The Lazy Genius Podcast

It is January, and we have that fresh start energy, right? Today, we won’t deep dive on habits because this is a podcast episode, but maybe you don’t need a deep dive. You just need a reminder or two as you move into the new year. Let’s gain some perspective on habits as we begin or end them.   Helpful Companion Links Episode 295: How to Start Fresh Without Starting Over Atomic Habits by James Cle...

It’s January, it’s the beginning of a new year, and our options used to be either lazy or genius. We’ve been trying to be geniuses about the start of a new year for too long, but the alternative is not ignoring it or dismissing it or saying that the new year doesn’t matter. There can be something really special about coming out of a busy holiday season, getting a new planner, and starting fresh. B...

This is not an episode of bragging. This is not an episode to make you feel like you should figure out a way to read 120 books or 20 books or 200 books or whatever. It is about what can happen when you actively choose to be a genius about something that matters, like reading matters to me.   Helpful Companion Links Episode #227: How to Know What to Read Next with Anne Bogel Anne’s podcast What Sho...

My birthday is December 27th, so tomorrow if you’re listening to this on the day it releases. I think that it is a very common problem for adults, maybe even especially for women, to know how to celebrate your own birthday. But y’all! It’s your birthday! It should be celebrated! So let’s talk about how.   Helpful Companion Links Jamie B. Golden’s Instagram post about birthdays Grab a copy of my bo...

We are entering the week before Christmas. I don’t want to take up too much of your enjoyment time with a podcast episode, but I do want to say a few words about something I think we so easily forget around the holidays. This week, I want to talk about how we think about time.   Helpful Companion Links Sherry Petersik from Young House Love Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee The Enneagram and Decision-Mak...

We have done so much work these last few weeks of figuring out how to manage our expectations and our holiday home and our time and our tasks and all the things. But we don’t want just to manage the holidays. We want to enjoy our life, and this time of year is one where you might actually have margin to do that. So that’s what this episode is. We’re going to move from management to enjoyment and d...

Let’s walk through December almost like it’s a Candyland board, and plan for the potential challenges you’ll run into like a Lazy Genius.   Helpful Companion Links The 2022 Lazy Genius Gift Guide How to Decorate for The Holidays with The Nester #290: Managing Your Holiday Home #234: Ten Rules for Gift Giving #134: How to Be Happy With the Gifts You Give #42: How to Host a Holiday Party #130: The L...

There’s a decent chance that while you love the feeling of the holidays in your home, you’re also a little overwhelmed by it. There’s the regular upkeep of one’s home - the general cleaning and tidying, but there’s also a lot of extra stuff around the house this time of year. And because our tendency is to be fairly extreme in our response to challenges - either try hard or give up - we stay overw...

This Thursday is American Thanksgiving, and we’re coming up on a season of lots of holidays, and with those holidays come many many expectations. You have them, your kids have them, your parents have them, your boss has them, the Internet has them… it’s a whole vibe. So today, we’re going to talk about how to be a Lazy Genius about the holiday expectations you will encounter from others and from w...

We’re in the middle of November. American Thanksgiving is next week which means that Christmas is in five minutes, and it’s easy to feel like we’re losing our minds a little bit with all the things. Today, we’re going to make the rest of 2022 easier with five fairly simple steps that will give you really practical help in making the next six or seven weeks feel good and enjoyable rather than rushe...

Today, I’m so excited to welcome Myquillyn Smith, aka The Nester, to the show to talk to us about decorating our homes! She is so good at helping people have the greatest amount of style with the least amount of stuff based on what matters. This conversation is a fantastic reminder of how to see the next few weeks in such a way that your home feels cozy and wintery and you. Helpful Companion Links...

It’s early November, and we’re about to hit the gauntlet if we’re not already in it. Dinner is one of those things that just keeps happening no matter who you are and how you live, so today I’m going to share what I’m personally doing to make dinner easier from now until after the holidays are over, and hopefully it’ll give you some ideas on how to make yours easier, too.   Helpful Companion Links...

Today is one of my favorite episodes we do every quarter or so on what’s saving my life. Y’all like it too because it always has above average downloads. I think we’re always looking for language around what’s making life easier and better for other people so that we can experience that for ourselves. So I hope today’s list will do just that.   Helpful Companion Links The next edition of the Lates...

Being with and loving and helping guide kids is a privilege, a challenge, and can be exhausting. What works today won’t work tomorrow. What works for this kid won’t work for that kid. What works for you when you have energy doesn’t work for you when you don’t. Today I want to offer some words about that shift and then offer two simple “start small” steps to begin connecting more with your kids.  ...

Today, I'm joined by my sister, Hannah, to talk about how to get our relationship back on track. We're in a season of not talking or seeing each other as much as we used to, and we want that to change. So in this episode, we try and Lazy Genius our relationship in real-time. If you are out of rhythm in any of your relationships and wish you were more connected, this episode is for you. Helpful Com...

Oh, man, have we been waiting a long time for this one! This is a highly requested topic, and I’m excited for us to walk through how to make email inboxes more manageable and less stressful.   Helpful Companion Links The Lazy Genius Kitchen (affiliate link) Episode #91: The Lazy Genius Organizes Paper The Holiday Docket  Santa’s Bag app (iOS) Download a transcript of this episode.   This podcast i...

This is one of the best conversations I've ever had. Shannan Martin is the author of Start with Hello, a beautiful book about being a neighbor. She is a true Lazy Genius in this area and offers so many ways to start small in our relationships, for example with saying hello. This book transcends neighborhoods, lifestyles, and family structures. We also share places we've been awkward as neighbors a...

Feeding people at my house is one of my favorite things in the entire world, and I hope that my enthusiasm for it and the permission you’ll hear in this episode will help you be excited about it, too. But I also know that we all have a lot of speed bumps when it comes to hospitality and entertaining and having people over, so I want to speak to a few of those today and maybe sand them down a littl...

Today is a quick little bonus episode - How to Lazy Genius the Start of a New Month. We’re a whisper away from October, and anytime the calendar turns to a new month, we feel some things. There’s a sense of potential, maybe of dread, of wondering if we got everything done last month that we meant, of making sure we’re not forgetting anything that’s coming up so we can prepare for it. That’s great,...

Last week, we had a longer-than-usual episode about how to find your personal style. So much of it is about how you want to feel, but there are also some great reminders and practical tips to help you get there. So if you not yet listened to that episode, I would encourage you to do so and then come back and listen to this one. But you do you. Be a rogue listener with my greatest compliments.   He...

A couple of weeks ago, I put up a very unofficial poll on Instagram asking what clothing-related problem was your biggest challenge, and finding your own personal style won out. This might feel like a problem no one else has, but let me assure it is not. It is not a singular problem that you struggle with that most people already have figured out. In fact, I think that it’s bigger than even I real...

We have a lot of things we’re managing right now, and the one thing that never goes anywhere, no matter our season or stage of life, is food. We have to eat, you guys. So in light of all of the things that take up our time in the evenings this season, how do we cook dinner? How do we make sure everybody eats when we never seem to be home at actual dinner time or even at the same time? Let’s Lazy G...

It’s Labor Day here in the US, and fall is decidedly about to start. We’re eager and excited, going up the hill of the first drop of the fall roller coaster and super pumped. But, once we crest that first peak, it’s over. All we’re doing is screaming and hoping we don’t die. So before we start screaming, let’s get some stuff in place so we can manage our time this season.   Helpful Companion Links...

Today, I want to give us a bigger picture of what we expect from our friendships, and then after the break, I’ll share a couple of friendship principles along with your ideas on how to connect more regularly.   Helpful Companion Links Episode 275: What’s Saving My Life Laura Tremaine’s Instagram account My friendship post on Instagram Episode 276: How to Pack Lunch for Work Download a transcript o...

I’m excited about this episode because when I went looking for grownup lunch help, I found very little that would work for a variety of people. Most solutions start from the wrong place, so today we’re going to Lazy Genius this. We’re going to go in the right order, which is a Lazy Genius principle, and we’re going to figure out how to pack lunch for work in a way that supports each person individ...