The Lazy Genius Podcast - Decide What You’re Done With

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Y’all, I always struggle this time of year. The two weeks before school starts have historically left me feeling stressed, anxious, and ready for some simplicity. The simplicity does come (sort of) with the start of the school year and a normal routine, but all of the scurrying and extras can wear a person down.Today, I want to share a way to think about your time commitments and responsibilities through a Lazy Genius lens so that you can decide what you’re done with and remove that thing so that you can leave space for what matters more.Helpful Companion LinksOrder my book The PLAN or ask your library to consider carrying a copyEpisode #322: What to Do with Random Pockets of TimeHouse Hushing by Myquillyn Smith (The Nester)Sign up for our every-other-week podcast recap emailSign up for my once-a-month newsletterGrab a copy of my book The Lazy Genius Kitchenor The Lazy Genius Way! (Affiliate links)Download a transcript of this episodeWant to share your Lazy Genius of the Week idea with us? Use this form to tell us about it or record your idea and share your voice on the show.

Welcome to the lazy genius podcast where we all get to be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Every Monday, you'll learn to compassionately manage your time, wisely solve problems, and kindly live in your season. I am your host, Kendra Adachi, and I am so glad you're here. Today is episode 483. Decide what you're done with. Y'all, I always struggled this time of year. The two weeks before school starts have historically left me feeling stressed and anxious and ready for some simplicity. The simplicity does come, like, sort of, with the start of the school year and a normal routine, but all of the scurrying and extras can wear a person a down. I try to pay attention to that feeling and let it teach me

something, just like we all do when we live in our season. Certain seasons are inherently stressful or difficult. But rather than like curling up into a ball until it's over, it's good to see what that season is trying to say, what it's teaching you about yourself and what really matters. For me, August is always a great month to do this to help me see what in my life doesn't need to be there. It's almost like when you move houses, you know, when you're like packing up one house to move into another and you open a closet and you think, a lot, I'm not. I'm a lot. I don't want to deal with any of this. And I don't think I even really need any of it. And so it all gets donated before you even move from one place to another. That's kind of how seasonal transitions can be, too.

They shine a light on the metaphorical closet of our lives. And we're like, I don't think I really need this anymore. So that's what we're going to do today. But with schedules instead of closets, I want to share a way to think about your time commitments and your responsibilities through a lazy genius lens so that you can decide what you're done with and remove that thing so you can leave space for what matters more. This feels like a great time of year to learn that skill before you start saying yes to a lot of new things and then like regret it come November. Now have no fear. What follows is not some like elaborate formula or like this step by step approach that's like super detailed. I'm not going to teach you something complicated at the end of August because I like you too much

and I'm not I'm not a main person. Simple is what we want. I'm just giving you a lens. Okay. In fact, we're going to approach this like we do a to-do list. Remember how when you have one long to-do list, one long list of errands and responsibilities and projects and chores, it all feels like too much. The list by itself is too overwhelming, which is why we love to break it down into smaller pieces, right? We love using the lazy genius framework now, soon, later, and never mind. You look at that big list and you go, okay, what needs to be done now? Like, for real. What does need to happen soon, but like not right now?

And then what can wait until later? What doesn't even need to be on this list at all? Making your overwhelming to-do list smaller makes it easier to accomplish. The same is true when you're trying to decide what you're done with. If you look at your whole life with one big sweep, like a giant to-do list, you will have no idea what you can adjust, what you can remove, so that you can leave space for what matters more. Because it all feels important.

Nothing has any give. Well, there is give, but you can't see it if you're just like, if I come at you and I'm like, we just need to do a life audit, you guys. that is too overwhelming. So today I'm going to teach you a simple way to look at your life so you can make the pieces smaller and then wisely decide what you're done with. So I thought about this for a really long time. And I think that pretty much everything you do, everything you spend your time on, it falls into one of four categories, okay? Responsibilities, commitments, pleasures, and distractions. Now, of course, plenty of things fit into two categories at once, right? But in general,

every single thing you do is either a responsibility, a commitment, a pleasure, or a distraction. Let's break them down real quick, just a little bit. So responsibilities are things you have to do, things that you personally are responsible for. And if you don't do them, they don't happen. So that could be various chores, your roles at work, eating, sleeping, the list is very long. Okay. So responsibilities are things you have to do. Commitments are things you said you'll do, things that you are now responsible for, but are not like required for living or for very long. These are things like heading up a committee at work, being on the PTA board, personal commitments, like walking a certain number of steps every day or taking your dad's dog

for a walk while he's sick, right? That's commitments, things that you said you'll do. Pleasures are things you like to do, things that bring you joy or fulfillment in some way. This is an easier list to make, but harder to actually do in real life. Hang out with friends, play games, go to the movies, take care of a garden, try the new pizza place in town, any kind of hobby or activity you love. Pleasures are things you like to do. And then finally, distractions are things you thoughtlessly do that are neither responsibilities nor commitments. And you don't actually probably get that much pleasure from them. An obvious example is being on your phone.

After a certain point, the pleasure is more about the chase rather than what you actually are watching because that's just how algorithms work. But another distraction could be over planning your week to get control, spending two hours like meticulously highlighting and organizing something that will get used for maybe 72 hours, max. I think that gathering information before making a decision can sometimes be a distraction. I did this recently actually with making Instagram content. I want to be on Instagram as a creator more often, but without compromising on certain

things or feeling like a robot when I'm on there. And instead of just like making a piece of content, I spent hours and hours watching reels about how to make content. And I still did not make any content. that research, that was a distraction. Maybe a few minutes would have been fine, but like hours, guys, taking notes at 1130 and night when I'm exhausted and I need to go to sleep, no, that's not, no. So those are the four categories.

Responsibilities, things you have to do. Commitments, things you said you do. Pleasures, things you like to do. And distractions, things you mindlessly do that don't really matter. Now, if you want right now, you can make a list. Sure. You could write down your responsibilities. you could write down your commitments and your pleasures and your distractions for this season that you're in.

But that's really only if you would enjoy it and it would help you see them more. But I don't think that's actually necessary. What is necessary is asking yourself, what can you let go of in each of these categories? But I am not talking about specific things like let go of consistent laundry or let go of being in charge of teacher appreciation day or any, I mean, I think that's fine. But really, What I think that you need to consider letting go of are the emotional currents running beneath these four categories. They are far more powerful than the tangible choices you make and they are impacting the tangible choices that you make. How you see and feel about your responsibilities will impact your time more than the nitty-gritty management of those responsibilities.

So that's what we're going to do next, which is why I don't think you need to make a list quite yet. I mean, you can't. You're a grown-up. Go for it. But that's not what we're going to do together. Okay. So if we're talking about deciding what we're done with, that means you're letting something go, right? If you're done with it, it's gone. So let's decide what to let go of in each of these categories, but on like a different level, on a mental, emotional, almost philosophical level first. It might be that once you identify that, you don't need to like finagle your responsibilities and commitments on a logistical level, all that much? You just need to see things differently. Maybe. So let's start with responsibilities with the things that you have to do. What can you mentally

let go of when it comes to responsibilities? I'll give you two ideas, perfection and control. When you expect to do all of your responsibilities perfectly, you will never be done. You will never take a break, you will never be content with the partial work that you did today. Perfection is such a rock in your shoe. So be honest about this for yourself. Are you stuck on perfectly executing your responsibilities? If the kitchen is not cleaned completely and thoroughly every day, do you consider it done? Probably not. And you might not hold just yourself to that perfection, but your family too. If your partner is the one in charge of cleaning up the kitchen at night, but doesn't do it like you would do it, i.e. perfectly, you're unhappy and discontent. Maybe annoyed

at him, a little resentful, little passy-aggressy, as our friends at the podcast say. Or if you expect your kid to perfectly execute their responsibilities and they don't, because they don't, all you have now is like a job micromanaging what they're doing. My guess is that you're not holding onto perfection in every responsibility, but you likely are in a few. And even a few is too many. So be honest about where you can let go of perfection in your responsibilities. The same is true of control. Be honest about where you're trying to control the outcome of your life, your schedule, and the results of your responsibilities by nitpicking, micromanaging, overplanning, and overcomplicating. yes, I know you have a lot of responsibilities and things you have to do. So do I. But if you do

any of those things with a controlling grip, you invite stress and frustration into your life. Like it's just, it's like, it's like a given. It's a given. So instead of beginning this process by deciding what responsibilities you're done with, which is like kind of hard to do anyway, because most of them really matter a lot, decide that you are done with perfection and control and start noticing where those pop up so you can tend to them. And when they do pop up, actively let them go. Like every day, notice them and let them go. This does not have to be perfect. I do not have to be in control. This does not have to be perfect. I do not have to be in control. Just doing that alone without changing your circumstances at all will make your

responsibilities easier. Okay. Next is commitments. This is I think like the most, I don't know, complicated and gnarly of the four categories. Commitments are often tied to things that we care about, causes, communities, self-improvement, relationships. Like you rarely commit to something that doesn't matter at least a little bit. But since a ton of commitment, are not like live or die, like some responsibilities might feel. And since a lot of commitments can be handed off to someone else in a bind, they're just like a little slippery. They're just trick you. The same goes for the fact that they're often not every day. It's easier to say that you will do something when you know it's like just this handful of meetings and then one event. But then

those meetings loom on your calendar and you're like, why in the world? Did I say yes? to this. Why did I commit to this? So, yes, you can let go of specific commitments. We could talk about how that might work a little later. But really, really, the things to let go of when it comes to commitments are under the surface. And those things are people pleasing, overachieving, and guilt. Oh. Okay. Often, you commit or over commit because you want people to be happy. You want to be helpful and you want to carry a share of the weight. That is beautiful and we are all very grateful, but so many times you say yes to something that you know you do not have the time or energy for, but you don't want to upset the person asking or leave them in a bind. You want to please them so you commit. You say you'll do something and then you regret. it or you resent it until the commitment is over. Of course, you're always wearing a smile on your face probably, but you still feel that way inside. So rather than right now figuring out like, let go of these specific commitments, I, even though that's wise, I still think that you should

instead be honest about the people pleasing itself. The next time you are asked to commit to something, I want you to take a beat and see why you are inclined to say yes. Is it because you are pleasing, go to the root of the thing. So one practical approach that actually helps you do this, that gives you more time to examine your motives is just to simply ask for more time. Like when you're asked to do something, ask for more time. Or like don't answer right away or couch your yes. For example, recently, I was invited to have lunch with a friend who lives about an hour and a half away. This is like a very, very small commitment. And having lunch with her is honestly a pleasure. Like it really fits in the pleasure category, a category that we will get to in a moment.

But also it is a commitment to meet her for lunch because I'm going to show up when I say I'll show up. And because it's a significant chunk of the day because of the distance. Also, the week that we were talking about getting lunch was my first week of school. Like when the kids go back. Now, obviously, I wanted to say yes because she wanted to have lunch with me and I with her, that I could feel this like pull in my body, this like tiny tension that committing to lunch the week of the start of school in another city would potentially be an over commitment. So I just texted her back and I was like, I would love to get lunch.

And I think that week could work. But can we pencil it in for now? And then confirm when we get a little closer when I have a better idea of my margin. And also could we meet halfway? And she, of course, said yes to both. So we penciled it in for this week, actually, because that's when it was supposed to happen. And last week, I texted her and I was like, hi, girl, got to punt it. Here's some dates in September.

So we found a date that worked for both of us. We picked our middle city and now lunches on the calendar and will be a pleasure to do because I'm not overcommitted. So if you are a people pleaser or just someone who likes saying yes or feels bad about saying no, then say maybe. Give yourself a boundary to think about it. So you can make sure that you're committing fully and kindly, not just as a reaction. Honestly, this is not something I personally really struggle with, which is why I'm giving the

lunch example, which is not really like a commitment. But I'm very good at saying no. And I also am a little bossy to my friends who are not very good at saying no. Like, say no. Say no. So that's why I might be a little bit more like big sister about that one. Okay, another thing that you can give up with commitments other than the actual commitment is this underlying current of overachievement. You don't have to do everything. You can say no. You can live a life where you're not stretched too thin.

You do not have to keep putting like hustling, like, hustling feathers in your cap as a sign that you're totally committed to family and community. In fact, when you overcommit because of a, foundational desire to achieve, I think you burn out so much faster. There are a million examples of this, and you do not need to be one of them. So be honest if you overcommit because you think you're supposed to do more than you actually do, or because doing all of those things makes you think that you're more valuable to people. Untrue. And one final thing you could give up regarding commitments is guilt. So many of us say yes to things because we feel bad for saying no.

We think that we should be part of that school group and we should be in that book club and we should be, you know, the person who covers for the coworker who just got fired, even though we're not getting paid for two jobs. And there's no real end in sight for the covering of the two jobs. We do those things that have guilt or obligation or a sense of should. If that's your tendency, be honest with yourself and start to let that go. Notice it and start to let it go one instance at a time. with responsibilities we're giving up perfection and control with commitments we're giving up people pleasing overachieving and guilt all right let's talk about pleasure next honestly there's nothing to give up here because my guess is you need to stop giving them up pleasures get the shaft every time if you have responsibilities and commitments in front of you what you enjoy is getting sent to the back of the line so maybe the word we're looking for here that you need to like go of is self-sacrifice. I want you to give up like this constant state of self-sacrifice. Now, some sacrifice is good and even really beautiful. Like I personally feel that way as a wife

and mother, like most of the time. It does involve a lot of self-sacrifice, but it's something that I mostly enjoy doing because I love my family. I said this recently to a friend of mine, but like if you were to give everyone in my family a column, a piece of paper and everybody had their own column. And then every single person got a tally every time they did something for someone else or sacrificed what they were going to do for the sake of another person or whatever, my column of tallies would dwarf everyone else's, dwarf them. I make a lot of sacrifices as a wife and mother in my home. But that doesn't mean I always need to do that. I don't need to always do that. It's important to let go of like guilty self-sacrifice, weighty self-sacrifice, self-sacrifice, self-sacrifice,

resentful self-sacrifice. You don't always have to be the one to take the hit. So enjoy the pleasures in your life. And when you do, when you actually choose to invite them into your life and you let go of this harmful aspect of self-sacrifice, you have more energy and fuel to do the responsibilities and commitments that matter most to you, which often involve caring for the people that you sacrifice for. And then finally, the category of distractions, the things you mindlessly do, that don't really matter. What can you give up here? Well, you could give up the distractions themselves. Like, let go of immediately reaching for things that don't fill you up, that just distract you from your life. Let go of thinking that this life is such a slog that you might

as well, like, zone out and give in. Let go of not telling yourself the truth about how much you give into distraction while continuing to say that you don't have enough time to do things in your life. And like I said earlier, this is not just about like phones or social media. Of course, that's included. But it's also busyness that doesn't lead anywhere. It's over planning, overthinking, over functioning, researching well beyond the point of a decision. Notice those things. Notice the distractions in your life, even like today, just today, just today. And let go of what you think those distractions are giving you. This is the least formulaic approach to deciding what you're done with, like kind of doing the

undercurrent here. But it's also the most important place to begin. Before you let go of actual responsibilities, commitments, and distractions, because you already let go of too many pleasures anyway, let go of the thinking behind them that can cause problems. If you stay thoughtful and intentional and honest, honest about how you see your responsibilities and commitments and pleasures and distractions, over time, you will experience those things more positively and with less stress. Change how you think and it changes what you do. Okay. So which one of those things do you struggle with most?

What can you actively start to let go of? perfection, control, people pleasing, overachieving, guilt, self-sacrifice, over-functioning, overthinking, paralysis, which leads to over-researching and like stasis, they're just disappearing from life in general. All of us struggle with something at our core. All of us do. So decide which one of those you'd like to be done with and start moving in that direction. It's like I say in the plan, external solutions will not solve internal problems. External solutions will not solve internal problems. You can do all the practical things you want to audit your life in your calendar and set

yourself up for success or whatever. But until you're honest about what's going on inside, you'll just keep tending to the surface, never really getting to the core and you'll have the same problems forever, forever. I'm so feisty today. I'm so sorry. Okay. So how do you do this then? Because you're like, okay, Kendra, okay, okay.

But how do you do this? Well, noticing and naming helps. Like, just start there. Oh, wow. I really do struggle with people pleasing a lot. That's a huge place to begin. Talk to a friend about it. See a therapist. Journal. Do check-ins with yourself if you're like deep in people pleasing right now. Like, think about it every day. Just being aware of that one thing and stay aware. Stay aware. It's like I said at the top of the episode, I'm not going to give you some sort of formula. Really, this is about awareness and then a choice. So be aware and make a choice.

And you're going to make choices every single day. And it's likely a similar choice that you will make for the rest of your life because we tend to struggle with the same thing for a long time. But the more you make that choice, the more you're aware of your struggle and you make a choice that goes against that. The more you make that choice, the easier it will be to know. notice and change. The friction just gets less. Okay. So that's like the, that's like the emotional side. Let's do the practical side now. Because yes, letting go of the foundational ways that we look at ourselves and our

stuff and our time, all of that makes a huge difference. But you also want to like practically decide what you're done with so you can actively take some things off of your calendar. So this is where we're just going to turn to some of our like beloved, trusty old lazy genius principles. Okay. we're going to look at our four categories again, responsibilities, commitments, pleasures, and distractions, but in reverse this time. And I think even practically thinking about these four categories in reverse is a great order to follow as we talk about this. And since go in the right order is another lazy genius principle, anyway, I think this is the right order. Okay, so practically, let's start with distractions. What is your greatest source of distraction right now? Not forever.

just this season, maybe even this week, you know? It's like, it's like I said earlier, if you asked me, what's your greatest source of distraction right now? Like a couple of weeks ago, I would have been like, oh, it's, it's figuring out how to make Instagram content rather than just making Instagram content, like such an unnecessary distraction. And that was just for a couple of weeks, but it took its toll for sure. Okay. So that's where you begin. What is your greatest source of distraction right now in this point in your life? Once you name that, I want you to create some kind of house rule or decide once or something that would put that distraction in its place. If it's your phone, something like TikTok or Instagram

where you get sucked in for a long time, put boundaries around your phone that are very hard to get around. Don't just do the screen limit thing that says you're done. Do you want 15 more minutes? And you're like, yeah, I do thanks. Thanks, thanks, thanks. That's too easy. That's why I like the brick. app. It quite literally turns certain apps or like even the whole phone into a useless brick that cannot be used. Guess what happened to me during that Instagram distraction week? I did not brick my phone. I kept it unbricked because I was quote unquote working. Hilarious. Wrong. Those boundaries that I set were there for a reason. And when I breached them, I landed right back into distraction. It was, it looked different. It was a different kind of

distraction. It wasn't just mindless scrolling, but it was still a distraction. So name what your greatest distraction is right now and put some kind of boundary around it so you'll be less distracted by it. Like, decide once that you will not create any sort of fancy spread or life schedule or chore chart for the rest of 2026. Just like go ahead and commit to it. It's not going to fix anything anyway. You're like over functioning and over planning. All of that's not going to make you feel better. Maybe it will while you're doing it. Maybe, but definitely not after. It never does. Not for more than like a day. It just makes you frustrated. So instead, decide once. I am not going to make any detailed schedules or systems for the rest of the year. And then when the urge to do that hits, notice it, remind yourself of what you decided and go for a walk instead. Or have a house, rule that when you are researching some new idea or purchase or decision, have a house rule that you're going to give yourself a set window to explore and then make a decision.

Put your, like put a deadline on yourself so that you don't stay in a place of like information hoarding that becomes a distraction and then it takes you away from the actual decision. Let people in to these tendencies. Let people in. Let people into your tendency to zone out at the end of the day and text or call them instead of scrolling or whatever. Use any lazy genus principle you want to create some type of boundary around your single biggest current distraction. And honestly, you could stop right there, right there and have a less stressful life. Like deciding that you're done with distraction,

like one distraction will open up your life in crazy ways. Now, when it comes to the, we're working in reverse, right? When it comes to the category of pleasures, I think this deserves its own conversation because frankly, you guys let go of these way too much. In fact, we want to add more of these into your life. But in order to do that, you need to decide what you're done with first, right? You have to take things away before you can add anything else back in. So we're going to talk more about that next week. We're going to talk about adding next week because I really want you to spend some time thinking about what you're done with before we start adding things that you love so that there's space for them to flourish for real. Okay, so that's enough for pleasures right now. We'll do that

next week. All right, what about commitments? How can you practically decide what commitments you're done with? This is why I love the question in our seasonal playbooks. At the beginning of every season, there's a question, what are you already dreading? At the start of every season, I answer that question. There's always an answer. And the answer is like almost always a commitment that I either wish I made or that it's time to release. And actually, as I say that, you know, with this year when I did my fall playbook, and I answered, I got to that question, I wasn't dreading anything. You know why? Because I had stepped away from two big commitments that I had been dreading the year before. Like the time had come. And so I ended those things. So much like the distractions category,

what commitment do you hold that you wish you didn't? Now, you might not be able to let go of it right away. But I want you to name it anyway so you can move in that direction. What practical commitment is causing you the most stress? Again, you can use lazy genius principles for this. Start small and figuring out the real problem. Maybe the issue isn't that you're involved in school PTA. Maybe it's that you're the president and you have been for two years and you need to roll off. okay start small in figuring out how to do that put everything in its place to get you out of that commitment in a reasonable time period talk to your VP find a replacement simplify the school fundraiser this year so you and everyone else have fewer responsibilities you don't have to just

quit being president but if you name that that commitment is a tough one you can start small where you are to make it easier to remove it from your life one small problem at a time Now, you might be a person who can handle a couple of ongoing commitments outside of your responsibilities, but you also know, reasonably speaking, you probably shouldn't do more than two. So have a house rule that locks you in. You cannot say yes to a third ongoing commitment. I don't care how much you finagle your schedule. Eventually, you are going to regret having said yes.

and if you're currently letting go of like people pleasing and overachieving and guilt, if you're letting those things go, saying no to this third commitment is going to be a little easier to do. Or pay attention that if your responsibilities change, I think this is true for everyone, if your responsibilities change because of a season of life or something, your commitments need to go down. If your season of life is changing, it means your responsibilities are probably changing and your commitment should probably go down for now. We have some friends who are about to have a

a baby, a baby they did not intend to have. Their two kids are in middle school and high school. So adding a newborn to the mix was kind of a curveball. So I was talking with a husband in this relationship and he said, I know that I only have room for one extra commitment this school year with a new baby. So I dropped these other ones so I could prepare for that one. And that really is what you do. You don't cram in more, guys. You don't cramming more. You decide what you're done with so you can have room for what matters. If your responsibilities go up, your commitments have to go down, not your pleasures.

That is not what goes down. And then don't disappear from the greater responsibility via distractions. Lower your commitments. Keep the pleasures and keep living your life. So name the commitment that's causing more dread than joy. and then use some lazy genius principles of smallness, kindness, and wisdom to figure out how to make it easier to continue and also to eventually remove yourself from that commitment altogether. Finally, responsibilities. All right, I want you to listen up.

When you think about your life in a big way without breaking it down, when you're just like, man, something has to give, or I'm so stressed out by everything, or everything is the worst, you go big, you make chore, You highlight complicated calendars. You get big black trash bag energy. You decide you're going to quit your job and live in a van down by the river. These solutions are always big. But hear me, when you make your daily responsibilities easier using lazy genius principles, there is a ripple effect on all the other parts of your life, all the other parts of your life benefit. Decide once what you'll eat. Put everything in its place when you get home from work. Start small when you enter a messy room. Let people in when you're you can't manage your life on your own. Schedule rest, even though your list feels too long to ignore. Be kind to yourself when you feel like you can't keep up. Those incredibly small, daily choices,

they create like outsized margin in your soul and life. Those choices are so important. So stop trying to make your daily responsibilities bigger by making them more systemized or organized. Instead, make those daily responsibilities smaller by doing what you can right now and then being done until tomorrow. Be kind and start small. Remember what really matters. Don't sacrifice your humanity on the altar of productivity. It's all going to be fine.

And it doesn't have to get done right now. I know it feels like it does, but it doesn't. And even on the days when it like kind of does, just be kind and then go to bed early. In fact, I'm going to summarize. all of this with a like a story for my own life that happened quite literally yesterday. So at a full day of responsibilities, commitments, and pleasures, the kids had doctor's appointments. There were school things to buy figuring out, you know, dinner, regular things. I also had a haircut. Annie and I had a 30% Goodwill coupon to use that day.

You do not skip Goodwill when you can get 30% off. Are you kidding me? We had to fit that in somewhere. The boys had marching band practice that required like, weird dinner timing, and then I had a meeting at church that evening. Okay. I actively, that day yesterday, I actively chose to brick my phone when I left the house so that I would not be distracted by my distracting apps. I didn't break the whole thing, but I bricked the distracting apps, okay? So that was some way that I actively removed distractions from the day. I made dinner really easy by doing a brainless crowd pleaser, Trader Joe's, Mandarin chicken, that quite literally sat in a warm oven for over an hour

until everybody got home to eat when they got home. And then later in the afternoon, when I dropped my phone on my toe while carrying in everybody's things from the van to the house in the rain after all of that long day, I stood there in the driveway and I cried because I was, one, I was in pain. It hurts so bad.

Like, almost threw out. It hurts so bad. But I was also really over. overwhelmed by the day. And it had been a really, like, these two weeks before school start are just always, like, extra stressful in my soul. It's like my body remembers. It's just really, really hard. It had been one of those days. But I stood there. I leaned on the, like, the post of the our open garage in the rain. It was very dramatic, crying. And I took a moment to breathe. And I was kind to myself and my family. I wasn't.

I wasn't blaming them for like, nobody ever gets their stuff out of the van or, you know, like I, I didn't do any of those things, which I was so grateful for. It was just a hard day. It was just one of those days. And I could be kind, even though the circumstances were not ideal, and I was so very tired and my toe hurt really bad. So instead of coming right inside the house, after all of that, and getting to work on this very episode, actually, which was the original plan, I laid down and I took a nap. I took a 17 minute now. I needed it so much. My body needed a scheduled rest right then.

I knew the episode would happen, and I didn't need to worry about it then. I could be kind. Then when it was getting close to time to leave for my meeting at church, it's a group I'm committed to. It's a commitment. But it's also not a requirement for me to attend, and I attend every time. And my toes still hurt really bad. Like, it so hurts today. and my body was so tired and I knew that I would not be my full self there like not even close so I just

decided to stay home I got in bed after I ate dinner I got in bed with my work notebook to map out some ideas for this episode without a computer so I could just sort of like be analog and that would calm my brain a little bit and I also just sat in silence with my work notebook when I had no more ideas while the boys, I heard them, you know, coming from their band practice and they ate to late dinner in the kitchen, Annie and Cos were playing a game in the living room. Technically, I dropped a commitment and I was very late in a work responsibility according to my own timeline. But I was also kind. I started small. I took care of my own soul and body rather than forcing myself through more tasks and responsibilities. And then today is a new day. Today, I don't feel the same.

stress as I did yesterday. Yesterday I did what we do, y'all. I got hit with a normal set of crazy, busy circumstances. I hit a wall when the phone hit my toe and then I thankfully stayed calm and kind and honest and wise in that circumstance. Yes, I cried. Yes, I chose to be alone more than to be with my family. Yes, I put something off until tomorrow when there would be more margin. But all of those things are sometimes the wisest choice. I was aware of what was happening in my body in life and decided that day was, I was done with that. I was done with the day. And I made a choice to do it. I made a choice to let it go. You don't have to audit your life, you're a whole life in some big way. decide what you're done with forever and then set it and forget it. It doesn't work anyway. Even if you took the time to do it, it doesn't work. What does work is naming where your thoughts can change. What does work is being honest about distractions and limiting them. What does work is scheduling rest and making space for pleasure, which we'll talk more about next week. What does work is making small choices today with daily responsibilities that make life a lot.

little bit easier, be lazy about dinner, leave the living room a mess or ask a kid to tidy it knowing it will not look the way it would if you did it and that that is fine. What does work is being kind to yourself and your people and deciding what you're done with in the moment. I think the more practice you get there, the more you'll feel like you can do it in broader strokes in these areas of responsibilities, commitments, pleasures, and distractions. and that is how to decide what you're done with. After the break, we're going to be back with a mini office hours with a question from Christy about what to do with the random stretch of time between her two kids' school drop-offs.

And we'll celebrate the lazy genius of the week with a good tip about reading with a very tender twist. We'll be right back. All right, it's time for a mini office hours. Today's question comes from Christy, who asks, school starts back for my elementary age son this week. And my youngest, who's four, started preschool last week. There are different schools. My youngest gets dropped off at 745, but my oldest doesn't get entry into his building until 8.50.

It's about a 25-minute drive between schools, and while we live close to the elementary school, I don't want to go back home and then have to go through the routine of getting out of the house again. So we will sit in the car each day for about 40 minutes. I tried to think through this and thought, maybe decide once and assign each day an activity. Monday, read a book. Tuesday, listen to a podcast, Wednesday play a game like Uno or go fish. In the past, we've done a variation of these in car rider line, but for 10 minutes, not 40. And that schedule seems complicated,

but I can't see past this solution. All right. I love this question so much. I even did a full episode about this, episode 322, what to do with random pockets of time. So many of us have seasons of life with like a random 30, 40 minutes with time to kill. And it's like, it's a weirdly hard thing to figure out how to spend it. So this particular version, different school start times, is super common. So first thing, Christy, if you stay with your current plan, I really do love the idea of like a theme activity in the car. I think that's great. It's like a meal matrix for car time. But you're also right that 40 minutes in the car while not driving is a really, really long time. So I want to go back to the idea of going back home. I know that getting out the door is a whole thing. I have an entire

episode about that too. It was just released as a bonus episode like a week or two ago. But spending half an hour at home is a lot easier than in the car. So my question to you is, is it possible to still get out the door with everybody, with both kids for that first drop off, backpacks, lunches, teeth, all the things, leave everything in the car for the oldest, but still go back home with your oldest and you can have some reading time or you can put away breakfast dishes or you guys can play a game at home or something. It's almost like it's like overtime of getting ready for school. And that overtime is just for you and your oldest, which is, you know, pretty sweet. I just wonder if it's worth considering still coming back home, especially if you can eliminate to getting out the doors, which I understand.

Nobody wants to have to do that twice in an hour. The other idea, though, is to not wait in the car. Like if it feels too hard to go back home, but the car isn't working for 40 minutes, like go somewhere. You can do the same thing with your themes there too. You know, it's like one day you go on a walk, another day you go to a park, another day you go like get a little fun coffee shop treat or something. Another day you like quite literally run an errand like go to the grocery store with your oldest kid and get groceries and then take him to school and then go home and put away your

groceries. And then maybe one of those days you do wait in the car, but you have like multiple activities to fill the time. You have a game and an audio book. And so it just doesn't feel like you're. having to like fill that time the same way every single day you could ask your kid too for any ideas but ultimately with whatever you choose those are some practical ideas i have but with whatever you choose my biggest advice is to let yourself change your mind you do not have to create something that is

locked in for the rest of the school year decide once as such a helpful lazy genus principle but only if the decision actually helps and works if it doesn't it's just a drag so change your mind. Decide again if what you try doesn't work. Try something else and see if it helps. Thanks for your question, Christy. And if any of you have a question for office hours, you can sit to hello at the lazy genius collective.com. All right, it's time for the lazy genius of the week. This week we have Ellen from Iron Station, North Carolina. Ellen writes, I used to think that if I started a book, I had to finish it. Not finishing it felt like a failure. But then I learned to embrace my big brother's 100-page rule. As he would tell you, there are way too many books to

enjoy for you to waste your time on one that isn't for you. So read 100 pages, and if you are not sold on the book by that point, then ditch it and start another one. This advice helps me be kind to myself and helps me pivot without feeling like a failure. It lets me enjoy more books, saves me from reading bad for me books, and best of all, it brings me a sweet memory again and again of my older brother who we lost to cancer a few years ago. Win, win, when. This is just so sweet. It's so sweet. I love that this is a reminder of your brother, Ellen. I'm also like a, I mean, I'm a firm believer in quitting books that are not for you, but I love this connection to your big brother's advice as this, like, sweet way to remember him and also make a choice that's

good for you. I just really love this. So thank you for sharing and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. Today's episode is about removing things from your life and what fortuit is timing because I want to celebrate Michael Lynn Smith's new book House Hushing. It is quite literally a book about removing things you don't need from your home, but in a very soulful human, dare I say it, lazy genius way. Michaelin is 100% the lazy genius of all things home decor. And this book is beautiful, helpful, makes the endless cycle of like decluttering and

decorating actually do something in your home by helping you go in a new order with a more helpful set of tools. I think you're going to love this book. It's out in the world tomorrow. Can't wait for you guys to read it. I got an early copy and it's just a knockout. So in the next podcast recap email, I'm actually going to share my favorite takeaway for Michael Lynn's book and what I already applied to my home. So if you would like to get the podcast recap email, it goes out every other Thursday. You can sign up at the lazy jeanscollective.com slash recap. If this episode was helpful to you, share it with someone you know or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Both are small ways to support the show, but hugely helpful to us. So thank you

for your support. This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office Ladies Network. This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, produced by Leah Jarvis, and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. 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. Life can feel overwhelming, but you don't have to go through it alone. On my podcast, From the Heart with Rachel Brathen, I share openly and vulnerably about everything life brings us

and what we can learn by living with our hearts a little bit more open. Every Friday, a new episode brings you a new story with topics on self-care, motherhood, healing, and more. You are enough, just the way you are. This podcast is a reminder of that. Follow and listen to From the Heart with Rachel Brathen wherever you get your podcasts.