Drastically Rethinking Time Management: Routines & Habits To Make You Happier AND More Productive

[00:00:00] LM: Kendra, welcome to the podcast.

[00:00:01] KA: There are fewer limitations in general. And because 93 percent of time management books are written by men, that is a bit of a bummer. The system that we have lived in for so long says, suck it up and get it done. It completely dismisses who you are right then.

[00:00:17] LM: I can only be productive when I’m really overwhelmed and I have pressing deadlines and then I run out of time and I get overwhelmed and I do it.

[00:00:24] How do I break this cycle?

[00:00:25] KA: For some people that’s how they thrive and there’s nothing wrong with that. If anybody listening writes down do the Christmas shopping on your to do list, are you kidding?

[00:00:35] LM: And so how do we balance between if we’re always trying to do the thing that seems the most urgent it’s usually because somebody else says this needs to be done by end of day.

[00:00:42] Hello friends and welcome to the Liz Moody podcast where every week we are sharing real science, real stories, and realistic tools that actually level up every part of your life. you I’m your host, Liz Moody, and I’m a bestselling author and longtime journalist. And today I am joined by Kendra Adachi, aka the Lazy [00:01:00] Genius.

[00:01:00] Kendra is a New York Times bestselling author. She’s the host of the Lazy Genius podcast, and her newest book is called The Plan. Manage your time like a lazy genius. It just came out, and I am so excited to have her on because I have been on on the struggle bus when it comes to time management and Kendra’s approach really changed things for me.

[00:01:20] This is a completely different take on time management and productivity than you have ever heard before. You’re going to get a full mindset shift and then don’t worry, it is the Liz Moody podcast so we’re going to get into some really epic stuff. actionable tips too that you can use today to build routines that will make your life so much easier, to stop procrastinating, to make better to do lists, and to build a life that just feels abundant and delicious.

[00:01:45] Do you want that? I want that for you. So let’s get into it. Kendra, welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited to have you here. It’s so fun to get to Have your voice respond to me, because I love listening to your podcast. But when I talk to you on there, you never talk back. I don’t. That’s not how it works, which is [00:02:00] so sad.

[00:02:00] Wouldn’t it be great if we could shift podcasts? Thank you for having me, Liz. This is awesome. We’re going to dive into all things time management, productivity. You have clearly a very different take on these things. So I’d love to know first, what did you see as other people getting wrong about those subjects?

[00:02:16] What were you like, there’s a white space here for me? Well, for the longest

[00:02:19] KA: time, I thought What was wrong was me. It wasn’t what other people were doing. It was me. There were all these. really great books that everyone was reading and, and hacks and approaches. And I would try things and they would work for a time, but then they would stop because of something that happened in my own life.

[00:02:35] Or I just didn’t feel like I had necessarily the motivation of the discipline, which was also a me problem. And then over time, as I saw so many people, women in particularly, feeling like it was their fault as well. I thought, wait a minute, that doesn’t make sense. It can’t be all our faults. Maybe the system itself needs a little adjustment.

[00:02:57] I started to explore what was already out [00:03:00] there and, and discovered that really the goal of what we’ve been hearing for so long is that the, the goal is greatness. The goal is to be great. It is to master your time in your life. It has to be great at everything. It is to optimize and be efficient. And when that is your goal, man, it changes how you live every day, how you talk to yourself, how you approach your tasks.

[00:03:22] If you don’t get your things done, it’s really hard to go to bed at night not feeling ashamed or angry or frustrated or how am I going to pep talk myself tomorrow to do better? Like everything is just so striving oriented. Everything is about striving and perhaps we’re striving in a direction that doesn’t actually resonate.

[00:03:42] with most of us.

[00:03:44] LM: So what’s the goal? If not greatness,

[00:03:46] KA: the goal is integration. The goal is personal wholeness. It is to be who you are, where you are, no matter what your circumstances are. So much of the industry really is about controlling our circumstances, right? It’s managing and controlling. your [00:04:00] tasks.

[00:04:00] It’s looking ahead at the future and going, okay, what do I want my ideal future to look like? And reverse engineering a plan to get there and then working that plan. Now, if you want to accomplish something down the road in the future, that’s a really wise approach. You name what it is down the road and you break it down.

[00:04:17] You take small steps, like there’s great wisdom in that. But if the ultimate goal of every single day is to live a life that counts towards this invisible future that you are trying to manufacture, then that means that every decision, every task, everything that you do has to contribute to that thing.

[00:04:44] And it doesn’t really leave space for you to be who you are right now, for you to acknowledge that maybe the season of life you’re in or just the day itself is not a day that feels like it’s going to tally towards that invisible future. And [00:05:00] so when we make the goal, just being who we are, being kind and compassionate to who we are today, to the season of life that we are in right now, it releases so much of that pressure that every day.

[00:05:15] has to count towards this invisible thing that we really don’t have a whole lot of control over.

[00:05:23] LM: How do you balance that with moving forward and creating these routines that serve as the backbone of your life and give your life structure and making our goals achievable, too? How do we integrate and achieve the things that we want to achieve in our lives?

[00:05:39] That’s right. So

[00:05:39] KA: if you have integration, if you have personal wholeness as your goal, It is not to the exclusion of the future, of greatness, of routine, of rhythms, of dreams, of things that you’re building towards. It’s not an either or. And I think so much of what we have been perhaps implicitly taught a [00:06:00] little bit, it’s not directly said, but there’s a lot of all or nothing energy in the productivity time management space.

[00:06:06] And I know that I personally am an all or nothing person. I could go there so fast. It’s like either it all is going to work or it’s just all trash and we have to start over. There’s not a lot of gray there. There’s, there’s not a lot of permission for small steps or stopgap measures, or I’m not sure about this thing yet.

[00:06:25] It’s not one at the expense of the other. If you start, if you start today, if you start with who you are, where you are today, instead of starting from the invisible future and being great in order to get there. It really does shift what greatness means for you. It starts to shift your acceptance of, you know what, maybe right now is not the right time.

[00:06:52] Maybe now is not the right season for this thing. Or maybe there’s something small. If I have this big dream down the road, maybe there is something [00:07:00] small that I can do now that can kind of feed that energy, feed that love, start to prepare me a little bit.

[00:07:06] LM: Well, and I feel like what you’re saying is it that if you did all these other time management things you would actually accomplish these things and if you choose my path maybe you won’t accomplish these things but you’ll feel better it’s like no you won’t accomplish them with the other time management strategies and it’ll be layered with this level of self hatred.

[00:07:24] So you’re just saying, we’re going to end up in the same place, let’s just remove the self hatred layer. That

[00:07:28] KA: is, I really should have made that like the first page of the book. That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. That path really and truly does not work for most people. It’s important for us to remember that even though I speak primarily to women, I think that men have been sold like a, like a lie in this as well.

[00:07:47] There are fewer limitations in general and because 93 percent of time management books are written by men, that is a bit of a bummer. for those of us who are holding perhaps a lot [00:08:00] extra compared to the men in our lives. I think that this goal of greatness is actually not fulfilling for most people. It is the exception, but it has been presented to us as, no, this is the rule.

[00:08:11] You pursue greatness. If you are not pursuing that, then it just means maybe you just don’t have the right plan yet, or you’re not as motivated as you should be, or A, B, and C, rather than being like, hey, you can be content with your life. And that’s okay.

[00:08:24] LM: What a revolutionary concept. I want to get really granular about a lot of this stuff because you offer this perspective shift but you also offer a lot of tools to work within that perspective.

[00:08:36] And I feel like something that we’re kind of skirting around right now is this idea of prioritization. How do we know what to prioritize at any given time? And I am terrible at this. Like I want to do everything at the same time. I’m like, Oh, that’s a great idea. Let me execute it. That’s a great idea. And I end up.

[00:08:51] I have a feeling at the end of every single day, like I’ve not accomplished what I want to accomplish and I’m really tired and I’m really burnt out. How can we begin [00:09:00] to know what we should be prioritizing on any given season or any given day of our lives? Well, you framed the question

[00:09:07] KA: beautifully because rather than saying how did we begin prioritizing what matters in our life, that’s too big.

[00:09:12] And the whole kind of foundation of what I’m, I’m hoping to encourage people in and teach people is that. But what matters most in your current season of life is really the key to all of it. Like currently, I’m in a season of launching a book. I’m doing a lot of interviews. I’m having to think about what I’m going to post on Instagram.

[00:09:34] I’ve got spreadsheets with emails that are going out and all those things. But I also am in a season of, I have three kids. One of them is in marching band and has practice random days after school and has football games every Friday night. So we’re in this strange season where weekends are not very restful.

[00:09:51] My work week is already heightened in what is required of me energetically and from a task standpoint. And then my weekends are actually [00:10:00] less restful because of all the social things that my, my children are doing, not to mention like, what if I want to go for a walk or read a book or hang out with a friend or I need to clean my house or, you know, all those different things.

[00:10:11] And so when we name, okay, I am in a season of life right now. Where there are not a lot of pockets of recuperative energy. easily at my disposal. Okay, that is the season of life that I’m in right now. So because of that, what matters most to me in this season of life? Number one, it’s that I create those recuperative pockets of time, which for me is my lunch break.

[00:10:41] I take an hour or an hour and a half every day. Now again, everyone has different experiences, different jobs, all of those things, but this is what I’ve chosen for me. So I take an hour and a half lunch break every day. I take a nap. I make real food. I read, you know, it’s just, I don’t do anything productive.

[00:10:55] I put my phone down and then I take one day off a week. Friday’s off. And I don’t do [00:11:00] anything productive at all. Now I recognize that there’s tremendous privilege in that because of my season of life. I have older kids. They’re all in school. I I have a team that can handle things on Fridays when, you know, I might not be as accessible.

[00:11:13] But I share that specificity to say, it would be so easy for me in this busy time for me to go, you got to work through lunch, girl. You don’t have time to take days off. Are you kidding me? You’re trying to launch a book. But you know what? My goal for this book is not greatness. My goal for this book is for me to still feel exactly like myself and feel whole the whole time through.

[00:11:40] So if that is my goal, It’s okay for me to take that day off still. It’s okay because my goal has shifted. Now could my goal be different? Could my goal be like, I’m going to sell as many copies of this book as humanly possible? Sure it could. Sure it could. And you can still honor who you are. and where you are in [00:12:00] that moment, and maybe you have rest in other places, maybe you go to bed earlier, you know, maybe you recruit another family where your kids are going to the marching band stuff and the family takes them to the thing so you’re not driving so you can stay home, like, there are different ways, there’s so many different ways to, you know, Prioritize what matters to you in your season of life, but by naming it, by naming what matters to me is recuperative rest on a regular basis.

[00:12:30] It gives me so much clarity with my decisions. I can still work hard, but not at the expense of that rest, because that is what I’ve named matters the most to me.

[00:12:39] LM: I want to tease that out a little bit because it’s so interesting when, um, And you were first saying what matters most. I thought you were going to list to do list items, essentially.

[00:12:49] Like it matters to me to be at my kid’s marching band practice. It matters to me to launch this book, to show up at interviews in the way that I want to show up, et cetera. But you actually [00:13:00] named the to do list items and then the what matters most was how you wanted to feel in reaction to those to do list items.

[00:13:08] Do you feel like that’s, that’s important? something maybe we’re getting wrong when we’re naming what matters most? Because I feel like when I’m trying to prioritize, I’m saying, well, I want to have time with my husband. I want to do really well at work. I want to decorate my house the way that I want to.

[00:13:23] All these things, I’m listing to do list items. I’m not listing how I want to feel amidst all of those things.

[00:13:28] KA: That’s a great question. The interesting thing about naming what matters most is we sometimes forget the word most. And you could say, these are the things that matter. And you can have a really long list.

[00:13:40] but the clarity that comes from the singular thing. This matters most to me in this season. So the name of my book is The Plan and plan is an acronym and I love a good acronym. I have an English degree and so acronyms are like my whole life. And the N in plan is [00:14:00] notice. We are not really taught how to do that very well.

[00:14:07] We are taught to prepare, which is what the P stands for. But all of that energy, all of that time management, productivity, how are you going to get your life together? All of that is so inflated towards the preparation. We just prepare, prepare, prepare, prepare. And what I’m saying is an equal measure. You also want to notice what is it that you need most right now?

[00:14:30] What is that singular thing that could really infuse energy and care and intention into that list of things that matter to you? The noticing? And I just notice, I know that if I’m not alone in my home, actually in the walls of my house with no one else there, at least once a week. Every day is ideal. I’m a different person.[00:15:00]

[00:15:00] I’m a different person. That’s not true for everyone, but find what’s true for you and prioritize that thing in the season of life you’re in.

[00:15:08] LM: And if we’re able to build that routine in, and we’re going to get into some of your other routines later because I love all of your routines, but if we’re able to build that routine in, how then do we approach the rest of the things on our to do list?

[00:15:19] Because Mine is way too long still, so like even if I’m making myself feel the way that I want to feel every day, I still am looking at this wildly long list and feeling like a failure at the end of every day because I haven’t gotten to everything.

[00:15:31] KA: My favorite life changing to do list tip is don’t put projects on your to do list.

[00:15:40] We put really big things. You put clean out the garage. next to go to the post office, next to order the shirt for the kids uniform thing at school. They’re all just like arbitrarily listed in one place and yeah, we don’t really look at those things and go how much energy does this [00:16:00] require? How much time does this require?

[00:16:01] How many decisions and tasks are actually built up in this one thing? Listen to me right now. If anybody listening writes down, do the Christmas shopping on your to do list, are you kidding? That is an enormous project. So if you look at your list and you go, that’s a project, that’s a project, that’s a project, that’s a project, and you set those aside and you can break those down into actual tasks that you can get done or decisions that you have to make.

[00:16:29] make. Yes, you can break those down, but that is one of the reasons why our lists overwhelm us. But I think that when you look at a to do list, the overwhelm that you experience and the difficulty of that to do list rises to the level of the hardest thing on it. So if you look at it and you’re like scanning through and you see some things that are like doable, I’m gonna do this today and da da da da da on your big, you know, master list or whatever, and then you get to something.

[00:16:54] enormous, like, redo my website, go Christmas shopping, clean out the [00:17:00] garage, decorate the whatever. Those are too big, and then you just get paralyzed. And you’re like, well, I’m not getting anything done today. You’re right, because you have seven projects on your to do list. There’s no way you can get all those done.

[00:17:12] I think that’s the most impactful thing. Stop putting projects on your to do list. It really does

[00:17:17] LM: change, it changes how you see it. Should we have a list somewhere of projects though because I don’t want to forget the projects I want done and then are we breaking down the micro components of the projects?

[00:17:28] KA: Here’s how I like to sort of organize my to do list and there are many ways of doing it. But ultimately, it depends on where the highest level of stress comes from. For me, if everything is in my head, I don’t get anything done. We’ve got to write the things down. So I do a brain dump. I have a master list.

[00:17:47] I do it every week and I have one long list. And then I triage those things based on that week, what matters that week, my energy that week. If I’m on my period, girl, there are things that are not getting [00:18:00] done that week because I’m probably gonna have to be in bed with a hot water bottle. And so I have to make adjustments for that.

[00:18:05] Or perhaps you’re like, well, that’s cute, Kendra, but I don’t have a job where I get to stay home with a hot water bottle. I have to go to work. Guess what you can adjust. You can adjust the meals that you make that week. Maybe you don’t cook that week at all. That’s A, and plan is adjust, is you make these adjustments based on what is happening now, based on the season of life that you are in now.

[00:18:30] It’s muscle memory. As you start to kind of practice that, after a few weeks of perhaps making that list once a week or something, and looking at, okay, what is urgent? Like, for real, like legit urgent, not faux urgency, not just because it’s on a list. What really needs to be done now? Let’s move that over to the now category.

[00:18:51] My approach is now, soon, later, nevermind.

[00:18:54] LM: I love the nevermind because then those things are getting lost. You’re like, I thought about it and I ruled it out.

[00:18:59] KA: 100%. Yes. [00:19:00] And it’s like, nevermind, that’s not for right now. Maybe it’ll be later down the road, but for right now, I remember I told this story in the book, but it still just kills me every time.

[00:19:08] I was at the pool. It was during the summer. I was. overwhelmed for whatever reason, was probably the beginning of summer. And so I had lots of big goals about how are we going to spend our time as a family and make memories and whatever. And I was sitting at the pool with my notebook, because I am cool like that.

[00:19:22] And I was making my to do list and I wrote down host Thanksgiving. Exactly. That is the correct reaction. Yeah. And so when I was triaging and I was now soon later, nevermind, I was like, Thanksgiving. Kinra, it’s June! What are you doing? We don’t, no girl, we’re fine. We don’t need to worry about that right now.

[00:19:42] That is absolutely a nevermind. The triage of urgency, what I love about the word, those words, now, soon, later, nevermind, is they are not today, tomorrow, Thursday. They’re not locked in necessarily to something that’s going to make you [00:20:00] feel like you passed or failed because of when you did it. It is relative, it is fluid.

[00:20:06] Now could mean whatever you need now to mean. Soon is whatever you need soon to mean. I feel like even changing the words that we use around our organization and making them more compassionate. and fluid and human makes it feel like less like we’re having to be a robot and stay with our programming and get this done now.

[00:20:29] I think we’re all just too tired of living that way, you know?

[00:20:32] LM: I have so many comments and questions on that. One, I think it’s really interesting that Thanksgiving thing because it’s a funny story but also I find myself doing it too, where in the moment, I’ll be planning six months, a year out, and I’m adding stress to my plate, and I had it unlocked based on, I forget whether it was something you wrote in your book, or whether it was something you said on a podcast, but it was this idea that were a Looking to do time management to [00:21:00] control things that we can’t really control and if we feel out of control in one area, we might seek control in other areas and I was like, Oh, I’m talking about Thanksgiving when I’m by the pool because I feel out of control and that is my way of trying to regain control in my life.

[00:21:13] KA: That’s right. So let me ask you. When you are in that place, have you been able to name that in the moment before? That control thing? No, not until

[00:21:21] LM: I heard you say it.

[00:21:23] KA: Yeah. What’s the next thought for you when you’re like, Oh, I’m trying to control this thing.

[00:21:28] LM: I always link my control to my anxiety, which is something I wanted to ask you about, because you’ve talked about like having panic attacks and things like that.

[00:21:34] And I’m curious how you feel anxiety plays into this whole. time management conversation, but I view it as the more I control, the more I feel like I can control my anxiety and function as a person in the world.

[00:21:48] KA: Yeah. Which I think is really important to name and also that’s a really beautiful goal. It doesn’t work.

[00:21:56] I know. It doesn’t. It doesn’t work. You’re

[00:21:58] LM: being so

[00:21:59] KA: nice. It doesn’t [00:22:00] work. But also like when we are, anybody listening who’s like, yeah, that’s exactly what I’m doing too, is I’m trying to control all of these things. It helps me control my anxiety. And I think it’s just so important to name, like there’s nothing wrong with wanting to control your anxiety.

[00:22:15] Anxiety is so stressful. It hurts. It, it’s hard to manage. It’s unwieldy. There are so many things like that too, right? People have chronic illness or you might have really, really horrible menstrual cycles that just wipe you out for an entire week. There are lots of things that we want so badly to have control over that we don’t.

[00:22:38] The system that we have lived in for so long says suck it up and get it done. and completely dismisses who you are right then. The humanity that you want to see in yourself in that moment, the compassion that you’re going to extend towards [00:23:00] yourself when you’re like, I’m feeling so anxious right now.

[00:23:03] It’s a beautiful thing and a very normal thing to be like, I really want to control my anxiety, even though it doesn’t work. It makes sense. That that’s what we would want to do. But we sometimes bring back that all or nothing energy even into conversations around things like anxiety because it’s like, well, fine, if that goal is not going to work, if I can’t control it, well, what do you expect me to do?

[00:23:26] It’s like, I’m going to care about everything or I’m going to care about nothing. I’m going to care about everything or I’m going to care about nothing. And we kind of wear ourselves out in the back and forth of that. Neither works. Having a life that’s all one or all the other is really not sustainable.

[00:23:41] The life happens in this wide middle of saying, in this season, in this day, in this day, what matters most is that I move slow, that I’m kind to myself in the morning when I look at this list that did not get [00:24:00] done in the way that I hoped it would, that I call a partner or call a friend or let someone into this with me because there’s beautiful healing in that, that you prioritize those things because that’s today, that’s who you are right now, that is what you need right now, and that’s what I When we ignore what we need in service to our list, I mean, it’s no wonder that we, we always feel behind, that we always feel tired.

[00:24:35] I get a lot of pushback with this. From people who actually think a lot like I do, where they’re like, No, but wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. I still got stuff to get done. You’re saying that like, this happened just a couple of days ago. If a kid drops a glass full of liquid onto the ground, and things break and spill and they’re everywhere, you’re telling me that it’s more important that I stay [00:25:00] calm and compassionate in that moment than it is to clean up the mess because we have to get out the door?

[00:25:05] And I’m gonna say yes. It is. I think it is. Because that focus on the goal is to be whole. The goal is to be kind. The goal is to be integrated. It is to be a whole self acknowledging what is happening right now. It’s to honor that person right now. If that is the goal, even reminding myself that that is the goal for three seconds before I look my kid in the eye and go, I know it’s a bummer.

[00:25:33] Let’s go get some towels. Let’s clean it up because we do need to get out the door, but it’s all right. We’ll do it together. rather than, I told you to, you know, because we have to get out the door because we see the goal of like being on time and following our plan and following our schedule is the ultimate thing.

[00:25:49] And when we make greatness and optimization and sticking to the plan, the ultimate thing, we lose sight of [00:26:00] ourselves.

[00:26:00] LM: What do we do then when other people are making real demands of us. So not just, I have to get out the door, but my kid needs to be at school at this time because that is the rule. My boss is asking for me to turn in this project by this time.

[00:26:17] How does that fit into making our to do list? I’d love as many pragmatic tips for that as you could offer.

[00:26:22] KA: Yes, absolutely. So this is the most annoying thing that I’m going to say. The first thing is to breathe. I’m tired of everyone telling us to breathe too, guys. It gets on my nerves too. But truly, because your body is panicking, because there’s so much to do in this moment.

[00:26:39] And you can feel kind of the, that, you know, like from the bottom of your toes, the top of your head. And you’re like, Oh no, your eyes get, that’s what happens to me is my eyes get wide. I start to talk faster and higher. You know, I’m like, Oh no. Breathe. You are not in danger. That’s genuinely the first thing that you do.

[00:26:58] These three steps that I’m giving you [00:27:00] actually are one of the principles. My first book is called The Lazy Genius Way, and it’s 13 lazy genius principles that you can apply to literally anything. A lot of them are super, super practical, and then some of them are not. Like, be kind to yourself. That is one of the main principles, right?

[00:27:16] Well, one of the 13 lazy genius principles is to go in the right order. A lot of times, it’s not that we’re doing the wrong things. We’re just doing them maybe in a, the least helpful order. For most things though, the right order is number one, name what matters. Now you are able to do that more easily if you take a deep breath and you access kindness within yourself.

[00:27:36] For a quick moment, when you’re like feeling that fragmentation of all the things are needed right now, take a deep breath and go, you can do this today. And if we don’t do it the way that we want to. That’s okay. Like we’re showing up today. We’re doing our best. We’re going to be kind. Okay, next thing.

[00:27:53] Name what matters. What matters the most. Now you can practically go, if I don’t turn this work project in today. [00:28:00] I’m in big trouble. I have to finish this. Now, does my kid, did they say this morning that their shoes are feeling too small and we have to go get them shoes? Yeah, we do. But can that last one more day?

[00:28:15] I think it might can. Or can I call a friend or a partner or somebody? Does that have to fall on me? Can I delegate that thing? By naming what matters, it’s not that you’re saying the other things don’t. Right. But you’re just saying, this is the singular thing that I need to put all my energy in right now.

[00:28:32] So I need to finish this project. I need to get this project turned in. Okay. That’s the number one name. What matters? Number two, calm the crazy. If you are looking now that you’ve named what matters most, look around at everything else Whether it’s like literally in the room you’re in, you know, it could be that there’s craziness in the space they’re in, it’s in your head, it’s on your calendar, it’s in your text messages, you know, you just have all of these things that you can go, okay, I need to calm the crazy [00:29:00] here.

[00:29:00] What is that? What is causing that? Is it that I got out of a meeting and I have 17 unread text messages, all from different people needing different things from me, and I don’t have the energy right now to triage which one I can answer right now? Okay. You can read them and go, not now, and mark it unread again, right?

[00:29:22] So you can not lose it. Like you can just do that very quickly, calm the crazy of that app. Or if you’re in your office and there are people who report to you who are needing things from you, but you’re trying to get this report done, you say to those people, Hey, I value what’s going on. Right now, I need to be uninterrupted.

[00:29:42] I’m turning off Slack, whatever it is, I need 90 minutes. Make a list of your questions, save them, we’ll meet together and we’ll figure this out, but I’ve got to have this time right now because we have to get this thing done. Like you calm, you, you name whatever is creating kind of the most chaos and you just calm that part.

[00:29:58] You don’t calm everything. [00:30:00] You call them that part. And then step three is you trust yourself with what comes next. You’re very competent. Everyone listening is incredibly talented and competent. So when you calmly and kindly name what matters right now, practically on your list, name what matters right now, you calm the crazy of everything else around it and go, this is the craziest thing.

[00:30:21] Let’s get this gone so that I have a little bit more focus here. And then you trust yourself with what you do next, whether it is Completing the task, talking to somebody about an extension for that task, texting your kid and being like, Hey, I can’t get your shoes. Can you wear flip flops tomorrow? I know your toes hurt.

[00:30:37] Let’s figure something out. Maybe you can borrow somebody else’s shoes. Like, we’re going to figure this out. It’s not that you’re deferring things that are important for later because those things don’t matter. But isn’t that life? We are hit with a lot of things that seem equally urgent all at once. And so our skill set to [00:31:00] develop is not to be more efficient and get more done more quickly.

[00:31:04] I don’t think that’s the skill set we want to develop. I think the skill set we want to develop is to be able to identify what is the most urgent right now and then have the It’s sort of compassion towards ourself and the, the trust. I can release these other things. I can get these done. I just don’t have to get them done right now.

[00:31:27] It’s a different energy than check, check, check, check, check, check, you know?

[00:31:32] LM: I do know. I think my biggest struggle within the naming what matters, what is the most urgent thing right now, is that often if something is urgent or unmovable, it’s because it’s somebody else’s deadline. And the things that are less urgent and more movable are.

[00:31:50] taking care of myself, taking my lunch break, spending time with my friends, things like that. And so how do we balance between if we’re always trying to do the thing that seems the most urgent, it’s usually because [00:32:00] somebody else says this needs to be done by end of day. I want to give

[00:32:02] KA: you a snappy answer.

[00:32:05] I want to give you a snappy answer of, yeah, this is how you deal with the people who are giving you deadlines and you still honor what matters to you. But the variables of that, just for your life alone, probably from day to day. are very different. And guess what? Nobody understands your life better than you do.

[00:32:26] I don’t care how much I love talking about time management or how impactful some of these things might be. There’s no way that I can give you ideas about your life better than you can. But my ideas suck. They’re not working. Well, you know what? Here’s my response to that. I don’t think your ideas suck. I think that your ideas are within a paradigm you.

[00:32:51] that is unsustainable and you haven’t had enough practice yet living in a different paradigm. Listen, listen, listen, listen. I gotta [00:33:00] take my glasses off. The, the productivity industrial complex that we live in that is worth billions and billions of dollars, the amount of money that people make off of teaching us, and women are the highest buyers in this, teaching us how to prepare and plan for and manage our lives.

[00:33:24] is an extraordinary amount of money. It’s extraordinary. And that industry dies. It dies if we’re like, I got it. This worked. Or it’s okay that I’m not optimizing everything at every turn. That’s all right. My friend, Kelly Corrigan, I will never forget this. She said, contentment does not drive economic activity.

[00:33:50] Contentment does not drive economic activity. And so it’s really tough to unlearn. There’s a long haul unlearning and relearning [00:34:00] what it means to live every day. When you look back on your day, what is it? What is the thing that makes you fall asleep peacefully at night? Is it that you got all your stuff done?

[00:34:13] I don’t know. Even on days I do get my stuff done that I’m like, What a good day that was. Like, I think I’m worried about, well, I mean, I’m glad I set myself up better for tomorrow, but there’s still a lot to do tomorrow. It’s all about, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you getting done? You know your life better than I do.

[00:34:28] The difference is you got to spend a little time existing in this new water we’re going to swim in. And this new water is like, hey, You don’t have to be great at everything right now. You don’t have to be great at everything ever. You can. You can pursue this thing and you’re going to also name that you’re not going to be able to pursue these other things because of it.

[00:34:52] And you’re going to be gentle when your plans don’t go the way that you think they will. And you’re going to tell yourself that this is not a pass [00:35:00] fail situation. My plans are not pass fail. They’re just intentions. What I’m choosing now is not what I have to choose forever. There’s just this ease.

[00:35:09] There’s this ease that you start to experience in your soul and in your muscles and in your calendar. when the goal shifts from greatness to integration. And I just don’t think you’ve had enough time there yet.

[00:35:25] LM: Can you share some of your personal routines? I know that different routines work for different people, but I had a lot of unlocks and a lot of inspiration for my own life when I heard you talk about yours.

[00:35:35] So could you share a few that are really working for you?

[00:35:37] KA: Absolutely. So the first thing that I want to say about routines is to build the right routines. And the right routine is not the right set of things in a particular order. A lazy genius routine is really about where are you trying to go? What are you hoping to experience and even feel at the end of that routine?

[00:35:56] Like when we have a morning routine, if we feel like we’ve got a morning routine that just like really [00:36:00] works for us, then maybe by the end of it, we’re ready to move into the day. There’s like a lightness and a lift to our bodies. But if you say that in order to Experience that lift. You have to do A through G in this particular order.

[00:36:17] And if you drop three of them, well, you sucked at your routine today. Well done. Good way to start the day. You know, you get sassy already before it’s like 730 in the morning. And also what you might need in the morning. is different than what other people need in the morning. I am not a workout in the morning person because the thing that I want to feel in the morning is slowness and calm and trying to hustle to get to the gym before my kids wake up and getting them all to school and all the things that, listen, that is not the energy that I need.

[00:36:52] And so instead I might do something in the second half of the day, but guess what every expert says? You’re supposed to work out in the morning, that’s just how you got to [00:37:00] start your day. You’re going to do the meditation, and you’re going to work out, and you’re going to have your slow cup of French press coffee.

[00:37:06] We have this image in our head of what these routines are supposed to look like. And I’m here to tell you, I want you to name instead, what are you trying to feel at the end of this routine? Where is it leading you? You could have a selection of seven things that you would ideally like to do in the morning.

[00:37:26] But if you keep in mind, I just want to be slow and calm. If you don’t get to all of them, you can still access that slow and calm. You can pick one thing that makes you feel that way the most in that moment because somebody overslept or a water heater broke or there’s all kinds of things that can.

[00:37:43] Again, throw off the day. So that’s the first kind of big thing that’s important to remember about lazy genius routines in particular. It’s not about the pieces and parts of the routine. It’s what’s the purpose of this thing. What are you trying to feel? Where are you trying to go? Okay, so I already shared one of my routines.

[00:37:57] It’s my lunch break and it took some [00:38:00] time for me to As most routines will, it took some time for me to kind of figure out that that mattered. It really came from my therapist being like, um, do you stop and eat food? Well, I mean, sometimes I really, you know, so she said, I think you need to try that. Give it a try.

[00:38:22] Stop and have lunch. Cause you have the ability to do that. Cause you work from home. I didn’t value that time the same way in the beginning because I didn’t recognize that the feeling of rest and calm and deep unproductivity was so good for me. So I had to live with it for a little while. I had to experience that feeling.

[00:38:44] And then I was like, Oh man, we are not messing with this feeling. This changes the whole day. This makes the morning work. before lunch, feel less frantic because I, I know I can work hard for a stretch and then I can, I get to turn off. [00:39:00] I’m going to be done and I’m going to go and read a book and have a rice bowl and I’m going to feel so good.

[00:39:04] I’m going to take a 17 minute nap because that’s what I do almost every single day. It’s like the perfect amount of time for me to feel rested, but not groggy, like all of these things. And it took some time, but that is something that I hold with great care. Now, the pieces of that routine, this is just a good example, are I eat, I read.

[00:39:23] I take a nap. And then I usually try to do something that makes the rest of the afternoon a little bit easier once all my kids get home. That’s another lazy genius principle. Ask the magic question. The magic question is what can I do now to make something easier later?

[00:39:39] LM: I am. feel like I often will stop myself from doing that thing because I’ll be like future me will have more energy and so I’ll be like what would make life easier for future me and I’m like I don’t know present me is tired future me can probably handle these things but then future me ends up being really tired and so then I just never do the dishes.

[00:39:57] Right. [00:40:00] Is there a way around that?

[00:40:02] KA: So, uh, such a good question. That’s so relatable. Sometimes it’s not all or nothing. Sometimes right now you is too tired and you can go, is this worth doing right now? Or do I really think that future me can handle it? And you decide right then it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing The other thing is sometimes we Ask the magic question, or whether you know that that’s what it is or not, you’re like, man, I really should prepare a little bit better for tomorrow.

[00:40:31] We’re doing that at a time of day, like the end of the day. We’re done. So even just shifting when you ask. I think would help a lot.

[00:40:45] LM: Yeah, I love that because I love the idea of taking care of future me. Like it feels like such an act of self love and I think there’s something really beautiful in it. But yeah, I think I’m asking it at times where I’m already stressed and overwhelmed and tired and I think that’s a really good tip.

[00:40:58] I also want to [00:41:00] point out that you literally Set up yourself in this stress free, relaxed, rejuvenated state, and then you ask the magic question. Like, you can literally intentionally do that for yourself. You can say, hey, after I’ve relaxed, after I’ve taken a nap, after I’ve fed myself, then I can say, how can I make life easier for future me?

[00:41:16] Then I can say, should I meal prep now? Blah, blah, blah. Like, that’s actually just a great actionable tip. If you’re going to ask that question, set yourself up intentionally in a state where you will have the energy to answer it

[00:41:27] KA: before. We’re back to the plan acronym again. Notice. Notice where your energy is.

[00:41:35] Notice when. Notice when there’s a lift. Notice when you’ve got a little bit more capacity, even just in that day. And then adjust. That’s the A. Adjust to asking it earlier, or asking it later. Asking it after you take your nap. I have it in the book and say it a lot, but it’s called Big Black Trash Bag Energy.

[00:41:54] I think everybody knows it. It’s probably knows what that is without me having to even explain it. But what we do [00:42:00] is we bring kind of big black trash bag, big system energy to every day where it’s like, if all of these parts don’t work, well, we got to pack it up and start over. We’re throwing it out.

[00:42:12] Things are going to be different around here. So everybody deal with your stuff or it’s going, it’s going to the trash can or whatever. And we metaphorically do that with our routines. If it doesn’t work in the exact way that we think it should, in the exact order, or immediately, if it doesn’t work immediately, then we’re like, well, scrap it.

[00:42:31] We got to start over. And I’m here to tell you, I built that lunch routine, which is, listen, it’s not very complicated to eat lunch during lunchtime and read a book. Like this is not rocket science here. And it took me, I am not kidding, it probably took me 18 months to really get to a place where I was like, this is a valuable routine for me that I really prioritize and protect.

[00:42:57] I could have started and stopped so many times, [00:43:00] started over so many times. So just be patient. with those routines. Name that feeling. Name that purpose. And the different steps that you take to get there day in and day out may vary. That doesn’t mean that you’re failing at the routine. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

[00:43:18] You’re just kind of finding what works. And sometimes that takes a little while. So yeah, that’s one. My day off is another one. Every Friday I take off our kind of Afternoon routine is pretty similar for the most part. I go offline as much as possible and don’t, I’m not available for work stuff after 2 30 from 2 30 to 4 30 because that’s kind of when all my kids are, I got to get them or they’re coming home.

[00:43:42] They’re hungry, they got homework questions. My husband doesn’t get home until five or six, and so I’m, I’m the one parent that’s there those days. I love your

[00:43:48] LM: Friday off, and I love something that you said about it, which is that you take it off of work, but other people could maybe take it off of having to prep dinner, having to [00:44:00] take care of household chores, having to add all these extra things.

[00:44:03] How much can you build that space into your life within the boundaries of what you have? And I thought that was

[00:44:09] KA: Absolutely. I think about the decision paralysis of, uh, a mom who has a kid in preschool three hours every morning for five days a week. And you’re like, what do I do? I don’t want to do anything and I also have to do everything.

[00:44:25] I would love for you to take one of those days and not do anything. Do whatever just fills your bucket. Don’t be productive in the traditional sense. Spend the whole time reading, scroll Instagram, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter what you do, actively choose just one of those days maybe to not be productive.

[00:44:45] And what that does is it actually gives like an extra jolt of productivity to the other four days because you know, rest is coming. It’s built in. That’s another lazy genius principle is to schedule rest. There is something deeply, deeply [00:45:00] powerful about knowing that rest is coming. Time off is coming.

[00:45:05] Space for yourself is coming. It’s the antithesis of that like, I just need a vacation. I need a vacation. I gotta, I gotta get out of here. Cause everything starts to feel so weighty when you don’t know that rest is coming. It just makes everything feel. desperate. So scheduling that rest is not just for the rejuvenation of whatever it is, but it actually makes the work before and after feel different because the promise is there.

[00:45:33] LM: I love it. I think it’s such a lovely routine. Another routine that you do that I love is your routine with your friend. Do you have like a work date routine with them? Can you talk about that?

[00:45:43] KA: Yeah, it’s my friend, Emily. She’s an author and a podcaster like me. We used to go to church together. We don’t anymore.

[00:45:48] We live in the same neighborhood. We live like four blocks away. Because of our season of life at one point, we would usually walk together once a week. And then when we didn’t see each other at church anymore, and then our kids were older [00:46:00] and it was COVID. There were just things that sort of caused our regular friendship rhythms to stop.

[00:46:06] And we were like, What are we doing? I could yell loud enough and you might be able to hear me and we’ve gone a month without seeing each other. What in the actual, and so we started the third Thursday. I think that’s right. It’s just on my calendar. It’s just a repeated calendar item now because we have the flexibility in our jobs to do this.

[00:46:25] We co work together. We go to the same coffee shop. Sometimes we meet at eight. Sometimes we have to drop a kid off at a thing and it might not be till 9 30, but we just know this is where we’re going to go. And we chat about work stuff at first for sure, and then we always ask, okay, what are you working on today?

[00:46:41] What are you doing? Because we’re naming. We are going to get stuff done while we’re here. And we have, one of the things that we do, which is so silly, but it’s so helpful. You know, when you’re, when you’re working with somebody. And you’re like in the zone and then they interrupt you and you feel rude, but [00:47:00] you want to hear what they have to say, but you’re like, Oh no, no, hold on.

[00:47:02] We designate, we call it the salt shaker because that’s the first thing that we had at the table that we were at at Panera when we did it the first time. But we designate a salt shaker, some sort of item on the table that if you want to tell the other person something. you just slide it towards them.

[00:47:17] And so they see it, but they don’t have to acknowledge it right away. It’s just sort of like, I got something to tell you when you got a minute, or something to ask you when you’ve got a minute. And so it’s this really lovely, like a little rhythm of this, this little item going back and forth across the table.

[00:47:29] So it’s honoring that work rhythm. And then we go to lunch after, and that’s kind of where we, designate talking about life and family and personal stuff. We love to talk about work, but we also like, we know each other’s kids and husbands and all these different things. Even though, you might say, I cannot imagine only seeing my best friend once a month.

[00:47:49] Cause we just do this, this is on the calendar just once a month. We have at least once a month and it’s always there. It’s always there. Something is better than nothing. It’s [00:48:00] kind of like that built in rest. Even if life is such that we can’t see each other more than once a month in a certain season of life, we know it’s coming and so it doesn’t feel as desperate.

[00:48:11] I haven’t seen you in so long turns into I get to see you next Thursday. I get to see you next Thursday. Such a small shift. And there’s so many things like this, we just try to tear it down and build it big. And I don’t think that that is required for so many things. There are just very small kind things that we can do and our schedules and our calendars that will make such a big difference in a way that we wouldn’t anticipate.

[00:48:40] Because again, the system does not teach us that small steps, small adjustments, noticing what you need right now. not necessarily what is in service to that future. That’s not what we’re taught matters.

[00:48:52] LM: So one small thing is a standing date. And I love standing dates. It takes so much decision fatigue out of it.

[00:48:57] I think if everybody listening just [00:49:00] scheduled one standing date with one friend, it would just make a drastic difference in their life. Agreed. Drastic. But can you share a few other small things that’ll make a really big difference? Oh, sure.

[00:49:10] KA: I love daily uniforms. I used to have a Monday uniform. I don’t anymore because getting dressed is far less stressful to me than it was five years ago, simply because I’ve just kind of culled my wardrobe to things that just really feel like me.

[00:49:22] And so it just, I’ve, it’s taken five years, but you know, it’s a little easier, but I used to wear black pants and a chambray shirt. every Monday for like four years. Man, I’m in a uniform. There were articles written about that thing. It was the best. It was almost one of those things that you’re like, this is, this is almost silly.

[00:49:42] This is making such a difference, but I know what I’m going to wear. I just know what I’m going to wear. That’s another lazy genius principle. This is everybody’s favorite principle is decide once, You make one decision, one time about one thing, and then just let it ride until it doesn’t work for you anymore.

[00:49:59] [00:50:00] So you decide, on Mondays I wear this, on Tuesdays we eat this, whenever my kid gets invited to a birthday party, we get them a board game. You decide things that are easy, and you let it ride. And there’s so many versions of that. You were nodding. Can you think of some in your own life of like, oh yeah, I decided once about this thing?

[00:50:20] LM: I decided what I wanted my workout routine to be and I used to feel a lot of paralysis because I knew I wanted to, unlike you, I like to wake up and work out because it helps my mental health a lot. I kind of wake up a little anxious and that brings me down to a state where I’m like, where I can handle my day, but I’d wake up every day and be like, Oh, should I do this?

[00:50:37] Should I do this? Should I do this? And then I’d get tired and then I wouldn’t want to work out anymore. And then I would be 11 o’clock and I’d be like, I haven’t worked. I haven’t worked out. What am I doing? So now I have a workout. I have my Monday workout, my Tuesday workout, my Wednesday workout, my Thursday workout.

[00:50:49] And it’s been really wonderful.

[00:50:51] KA: There are so many places we’re not having to choose. And really that’s what a lot of routines are. It’s a series of things that you’ve already decided. And also [00:51:00] remember, you’re allowed to change your mind. You can choose something and then you can change your mind about it and go, you know what?

[00:51:06] That didn’t work the way that I expected it to. Now that doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch all the time, but that is a permission that I want to give to everyone listening is just because you decide once on something. I mean, again, there were articles written about my Monday uniform. And when I say I don’t have it anymore, some people are like, they feel betrayed.

[00:51:24] They’re like, what do you mean? What do you mean? Like, well, it doesn’t work for me anymore. It did then. It did for that season beautifully. I don’t require that anymore. And so I can change my mind.

[00:51:33] LM: Can you give listeners maybe a few questions to ask themselves or a few tips if they’re listening and they’re like, I want to add one routine to my life.

[00:51:41] Let’s start with just one routine. And they’re like, what should that routine be? And how should I decide what the shape of it is?

[00:51:47] KA: I will go back to the principle of going in the right order. Name what matters, calm the crazy, and trust yourself with what comes next. If you look at the rhythm of your day, what matters most [00:52:00] to you about that rhythm?

[00:52:02] Where in the day are you like, man, if I felt this thing at this time, or if I had this energy, or if my to do list was like more or less tended to, I don’t mean checked off, but more like, okay, I have acknowledged the urgent things. If you can name In your regular day, in your repetitive day, to where that energy matters the most, okay, you start there.

[00:52:30] Step two, calm the crazy. What is it in that time of day that is preventing you from experiencing the routine that you would like to have there? And it could be a very small adjustment of like, you might see morning routine as the, the time before you get your kids to school, for example, if you’re listing of kids.

[00:52:52] What if your morning routine was after you drop them off? It’s sort of going, okay, where’s the craziness? What’s preventing [00:53:00] this routine from happening? And then step three is trust yourself with what comes next. Go, okay, all right. We just don’t do that very well. We don’t trust ourselves with our own ideas.

[00:53:08] We don’t think that we’ve got good ideas. We think that the problem is us. Again, it is the productivity industrial complex telling you that you need more help, that what you already have is not enough. So I’m telling you now, that’s not true. Terrible marketing. So instead go, okay, what, what do I need here?

[00:53:25] And then this is another lazy genius principle that is the least favorite of everyone because it’s the, it’s the least sexy, it’s the least fun, but it’s the most impactful. And that is start small. You start small. So you You know what? I think the time before I come back to work after I’ve taken a lunch break, maybe you work in a regular nine to five, it’s kind of a corporate thing.

[00:53:48] Maybe the culture of your team is that everybody goes out to lunch. Maybe there’s some something in there and you’re like, man, I really need to be alone. How can you honor that time? How can you [00:54:00] calm the chaos, calm the craziness that in your head or in your schedule that’s sort of competing with that time?

[00:54:05] And then trust yourself with what you should try and start small in doing it.

[00:54:09] LM: I love that. Okay, let’s get into some listener questions. Question one, I can only be productive when I’m really overwhelmed and I have pressing deadlines. Otherwise, I get nothing done because I feel like I have so much time to do it.

[00:54:21] And then I run out of time and I get overwhelmed and I do it. How do I break this cycle?

[00:54:26] KA: Well, the first thing I would say is that for some people, that’s how they thrive. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s the first answer. Like, if it’s working, you can keep doing that.

[00:54:34] LM: It’s probably working other than the self hatred is what I’m reflecting on now.

[00:54:39] Because I do it, but I yell at myself every phase of the process, but I get everything done in the process if I just took out the yelling at myself. Yeah. That’s interesting.

[00:54:47] KA: 100%. There’s just this very, like, narrow path of normative planning. If that’s working, honor that part of who you are. That’s beautiful.

[00:54:56] We need people who can respond that way. So that’s the first thing, is you don’t have to do [00:55:00] anything. Yeah. The second thing is there’s a principle in the plan. That’s a time management principle of tend to the necessary before it becomes urgent. Tend to the necessary before it becomes urgent. Now if you thrive in urgency, rock it.

[00:55:15] But perhaps you thrive in urgency, but there’s a little more urgency than you have the ability to sort of sustain, right, that you don’t want to always have to live in that place. When you’re in a place of like, man, I’ve got plenty of time. I got plenty of time for this. What you’re telling yourself is that you, I want to be careful about how I say this because I don’t want it to sound like get or done language.

[00:55:38] But you’re sort of telling yourself that the only type of task valuable enough to do are the urgent ones. And I wonder what would happen if you sat with the thought of, Can I tend to a necessary task today, just one? Is there something that’s necessary that I need to do? It’s not urgent yet. But what if I tend to a necessary thing right [00:56:00] now and see what happens?

[00:56:02] It’s not that you have to build a big system or some sort of like to do list rubric where you’re checking off three necessary tasks every other day or whatever, but just to sit with this idea because maybe the problem is you don’t believe that a task is worth doing if it’s not urgent. And if you shift that mentality and go, no, a necessary task is good.

[00:56:25] Let me do a necessary one now. Then it takes a load off the urgency later.

[00:56:30] LM: That’s interesting. Do you have any other tips for procrastination? Cause I feel like that’s a big problem of mine and a lot of my listeners.

[00:56:38] KA: It’s really important for us to bring all of ourselves to the table when we talk about managing our time in our lives.

[00:56:46] And there is a chapter in the book called Bring Your Whole Self to the Table. So the first thing that I would encourage procrastinators to do is to not see yourself as like bad at life because you procrastinate taking away that self hatred, putting compassion on yourself of going [00:57:00] like, Hey, I do tend to procrastinate.

[00:57:01] Now that does not make me a bad person. Start there, right? It’s that again, it’s the difference of a goal of integration versus greatness is you’re honoring, I do procrastinate a lot. And I’m not a bad person because of it. That is okay for me to be a procrastinator. So that’s where you begin and if you begin there, then the practical things that might come out of that are probably going to land, right, because you’re softer towards those things.

[00:57:25] I think that when you procrastinate, dude, a timer is like the best thing ever. It’s so simple. It’s also like slightly annoying advice. But if you just set a standing alarm, it’s kind of like that standing appointment with a friend. If you have a standing alarm that goes off and you just sort of know like this is a time of day where I tend to start to go like.

[00:57:45] Should I, I should be doing something right now. I should probably do it. Yeah, where you feel that energetic standstill is you can set an alarm that says pick something. It doesn’t matter. Pick anything. Pick a task on your list. It doesn’t matter. And you set a timer for [00:58:00] five minutes and you just start small with one thing.

[00:58:03] What we do is again, we try to build this big system to get all of our stuff done and then we don’t get anything done. It’s like when you’re, Trying to figure out what your workout is going to be in the morning and it gets to be 11 o’clock and you have not worked or worked out. We haven’t done anything because we haven’t chosen what matters most or we haven’t honored the fact that just one small thing is better than nothing.

[00:58:23] Maybe not even better than. I don’t even like that. I don’t even like that phrasing. It’s that it matters more than we give it credit for, and it moves us forward in a way that we don’t often value because it’s small. Set an alarm, set a timer, do five minutes. If you don’t check anything off, that’s okay, because it could be that you probably made some headway in something.

[00:58:47] Usually procrastination is because it’s the task initiation of it. And I think we all feel this way. Once you kind of get started with the thing, you usually have enough momentum to [00:59:00] carry you far enough to be like, yeah, I made a good dent in that. Good job. So really it’s just kind of the getting started.

[00:59:06] And if you’re a procrastinator, give yourself a cue, a sound, a word, a song that you play, just something that can kind of cue you up to. It’s time for five minutes. Let’s do something for five minutes.

[00:59:18] LM: Is that your best tip for boring tasks generally? Or is there anything else we can do to make ourselves do the really boring things?

[00:59:25] KA: There are two things that I. like to do when it comes to boring tasks. One is to make it fun, which is again, not groundbreaking advice, but to know like just the other day we have a mail basket and I go through it once a month, four or five days before all of our bills really come due. And it’s not a very fun task, you know, I don’t, I don’t like it.

[00:59:50] I don’t like sorting and taking this pile to the recycling and this pile to the file folder and all the different stuff. But it needs to be done. It’s a necessary task. We have to do those sometimes. I [01:00:00] will play show tunes that just get me like super jazzed. And also depending on the variability of your energy, especially when it comes to your menstrual cycle.

[01:00:12] There are certain times of the month where we actually want to do the boring tasks because we just don’t want to move. And so saving some of those tasks that are a little bit more boring, a little more still, if you do data entry, for part of your job. Listen, if you’re ovulating and you have data entry on your task list that day, you don’t have any interest in doing that because you’re like, can I give a talk?

[01:00:39] Does anybody need a TED talk today? Like you’re ready to go, you know? And so kind of, that’s another thing that we could notice. We can notice the variability in our energy and you could, you know, Save your boring tasks for the times that you yourself are feeling a little boring.

[01:00:53] LM: I love that so much. Okay, let’s do one more listener question.

[01:00:56] I’m good at making a plan, but then unexpected slash [01:01:00] emergency items throw me off. What can I do about that? Oh, I’m so glad you asked this question. Okay. One

[01:01:06] KA: of the things that I think is key in compassionate time management is that it is more important for you to learn how to pivot than to learn how to plan.

[01:01:15] The act of pivoting is far more necessary to our daily life than the act of planning. Every day has obstacles. Every single one. Tell me the last time that you made a detailed plan for your day. I’m going to do this at this time. I’m going to do these things. And it all worked out. That rarely, if ever happens.

[01:01:37] Now you can still make those plans because like I said before, Plans are intentions. They are not pass fail. You set it up. You prepare as much as you feel the energy to do so that serves what matters to you right now. But we do not put enough emphasis or value or credibility on the ability to pivot.

[01:01:59] Pivoting is like, [01:02:00] Well, you didn’t plan hard enough. Like if you have to pivot, then you must have messed something up. No, ma’am. That’s not how life goes. So again, it’s another shift. It’s another mental shift of if you actually value the act of pivoting, and there is seven steps to pivoting around any obstacle in the plan, because I think that there are actual steps for that.

[01:02:21] And they start out like most things. The first one is to breathe. The second one is to access kindness. The third step is to name what matters. And then you start small with like, okay, how, how am I going to pivot around this thing? When you hold just as much value, if not more, over the ability to pivot and you nurture that, and you high five yourself when you did.

[01:02:45] It’s not that you’re like bad at life because obstacles came. Last life, that’s life. That’s what’s going to happen. So tell yourself it’s actually better to learn to pivot than to plan. And that changes a [01:03:00] lot in your own brain.

[01:03:01] LM: Can you leave us with just one homework assignment? Something that anybody can do the second they turn off this podcast to begin to feel like they have a better sense of their time, a better sense of their productivity.

[01:03:14] So they begin to feel the way they want to feel every day.

[01:03:17] KA: So I want everyone to imagine putting together a puzzle. and that we have been taught that life is putting together a puzzle. You have the picture on the box that you imagine, you start with the edges, and then every piece is used and it goes in place.

[01:03:35] That is not how life works. Life is more like painting. You have a collection of colors. You can change your medium different times. There is fluidity, there’s layering, there are adjustments, and When we look at life, like the act of painting versus the act of putting together a puzzle, there is so much freedom that is there.

[01:03:57] So my practical thing for you, [01:04:00] listening, is if you look back on today, I want you to ask yourself, was I puzzling or painting? Where was I puzzling? Where was I painting? This is all just noticing. This is neutral noticing. There’s not judgment on, oh, all I did was puzzle. I guess puzzling is bad. Nope. This is perfectly neutral, perfectly kind.

[01:04:24] Simply notice where you naturally felt the need to puzzle, where you might naturally feel the need to paint or the desire to paint. And maybe if your day didn’t have any painting at all, that you take a deep breath and you go, okay. What might tomorrow, a part of tomorrow, what’s a small thing I can do tomorrow, even in just something I say to myself that will help me look at this beautiful life that I get to live as a woman.

[01:04:55] The act of fluid, versatile, [01:05:00] layered, sometimes colorful, sometimes muted. That picture to me, going into a day with that picture, is not very hacky. It’s so freeing. Oh, it’s so freeing. So that’s my homework. Imagine your life. What would it look like if it was a painting instead of a puzzle?

[01:05:19] LM: I love that so much.

[01:05:20] Kendra, can you tell us a little bit in your own words about your beautiful new book? The

[01:05:23] KA: plan, Manage Your Time Like a Lazy Genius, is amazing. Out October 8th, it is a book of compassionate time management. It is for anyone, literally anyone, who is tired of greatness being the goal, who is tired of hustling after everything, who just wants to enjoy life a little bit more than you have to endure it.

[01:05:49] Because sometimes we do have to endure it. But what a beautiful thing to kindly and compassionately let ourselves make it a little easier, not try to [01:06:00] eliminate stress, not try to eliminate anxiety, not try to build the biggest system and then you press a big red start button and your life moves on like you’re a robot in a

[01:06:16] with literally anything that we said today. And you’re like, oh, if you felt that deep breath, this book is for you.

[01:06:23] LM: Thank you so much, Kendra. I love this conversation. Thanks for having me, Liz. That is all for this episode of the Liz Moody Podcast. If you are new to the podcast, welcome. I am so glad that you’re here.

[01:06:33] Make sure that you are following the podcast on whatever platform that you like to listen on. I know that 50 percent of you listening to this episode do not follow the podcast, What is up with that? You’re making your life harder by not following. Not only is it the best way to support the podcast, but it also makes sure that episodes show up right in your feed.

[01:06:54] You don’t have to search for them anywhere. And trust me, you do not want to miss what we have coming up soon. [01:07:00] I will be delivering some incredible science interviews and advice every single Monday and every single Wednesday for you. Okay, I love you, and I will see you for the next episode of the Liz Moody Podcast.

[01:07:11] If you loved this episode, you would love the episode where I speak with Simone Stolzoff about how work life balance got to the, what would I say, the epidemic point that it is currently at, and exactly how you can reposition your relationship with work. This episode changed how I view my job, my Home life, my leisure time, and so much more.

[01:07:32] I will link it for you in the show notes so you can go and listen next. Oh, just one more thing. It’s the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional.