and our two boys. Well, this past week, my boys are playing against each other in their fantasy football league. Brothers are inherently competitive, and mine definitely are. Well, one of the boys was getting into a funk big time. he was losing to his brother. He was spiraling seeing every play that we were watching on TV, every play that took points

away from him as though it came from the universe itself. Like at one point he had a physical outburst and he said the universe hates me with visible emotion. And I was like, okay, hold on. Let's slow down. Let's take a deep breath real quick. I think what's happening is that you're upset, which is okay, but you're staying there and it's getting worse.

So let's disrupt it. I use that phrase. I use that phrase a lot. Let's disrupt it. Let's do something different. You can go take a shower. We can play around a banana grams. What should we do?

And then cause, my husband, who pays attention to what people want, he remembered that just an hour before this same kid had said, man, we haven't had cake in a while. Cake would be so good. And in that moment, he offered to take that kid to Whole Foods at 8.30 at night to get a piece of cake, to disrupt his spiral, to fix it. his funk. Now, food doesn't have to be the fixer. I'm not, I'm not necessarily saying that, but he came back home. They left. They came back home, you know, 30 minutes later. He came back home like a different kid. Like he was back to the essence of himself. And he said, as he sat at the table eating this

piece of cake, he said, Mom, I feel so much better. We should have just, we just have emergency cake in the fridge at all times when I need a disruption. And I was like, you know what, bud? star a small man we don't have to like turn today into a thing that works forever i'm just glad you found like a happy disruption and we'll find another one the next time you need it and he goes fair point and then he ate his cake disrupt the funk you can play music you know you can play fun music and like dance around your house even though you're annoyed you can go for a run you can call a friend who makes you laugh like when i say go for a run i literally mean like run around the block or like run down your driveway.

Like you don't have to go for like a mile run in the woods. I know a lot of you don't even have time for that in the moment that you're annoyed. They just like move your body. Call a friend. Laugh. You can say to the people that you live with who are annoying you maybe, I'm going to go outside and get the mail. I'll be back in a minute.

And you're going to walk slowly to your mailbox. And you're going to feel the sun on your face. And you're going to take a deep breath. And you're going to maybe think that all of this awareness is kind of stupid. But you're disrupting the funk just for a second. Sometimes when we have a series of things that annoy us or we just can't seem to have a day when we're not feeling annoyed, we sort of feel like this is our lot, right? This is just how it is. This is not manageable.

I'm going to be annoyed all the time. That does not have to be where you land. Just disrupt your funk. It dislodges us from the power of that funk just for now, just for right now. And it really helps. Also to offer a similar caveat to before, this is not a substitute for mental health support. This is not, funk is not the same as depression or anxiety. This is just annoyance in the moment.

So under no circumstances, do I believe or support that you can just like disrupt your clinical depression with like a fun song with like Harry Styles or something? That's not what I'm saying. This is just for annoyance. Disrupt your funk. Disrupt your annoyance funk. And it does help. And finally, the fifth thing that you can do is to access kindness. This might be kindness from breathing, you know, like getting back to yourself a little bit, from the recognition of the value that you hold of the person in front of you. It could be kindness from the Holy Spirit, from any number of places for you personally. But accessing softness and kindness with in ourselves, it's its own disruption. When you're a little annoyed by everything, you're also probably a little hard.

Grumpiness and annoyance, they have edges, you know? They're not round or fluid. That's okay. But accessing softness and kindness from within yourself, whatever your source is for that, it will counteract some of those hard edges. It'll help you be the kind, calm, present person that I know you want to be in that moment in the pharmacy line, in the carpool line, in the drive-thru line, in all the lines, in your house during homework, at work during meetings that take time away from the worker actually paid

to do. There's no shortage of circumstances and people that can trigger our annoyance. But if you actively seek softness and kindness, if that is an intention that you bring, if you can identify where that comes from for you, then you can open that line as often as you need it, which for me is pretty constantly. So to summarize,

when you're feeling like everything is a little annoying, remember that annoyance is in the eye of the beholder. Annoyance is cumulative. You can be annoyed without being mean. You have a say and how you respond to whatever you're annoyed by, and this is manageable. If you would like something to actively do as you remember any of those things, you can slow down. You can notice when you're exaggerating or generalizing and make a different, more truthful choice.

You can check your expectations, make sure they're not out of whack. You can disrupt the funk and you can access softness and kindness within yourself. And that is what to do when everything is. a little annoying. 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. For today's A Little Extra

something. I'm going to share what we're doing for Halloween because Halloween is this week. So this year, it's a bit weird because as you know, Halloween is on a Friday night, which means Sam, our oldest, he's going to be playing at a football game. Now, it is an away game and we have a decide once in our family to not go to away games as a family. So he will not be with us for Halloween, which is weird and sad in a season. And it's okay that it's weird and sad in the season. But anyway, so he's not going to be with us. My mom lives down the street. street. And so we usually go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood with her and with the cousins. And Caz and Ben often stay back to give out candy. Now, can I tell you our favorite candy tip?

Our house is in a busy Halloween neighborhood that our street itself is hit or miss. Sometimes we get a ton of kids and other times it's like it's crickets. So here's what we do. We only buy Halloween candy that our family personally loves to eat. Meaning we don't buy the big bags. with like multiple kinds of candy all in one bag. We buy a giant bag of snack packs of Sour Patch Kids or Albany's gummy bears because those are our top two candy picks in the Adachi house. That way if we have extras, no harm done. That candy, it will absolutely get eaten and with much gusto.

So we just buy one kind of candy or two kinds of candy that we love in our house rather than the big giant bags. Because then you're just left with like, I don't know, a bunch of Mr. Good bars or something, and it's just a pain. All right. So now for costumes. I usually let Annie drive the ship on that.

So last year, she and, well, actually it was two years ago because I missed Halloween last year because I was out doing book tour stuff for the plan. But two years ago, she and my niece wanted to go as fairy princesses. And they decided that me and my mom and my sister, we were given the task. of being a trio of evil witches out to get them.

It was like a whole thing. So funny. So we gladly went along with it. It was great. Well, this year, Annie has decided to go, you guys, you're not ready. She's decided to go as a fancy businesswoman, her words. So she has this cream pea coat that she like loves. It's like her winter coat.

She loves it. And it's long. And to her, it's kind of fancy, you know, it's like black buttons or whatever. And she's wearing these like high heels. heeled boot things and like a power skirt and sunglasses and she's carrying her on a cell phone having like very serious conversations. She's collecting candy in a briefcase. Like it's the most, it's the most amazing thing.

And like all pretty much her idea. So my task was to figure out something I could be that went along with her costume. So you guys, I'm going as her bodyguard. I'm wearing like a black suit and white buttonedown shirt and sunglasses and an earpiece. and I'm going to look very serious as I stand with her at all times. The only thing I had to get, too, was the earpiece. And it was $6. Like, this is how I dress anyway.

So this is when, this is actually when wearing, like, mostly black and white men's wear in your regular life. It comes in handy. So anyway, that is, that is what we're wearing. I don't, I don't usually, I don't always, sometimes I do. I don't always post Halloween photos on Instagram, because y'all know I don't do a lot of posting on Instagram anyway. especially as my kids get older and they don't always want people to see things. So I don't know if you'll get to actually see this, but I did want to share that you can imagine, I'm telling you now, that Annie is going as a fancy business woman and I'm going as her bodyguard.

And it's maybe my favorite costume pairing that's ever happened. So that's a little extra something for today. All right, it's time to celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week it is Rachel from Maryland. Rachel writes, my husband and I have a toddler who just started preschool and a six-month-old, and we just sold our house in June, lived with my in-laws for two months, and finally moved into our new house a couple weeks ago. Getting our house unpacked and figuring out how we wanted everything organized has been extremely overwhelming

on top of parenting two small children and both of us working full time. There are so many tasks on my to-do list that I mostly procrastinate everything because they don't know where to start. Well, today I decided to try to be a lazy genius, so I started putting tasks on Post-it notes. Then arranging those Post-it notes in order of priority. The ones at the top were categorized as necessary for my sanity, so I prioritized getting this done first. The next set of tasks would make me feel better if they were done. The third set can wait if needed. It's kind of like, now, soon later, never mind.

Once I had my priority set, I got to work with the most important ones that I felt would take away the most stress and overwhelm. I didn't make it down to the second set of tasks today, but I feel so much better knocking off those bigger tasks. Okay, Rachel, of course. Oh my gosh. I love this so much. Again, it's just like now, soon later, never mind, where you can, you prioritize in terms of like urgency of things. But also, I cannot express to you guys how putting individual tasks on either like sticky notes or index cards or scrap paper or whatever and then moving them around with your actual hands helps with task prioritization. It is the best thing ever.

I think for a lot of people, it's how your brain wants to organize things and it more accurately prioritizes for you because you can switch things around. You're not just reading off a list. You can really move it around until it feels right. So if you are feeling overwhelmed by like all there is to do and whatever project you're in in your life, like put the task. on individual papers and move them around and like now soon later never mind prioritize what would really has to happen in order to kind of eliminate some of that overwhelm for you so this is a great

application rachel and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week okay so as we close let's have a mini pet talk for when you're feeling numb some of you are like i'm not annoyed I am too numb to be annoyed. You have turned off everything because it's like all too hard. Now, I'm not a mental health expert here. I am not a professional. I am a random lady who has been through the fire, who's done a mess of therapy,

and who sees the simple within the complex. And so as that person who is just your kind internet big sister who wants to encourage you, I just want to say that going numb, I think it means you care. I think that when we numb, it's because the feelings that we have, even about like ordinary things, they just feel like too much. We can't process them.

We can't sit with them. Those feelings, they feel threatening sometimes. So if that's you, if you feel numb, I want to encourage you that I think in some ways that's like a beautiful testament to how much you care. When we care big, when we feel big, it's beautiful. and it takes a lot out of us. And it's often unsustainable, which leads us to just shutting down if we don't have tools. So while I don't have any wise words about how not to be numb anymore, I think that's a personal path that's probably helped by professional guidance. I do want to just say that what you're protecting behind your numbness is beautiful and worth preserving.

I want it to be out in your world, protected and tended to and cared for, wise, that all of that emotion and all of those raw nerves that you just like can't keep open, they're a beautiful part of you. They're an asset to this world, not something to tamp down. So take that however you need to if you are feeling numb. We all value what it is you are trying to protect. And that's your mini pep talk on when you're feeling numb. 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 hugely helpful even though they are very small tasks. So thank you so much for doing that. This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office Ladies Network. If you missed it last week, the Office Ladies Network got a new family member, the show How We Made Your Mother, which is the How I Met Your Mother rewatch show with Josh Radner and Craig Thomas. It is now part of the Office Ladies Network family and we're so happy to have them. If you're a fan of the TV show, you should definitely go listen to the podcast. 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. That is our email that goes out every other Friday with a summary of the show. You can head to the lazy genius collective.com slash listens. 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. If 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.