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Hey there, you're listening to the lazy genius podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter.
And lazy about the things that don't today's episode 402 office hours.
Y 'all are super familiar with this episode by now, but just in case you're new here, I'm gonna take some of your questions that you shared on Instagram and I'm gonna lazy genius them.
Now, I will say that anytime we do these episodes, the answers in the post are so good.
Some of them I don't even answer here on the episode because y 'all do such a great job of answering each other's questions in the comments, all with a tremendously compassionate lazy genius lens.
questions. So after you listen to this, don't hesitate to scroll through past office hours, Instagram posts at the lazy genius because they are quite excellent.
Now before I get into today's batch of questions, I want to share an observation, and this is true in my own life as well.
So many of your challenges, so many of the things that are driving you crazy that you wrote in the comments are related to other people's behavior, which also means They're tied to your expectations of other people's behavior.
Now, we are absolutely allowed to have those expectations.
Nobody listening needs to be a doormat that just takes whatever everybody else is dishing out.
At the same time, I think it's helpful to note that daily life can be stressful because people are stressful.
Living with people is hard. Parenting is hard. Marriage is hard. Working for a boss is hard. Friendship is hard. anything involving people is at some point going to be hard especially if it's new if it's a new relationship or it's ongoing which is kind of all of them and that leads to stress because we want things in life to be easy and we keep trying to make them that way.
If you have been trying to get your husband to put his coffee mug in the sink or the dishwasher rather than leaving it on the counter for seven years every single time he does it is going to make you more stressed out and will break your actual spirit.
It's like slowly dripping water changing the formation of rocks.
These things can wear you down and also it helps me to remember that expecting ease in all of these relational areas in my life is a pretty big ask.
People are people and I want to have compassionate expectations of the people in my life, just like I hope they have compassionate expectations of me.
It doesn't mean you shouldn't try or work through things like we're going to today.
But I think if we can bring a more compassionate lens to our people, we invite a more compassionate lens towards ourselves.
And our frustration, it doesn't disappear, but it might lessen just a hair, you know, maybe.
But we'll still answer some questions.
Also, we will do the questions that don't involve kids and parenting first and we'll say the kid ones in the end in case you just want to skip through if you don't have kids.
Alright, here we go, first up is momma beard teacher, how to make budgeting fun.
That's it. That's the comment and it made me laugh because it sounds kind of like a cry for help.
Budgeting is eating my soul.
Please make it fun.
Now, while I am a huge fan of making things fun, I am going to start with a little bit of kind big sister truth.
Not everything can be fun.
Sometimes we just got to do the thing, which is super annoying, but I do believe it's worth saying there is an expectation in the time management industry that if we plan the right way and we have the right resources, then every single thing we do is life -giving and excellent and motivating and we don't hate it.
It's like that Lou Holtz quote I put in my book in the plan.
again, if you're bored with life, if you don't get up in the morning with a burning desire to do things, you don't have enough goals.
That was spoken by a lauded Hall of Fame football coach who probably was not in charge of anything administrative or caretaking in his home.
Now I don't know that for a fact, but Luke Holz was born in 1937.
Chances are he was not a trailblazer in bending gender roles or in promoting an equal distribution of labor in the home.
when you are not worn down by the daily tasks of laundry and cooking and tending and budgeting and shopping for food and the things that continue to replenish themselves, it can be soul sucking.
It's the opposite of a burning desire.
Unless that desire is to burn it all down and go live in a van, which I have thought before.
Now I know this is a weird answer to a request to like make budgeting fun, but I think it's super important to name that not everything is fun and that the people who have been telling us that things should be fun or can be fun if we just like try hard enough are men who don't do the replenishing tasks they tend to have more energy and time to enjoy those harder tasks because they use some of their energy and time to work fulfilling jobs eat lunch that someone else made for them they play tennis after work they just mow the on Saturday.
Now, that is a generalization, obviously.
I am not man -hanging here.
Y 'all know I'm a big fan of The Gentleman, and that many of them are sharing the load more and more, which is amazing that we are still new to this.
This is still a new arena.
Division of Labor in the Home is a wildly new concept because men have spoken and taught from their own experiences of tasks being organized and time -blocked, and maybe even fun.
So, if you are struggling through something, the problem, according to them, is you.
You just haven't figured it out yet.
And I'm reminding us all that that is not true.
You are not the problem.
You live in a system that prizes optimization and leveling up and doing everything with excellence and that there's an expectation of enjoyment, even, at every turn.
Your tests are giving you life everywhere.
That's just not the reality most of the time.
So how to make budgeting fun?
Well maybe lower your expectations that it is fun.
I think budgeting kind of sucks.
It feels high stakes, it's stressful, you feel kind of like the bad guy if you're running the budget because you're essentially telling yourself and or your family what they can and cannot have or do right.
You're crunching the numbers at the grocery store, you're taking the time to go to multiple places and you're creative with meal planning in order to work in meat and produce that are on sale.
It's all very heavy.
Budgeting isn't just a spreadsheet or putting numbers into an app, it's a series of decisions about how you're going to live.
I can understand how that is not fun.
Now you CAN make it fun by, you know, playing good music or making a fun drink you love, or doing it in a coffee shop with another friend who also is in charge of the budget and like body doubling the task together.
Or you save a fun reward for when you're done, but ultimately, how might you make budgeting less overwhelming?
What if that was the reframe instead of more fun?
I think you can make budgeting less overwhelming, less pressure -filled, less daunting if you look at your budget for a small amount of time.
You know, a month, a quarter, even a year compared to your life is pretty small I guess.
If you remember that now isn't forever so you don't fall into a pit of despair over your situation and if you name what matters reframe your budgetary choices into what you're saving for rather than what you cannot spend.
You're making choices for a reason in this season based on what matters to you.
So remember that choice and celebrate that choice honor it with how you speak about it look at it through the lens of whatever you're abundant in or what you're moving toward that was such a long answer to such a short question uh they won't all be like that.
Okay next up is Kristen Roareg dusting the surfaces that aren't empty like the mantle with picture frames and trinkets what matters is things not being dusty when I look at them all right I've got three thoughts here.
The first one is a little more obvious, but those like Swiffer duster things that are short, they're like on a stick, you know, they do a great job going in between and around those little things without having to really pick stuff up.
So that's like the practical answer.
You can use a specific tool that's meant for that kind of dusting, but the second two thoughts are a bit more like 10 ,000 feet.
If what matters is that you're not looking at dusty things, right?
Or What does that actually mean for you?
Because sometimes you are going to look at those things and they will be dusty, especially if you haven't dusted.
So I would honestly explore like why a dusty mantle feels more important to tend to than, say, another part of the house.
Is it because you look at it a lot?
Right? Because the mantle's maybe in the living room.
It's the room you're in all the time.
And that leads me to my third observation slash question.
then maybe the mantle is something you see a lot, which means it's a holding ground for things that matter, right?
Pictures often matter.
But does everything on the mantle matter enough to be on display there and therefore need to be dusted more often?
It could be that you simplify the mantle, right?
Leave fewer things, leave fewer things there that matter to you, right?
That feel less overwhelming to dust or to dust around, put some of the things that don't matter as much in another location you don't see as often or you don't feel as much of a need to dust. It's kind of like you have to choose.
Do you care more about the visibility of the things on the mantle or the dust on the mantle?
If you care more about dust, then you need to get rid of some stuff.
If you care more about the stuff then you're gonna have to dust more often.
If you're like, eww I don't want to do either of those things, then you can just dust less and be okay with it.
This episode is sponsored by Wayfair.
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This next question had several amens in the comments.
Bethany Morse wrote, maintaining a home while working full -time.
How, with like question mark, exclamation point, question mark.
In other words, this feels impossible.
Now, I have a couple of episodes that I will point you to first. The first one is episode 333, nope, 334, how to create a relaxing home routine.
Which is hilarious because what home routine is relaxing.
But I do share some language about the cycle of the home kind of like I was saying in the budgeting question earlier.
So many of our tasks, they replenish themselves and that is exhausting, it's exhausting.
Now we do need to feel more relaxed about it both practically and inside of ourselves.
So episode 334 could be a good starting point.
Another episode which leads to a tip really is episode 254, chores I do every day.
I think that one of the most impactful things that we can do to maintain a home while working full time or part time or full time with kids or any of it is to choose like one to five chores you do every single day.
The reason you do them is because they create more calm than other things.
They're tasks that meet you in the season that you are in.
They help support what matters to you exactly where you are.
If you're overwhelmed with maintaining a home while working full time, you're not gonna figure it out all at the same time, it's not gonna all happen right away.
You're not gonna suddenly have the magical routine and arrangement along with the required motivation and time to even get it done.
That is a myth, it is a myth.
Instead, look at what you'd like to do regularly, maybe even daily and start with one of those things.
then slowly build on it.
Make sure that you're paying attention to if you're choosing a daily chore because you think you should or because it would actually help.
Some of you grew up in a home where you had to make your bed in the morning or else it was almost, like, as necessary as brushing your teeth every day.
So, every day, now, as an adult, that you leave your bedroom with an unmade bed or you walk into that bedroom to change after work to an unmade bed, you feel like a bad person.
You feel like you left something massive undone, which distracts you from the things you did do, from what's actually working, from what actually matters.
So start very small doing one thing that matters to you.
I know that's annoying advice because you want it all working.
That the reason so many people are like me too, to this comment, is because this is challenging, maintaining your home in the way that we think we're supposed to.
while also living full lives and having jobs and all the things is challenging.
So stop thinking that you're missing some magic piece of this homekeeping puzzle.
You're not. Start small by listening to those two episodes if you want.
And then with naming what chores you already do every day, celebrate that.
Then maybe even notice if you're doing something every day that doesn't support what matters in this season you're in and you could use that time for something that does.
Be slow and kind. Zero to 60 is not going to solve anything.
That's the energy that's reserved for when people are coming over anyway.
So just you could also have people over more often.
Okay. Next is MJ Norc.
MJ says I intend, capital intend.
I intend to reserve a couple of work blocks for admin tasks.
But when those times come, I'm either wiped out from the rest of the week or I've scrunched the time for other urgent tasks.
I just want to say, like, bless the people who are naturally gifted at administrative tasks.
I'm not one of those people either.
It kind of takes an act of God for me to have natural motivation or a good attitude in doing them.
That's probably why I had such a dire answer about the budgeting thing, like budgeting's not fun.
I hate administrative tasks.
I hate it. for me part of it is there's just not a huge payoff, you know?
They're often really cyclical so they have to get done again they'll have to be done again they're not big enough to feel like they're doing much but they're so necessary that not doing them spins everything off its axis.
Also the longer the list of admin tasks the more overwhelming at least for me.
It's how I feel when I open a fresh puzzle box, and I have to sort out all the edge pieces.
It's like tedious work.
But it's meant to create a better experience for other parts of the process.
But I do have to power through it.
I don't like it. Nobody likes to power through.
Well, maybe some people do, but I don't.
So the idea of blocking off a work block to handle the week's administrative tasks is a great idea, and it actually will work for some people.
It sounds like for you that the time block is too big.
I wonder if instead of a huge block or two a week or however long, if you plan to sit down and you start your day with one administrative task, just one, maybe that's more doable than all at once.
It's kind of like the difference in people who do all their laundry at once versus people who do one load a day.
We're all different and different approaches work for different people, right?
Like batching is an amazing principle.
We love it around here.
It's one of the 13 lazy genius principles.
But it doesn't work for every person and every situation.
Maybe batching is just too much at once.
So do one admin tasks task at the start of your work before you run out of energy or before too many things catch on fire for you to tend to another idea that's a little similar is where you set a timer for a very short amount of time.
I'm talking like five minutes, maybe 10 minutes, and you just get done on whatever admin thinks you can in that time, like turn off your phone and Slack and whatever, like put them on do not disturb and just go for 10 minutes.
I'm wondering if doing those admin tasks in smaller SIPs will help it go down easier.
Okay, next is the most beautiful question from Kelsey Dameron.
I would love ideas on how to make visiting my papa easier.
I've always tried to visit him about once a month since becoming an adult.
He recently moved into assisted living and it's closer to where I live, which is great, but since it is out of the previous routine I had, I'm trying to figure out how this visit doesn't get pushed to the back burner.
What matters is that I keep up the once a month visit with him, and if I get to see him more, even better.
This is so precious and such a beautiful example of naming what matters.
Y 'all know I love connection and relationships, so this is the best. Now obviously, when we have a routine that ends, we struggle to find a new one, not just just because it's something new, which is hard, but because we have this tiny grief over the loss of something that worked.
That is an unnamed obstacle we should name more.
We also tend to expect that whatever new choice we make is going to work just as well as the old one, without any sort of on -ramp or transition.
We tend to have unnamed expectations that the new things should work just as easily in as well as the old did, but don't forget that an old routine was built over time too, right?
We just forget it was because we're in it now and now is normalized.
So be kind and at ease with yourself when you're trying to find new routines that work.
Now for you specifically, Kelsey, I would start by asking if the regularity of the monthly visit is of the highest importance.
Is it better for you and your grandpa to know it's always the third Thursday after work or something like that, right?
If that is a priority, if the regularity of it is a priority, then look at your calendar and see if there is a repeatable time that matches your energy.
Do you like going when you have an open day after you know, like on a Saturday morning?
Do you like having a visit with a natural end?
Like you know you are, you have to be somewhere after.
Name those details and then see if there's a spot each month where you can just create a repeated calendar item.
Now if that kind of regularity doesn't matter as much I would just pull out your calendar, pick dates for the next three months, add another calendar item to choose the next three, so it stays kind of in rhythm, and then just do that again.
Just repeat that until maybe a natural routine surfaces as you notice what works best for you and your to pop.
Okay, now let's hit a few kid related questions.
If you don't have kids and you want to skip to the end for the lazy genius of the week, hit it.
And also I think it can be helpful to hear how problems are solved.
Even if the problem isn't relevant to us.
So you can choose your own adventure based on what matters to you today.
All right. So first is Shannon Warford. My kid literally cannot wake up on his own in the morning.
I've tried everything.
End of comment. I have one of these.
Uh, he gets up when I need him to sleep in, but is a cement block when I need him to get up.
Drives me crazy. Now I, I think that maybe now is not the time for like specific hacks or tips because I don't know your kid or their age or their temperament or yours.
But here's my thought on kids who need help with something like this consistently.
I try and look at it as my job, as their mom to show them how they might do something on their own later.
But I don't necessarily require it of them right away.
So for example, Annie and Ben, my two youngest, they need no help getting out of bed or getting ready in the morning.
They get up and they get dressed and they burst their teeth without being asked and they pack their backpacks.
It's pretty fantastic.
Now, my oldest, Sam is not quite like that.
He never has been. He has ADHD.
He is not a morning person and those two things together on school days make for a rather frustrating time for me as his mother.
And sometimes for him as a person with a mother who was growing increasingly frustrated with him.
So, I make it my job to be a human snooze button and gradually wake him up, reminding him of the trade -offs if he doesn't get up at that time.
I am teaching him the things to think about, but not making him think about them all at once every single morning.
Now, you get to choose how you operate in your own house, but here's what it looks like in mind.
Really it's just a bunch of like reverse engineering.
I know that Sam is not an urgent guy and that if he feels rushed, he'll actually move slower because he's overwhelmed and he's overstimulated.
And in the morning he's unmedicated, which is usually what helps him process through that.
So I know that if he has to be ready to leave the house at 8 45, which is typical, it serves him best to be out of his room and dressed by 8 a .m. Now does he need 45 minutes to eat breakfast and brush his teeth and unload his rack of the dishwasher and pack his school stuff?
Technically no. But he does need that long to get those things done while moving at his own pace.
Ben takes 15 minutes and he's done.
That is not Sam's pace.
So I wake Sam based on his pace not on mine not on his siblings.
And even still I don't wake him up at eight I wake him up at 740.
I turn off his white noise machine because we are a family who lives and dies by those things.
I open his blinds I gently rub his like precious teenage forehead and And I say, morning bud, you don't have to get out of bed yet.
You got some time to start waking up a little.
And then I go back to the kitchen and I pack another lunch or I make my coffee or whatever.
I then go back like 10 minutes later, like a human snooze button.
And I say a little louder, morning Sam, it's good for you to be up in dressed in the next 10 minutes, so you're not rushed this morning.
Okay. And it'll kind of nod from under the covers.
And I notice if he's still pretty out of it.
And I'll say something like, hey, can you start moving around a little like move your body.
Don't get cozy back under the covers or you're never going to get up.
And then I'll finish by saying the next time I come in, if you're not already up, you'll just have to get up.
OK? And he'll nod and I'll leave. Now I would say most mornings when I go back 10 minutes later like right at 8, he's already up.
He's already getting dressed or he's even in the kitchen already.
He's not rushed doing it because he really does have plenty of time and he knows it.
He can move at a slower pace.
But if he's still in bed, my next move at 8 a .m. is a slightly firmer, louder voice.
Not necessarily angry, just louder that says, okay Sam, you got to get up now.
I'm gonna turn on your light.
Would it help you if I went ahead and I got your pills ready?
And he hides from the light, but it helps to wake him up.
And he nods about the pills and I say, okay, I'm gonna go get your pills, but you've got to get up now.
Okay? It's like a progressive wakeup call.
Now, occasionally there are mornings when he's really slow and really combative and he doesn't get out of bed and it's hard to stay calm in those situations.
But that's when I also communicate to him the trade off that he is choosing, right.
I'll be like, hey, remember Sam, you don't like to be rushed in the morning.
You've said that before.
So you're setting yourself up to be rushed and I'm guessing that's a bummer of a way to start your day.
Now, if you're okay being rushed this morning, I will keep you moving along, but you usually don't like me rushing you, so you pick what you can handle this morning.
Now, I know this is all super detailed and not necessarily something that would work for everybody, but the general idea here is that I'm prioritizing what matters, which is that we are not rushed.
That means getting up earlier.
That means choosing to be Sam's snooze button.
I make that choice, and it works for us.
most mornings, while, you know, longer because he doesn't technically need to be awake that early, he actually does get up.
It is what matters.
And so, that's what we do.
But he gets up. Now, I think when we have expectations that our kids do things a certain way, or like we do them, or like their siblings do them, or like just we think human beings are supposed to do them.
We just get out of whack.
Our Again, I'm not saying that it's like a ridiculous thing to expect your kid to wake up in the morning.
Like, eventually Sam is gonna go to college and he's gonna have to do this on his own.
But I also think he's gonna know that early morning classes are not his scene.
He needs morning margin.
He needs a longer runway.
He can't be like Ben, who when I open his door to wake him up, shoots up like a cannon and goes through his motions without me having to say a thing and is ready to walk out the door, backpack on his back in 15 minutes flat.
I think that's the kid we all want.
But it's not the kid we all have. And it makes our kids who aren't that way maybe not feel so great.
But they're just different.
Right? We're all different.
So I think starting by loosening your ideas of what ideal kid behavior is, and then loosening the expectations that your kids are always going to meet them exactly the same way every day is going to help.
Now, listen, you don't have to agree with me on that.
But if it's a perspective that you're like oh that's helpful, then use it.
OK, next is Nancy Bradley.
Nancy says my kids three and five love to take the couch cushions off to play with them.
Forts, floor is lava, a jungle gym.
I love the kind of play they are doing together but they don't put the couch cushions back without multiple reminders or consequences.
When I'm tired at the end of the day I just want to sit on my couch without putting all the cushions back first. I love the combination of practicality and encouraging creative play.
You know, you want your kids to play, but you also want to sit on your couch. So how can both things be true?
I'm actually going to share some specific ideas from Carissa who basically gave a couple of suggestions for house rules in the comments.
And that would have been my broad answer, create one or two house rules about couch cushions.
So Carissa's were cushions always go back on the couch before dinner and no forts after dinner.
Now the downside to both of these is that some of you perhaps might feel like you're a bad mom, a bad parent for making the kids take down their fort.
I feel that way all the time.
Over winter break, Annie used all of our kitchen table chairs and most of our cozy couch blankets to make a fort in the middle of our main living area.
Now it didn't block anything except like walking, but it getting warm with the blankets.
It was also very visible just like a big old blob in between the kitchen and the living room and she loved it.
Loved it so I felt bad making her take it down and let her keep it up for like three days.
I mean it was Christmas break, whatever.
I mean we're eating in front of the TV anyway but I also started to feel a little crazy and I needed some space back.
I needed to sit down in my chairs.
I needed a blanket.
So I told her that she needed to take it down but that she could put it back up tomorrow morning and that's what she did so kids couldn't rebuild things they can take it down at the end of the day or at the end of the time you need them to if that's what matters to you so house rules whatever they might be try them then you're not constantly having to make the decision of when and where and how the forts come down okay next is Lisa Weston kids getting toothpaste all over the bathroom counter.
I just need to be able to set something down without the goo getting all over it.
This is such a problem.
I get so crazy about the toothpaste left in the sink and kids toothpaste is either bright blue or bright pink and somehow it just gets everywhere.
I think I feel like I made a real ages ago where I showed all the places I found toothpaste.
It is ridiculous. Now there are those things that are like they're like little toothpaste toppers that protect the cap there are Clorox wipes you can have close by for kids to make part of their teeth brushing routine cleaning up the toothpaste, right?
You can teach a kid to move their big clump of toothpaste all through their teeth first and then start actively brushing because when you stick your toothbrush in with a big clump of toothpaste and you just immediately start brushing in one spot, it leads to one big clump of toothpaste that just gets spat out anyway.
There are things you can do, But what we really want is for them to not be animals and just chill with the toothpaste everywhere But y 'all it is everywhere.
So many kids do this.
So many kids So rather than figuring out how to make it go away so that we're not annoyed by it.
I Think for me. I come to expect it.
I expect that toothpaste is left behind and And we have little phrases like, no pink in the sink for like pink toothpaste, like don't leave pink in the sink, or I'll sing song remind them like Mary Poppins, like make sure there's no toothpaste anywhere or I'll make you clean it with your bare hands.
Like I kind of have to lower my expectations because my children even been like the weirdly responsible one leaves big ol blobs of toothpaste in the sink and on the towels.
What is happening? They're gonna do it.
So I have to stop expecting them not to do it, and instead, encourage them to notice it's there, and then do something about it.
Which is annoying, but it's better than losing my mind every time I see a stripe of blue across a hand towel.
Okay, two more. Katie Bridger says, "'Playdates.' I loathe them.
Strong word. Yes. But my seven -year -old daughter loves them.
How can I make them more manageable for my anxious, introverted self while also seeing my daughter for who she is and making sure she feels loved.
I want to honor both of us.
So this is so relatable, and there was a solid little conversation in the comments about this too.
In fact, in that comment conversation, Katie, the original poster, realized that the thing she really hated about playdates was coordinating them.
She can deal with the social part when necessary, but it's the cord nation.
That's a great example of how to make a problem even smaller.
and sometimes that comes from talking about it and hearing other people give you feedback.
So share your problems with your friends and almost certainly you'll find a way to make it even smaller and more solvable.
So if the coordinating of the play dates is what is a bear, I think there are ways to make that a little easier.
You can decide once on like a day of the week or a location or how long it goes.
So like for you and your calendar, maybe Thursdays from 9 to 11 30 in the morning is your play date time.
If no one is available that week, no play date that week, unless someone else invites you to something, but you don't leave this like open ended play date life.
You choose one window during the week, and that's the window, right?
Or some other repeatable choice.
Another idea could be to use what our beloved Markella, a member of a lazy genius community for a long time, what she did with park play dates over a summer, she had a spreadsheet.
It was like a set day that everybody went a set day and time.
And in the spreadsheet she had like rotating parks on what day.
And then sent the spreadsheet to all the people.
Then it was just like, come if you can.
But it was already planned and you could go or not go.
I see this play date question and others like it.
It's like one of those gear games.
You know those preschool toys with like the plastic gears that you have to line up and then when when one moves they all move.
You've got to get one gear in place, which makes it easier to put the others in their place.
So if you start every week or every play date possibility with nothing in place, then you're building the machine from scratch which is your least favorite part Katie.
So decide once somewhere.
You can maybe steal Markella spreadsheet thing, but just decide once.
Hopefully that'll help.
Okay. The last one, Little Loomis says, shoes blocking the closet door.
We have a sliding closet door in the mudroom.
On one half of the closet are my son and husband's shoes.
The other half are all the bags and necessities for out of house life.
It's a great system.
The shoes which are stored on the floor of the closet are constantly spilling out, preventing me from fully closing the one side and fully opening the other.
I've tried shoe putting away house rules, failed, removing shoes, works briefly until they pile up again and generally screaming about it, shockingly this doesn't work either.
How do I keep large men shoes from spilling out all over the place?
And in later comments, Lumis says that really her husband is more the culprit than her son.
This right here is an excellent example of something I get asked often which is what do you do when what matters to you doesn't matter to someone else.
Because this This is a rather small thing and it's hopefully not mired in like much emotional baggage.
I think this is a beautiful opportunity to communicate with your husband that this matters to you.
You say without accusation or discouragement something like, Hey, I need your help with something.
I am realizing it really matters to me that the closet door in the mudroom can close both ways without any effort.
And as we know from past experiences, the shoes are a bit of an obstacle for that.
I know it doesn't matter to you, as much as it does to me.
I know you love being able to just take your shoes off.
And I'm glad you have a place to do that, that it really matters a lot to me that the doors closed.
It's a place where I get frustrated often and I don't want to get frustrated.
So will you help me figure something out?
So you enter you ask that person to enter in with you.
Now you can do a box or a basket on that side of the closet to corral the shoes.
Like, I think that's great.
But every person listening to this episode is probably the resident problem solver in your home.
you are the one who notices what's not working.
You are the one who maintains most of the things.
You are the one trying to get all the humans out the door.
Not always, but often.
Your husbands, if you have them, do not carry this in their brains or their lives.
They just don't. And it's not fair for you to bear the problem solving burden all the time.
So say what matters to your partner if you have one and especially if they are the culprit of the problem and ask them to solve it.
Say, this matters to me and I need you to take some initiative him and help me with this.
And if there's pushback, that's showing a place that needs work in your marriage or your partnership anyway.
If your dude is going to be whiny about putting his shoes away, that's evidence of a bigger problem because you should matter more than his shoes and if given the opportunity to name that for himself, I think he would agree.
So that's our last question.
That's the latest installment of office hours.
What a vibe to go out on.
Okay. Before we celebrate the Lazy Genis of the week, just a reminder that if you want to submit your own idea for being the Lazy Genius of the Week, you can email us at helloatthelazygeniuscollective .com.
Latoya, our director of community, takes care of choosing those and is so thoughtful, and what goes with what episode, and she would love your ideas.
So if you have one, send it to latoiaathelloatthelazygenius .com.
And now for the Lazy Genius of the Week.
This week it's Arden Flint.
Arden writes, Once every year for me, it's usually in January, I buy all the birthday cards I know I need to send for my family and friends at one time.
I write their addresses and put stamps on them.
Then when their birthdays come up, I already have a card ready to fill out on the inside and send, and I don't have to make an extra trip to the store.
I have friends who do this, I've had a lot of you listening all do this.
I'm not a huge birthday card person, so I have never done this with like the dating and the sending, but I do buy cards for a certain number of people for their birthdays, that I just give them in person with their gift. And I feel like I'm always on the lookout for those cards.
I have a little box of birthday cards that are not going to be used for probably two or three years because I have so many for certain people.
So it is really fun to buy with more than one person in mind, if you're already thinking that.
That I always love an example of batching something that matters to you, right?
And if you're getting a birthday card from Arden, you can appreciate the thoughtfulness of how she's making sure it happens.
So thanks for sharing Arden and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week.
This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, an executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey.
The Lazy Genis podcast is enthusiastically part of the Office Ladies Network.
Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production.
Thanks y 'all for listening, and until next time be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't.
I'm Kendra, and I'll see you next week.
I'm Jordan Robinson, host of the new podcast, the Women's Hoop Show.
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