Hey there, you're listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast.
I'm Kendra Adachi.
This podcast is not about hacking the system to find more time or hacking your energy to get more done.
Hustling to be the best or to make the most out of every opportunity is exhausting and unsustainable.
So here we do things differently.
On this show, we value contentment, compassion, and living in our season.
We favor small steps over big systems.
Here we are, lazy geniuses, being a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't, and I am so glad you're here.
Today is episode 456, What's Saving My Life?
We do these episodes once a quarter where I share the things, big and small and wildly varied, that are saving my life right now.
It is a beloved practice, one that we have been doing for a long time together.
In fact, if you recall, there was a recent-ish Lazy Genius of the Week who schedules a quarterly video call with her best friend who lives far away, where they share all the things that are saving their lives.
I love it so much.
Barbara Brown Taylor was the person originally credited for this phrase, and many of us on the internet really love the simplicity and breadth that it offers.
So today I'm going to share my list of what's saving my life right now.
After that, for a little extra something, I'm going to share my chicken salad recipe.
It's so good.
You likely have one that you love and that's amazing.
Keep it and enjoy.
I'm just kind of obsessed with mine.
I've been making it for over a decade and sometimes it becomes my daily lunch for like a really long stretch.
I am in that stretch right now.
So I wanted to share it with you in case you would like to give it a try.
As always, we will celebrate the lazy genius of the week that uses a beloved childhood treat as a way to solve unique problems.
And then we will finish up with a mini pep talk for the over organizer.
Speaking of over organizing, we are about to enter a new season, right?
We are a far cry from the crazy winter holidays.
Thank you.
Thankfully, the fresh and the new energy of January, like it's It's almost faded, I think.
And now we're into February.
Suddenly able to see spring break on the calendar without having to flip very far.
New seasons bring new priorities.
And I would love for you to consider a tool to help you name those and actually enjoy them in your life.
So the three primary arms of this business are this podcast, which you get once a week for free, which is super fun that it's free.
The books.
The second arm is the books that I write, which have all been New York Times bestsellers, which is crazy.
They continue to sell well, which is also amazing and crazy.
And I'm so grateful and happy that you keep reading.
And then the third arm is the playbooks.
The playbooks are a product that we make in partnership with a woman-owned small business out of Asheville.
And these playbooks are my favorite planning tool of all time.
They are small, seasonal notebooks that are designed to help you look at your current season of life, name what matters there, and then organize those things, put them in helpful places so they actually happen.
It's kind, low pressure planning, but still helps you get things done.
It is a lazy genius tool up and down.
The playbooks are organized by season.
So there are four per year and we're coming up on the next season, which is spring.
So our spring playbook runs from March to May.
So now's a really excellent time to order yours.
So you will have it before March begins.
The spring playbook is this amazingly happy yellow color.
It's small.
It can tuck into the planner that you already use if you want to use them together.
And it just helps you compassionately be where you are, all while focusing on things that matter to you.
All the seasonal playbooks are sold individually, but you can also buy the whole year as a discounted set.
The colors and design are seriously so fun.
The stuff inside really works.
I've been using mine almost every day throughout the season since we launched them in winter of 2024.
So I'm getting to the point now where I can look back on past seasons seasonal playbooks, while using the new one.
Like, I have my spring playbook from 2025 and I'm going to be able to use that to consider 2026, to see the things that mattered then, what might be changing now, what I hoped to do then that I didn't, so that I could maybe be more reasonable in my approach to this year.
That's a fun bonus of using these regularly.
You get a snapshot of your season's So you can look back to remember and also to just enjoy.
I just love these things.
I mentioned this last week, but 10 of all our sales in the month of February will be donated to World Central Kitchen, an organization that I truly love that it gets water and food to people in difficult situations immediately.
So your purchase will contribute to that as well.
So thank you.
You can check out the playbooks on our website at thelazygeniuscollective.com slash playbooks.
And if you have any questions about them at all, feel free to email.
Hello at thelazygeniuscollectivecom.
All right, before we get into what's saving my life, let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors, which make this show free for you to listen to.
Before we do that, here is your quick reminder about the podcast recap email that we send out every other Friday.
It's called Latest Lazy Listens.
It summarizes the episodes so you don't have to take notes.
It shares the lazy genius of the week, because some of those ideas are just so dang good and you want to remember them.
We also put the other segments of the show, a little extra something.
So this next one will have the chicken salad recipe actually written out.
So if you would like to get that recap, head to thelazygeniuscollective.com slash listens.
Hello, I'm Elizabeth Day, the creator and host of How to Fail.
It's the podcast that celebrates the things in life that haven't gone right and what, if anything, we've learned from those mistakes to help us succeed better.
Each week, my guests share three failures, sparking intimate, thought-provoking and funny conversations.
You'll hear from a diverse range of voices sharing what they've learned through their failures.
Join me Wednesdays for a new episode each week.
This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, let's get into what's saving my life right now.
So the first thing on my list, I teased this a couple of weeks ago, and that is convenience foods.
I started to share some of my favorite convenience foods in a recent A Little Extra Something and it just like turned into a whole long thing.
I care a lot about this Okay.
Uh, apparently probably because I I'm depending on convenience foods a lot right now and I'm enjoying how they are saving my life.
So we have like a, like a subset list today.
So the first thing that's saving my life is convenience foods, but here's like a list of my current favorite ones.
So the first one is a one I mentioned in that past episode, that is, the pre pulled rotisserie chicken from Costco.
Yes, I could totally just buy the whole chicken itself, which is its own version of convenience.
You did not have to cook a chicken, but I hate pulling meat off a chicken.
Like I just hate it so much.
So I love buying the packages of rotisserie chicken that are already pulled and neatly packaged for me.
I use this chicken all sorts of ways.
We make a chicken pearl couscous soup every two or three weeks, maybe.
I'm actually making it for dinner tonight.
And it is so great in that it stays tender.
I don't have to thaw or cook any meat.
It's just great.
Annie eats rotisserie chicken as a snack, which will never not be funny to me.
And I use this chicken consistently for my lunches.
I think my favorite current way as long as I have grapes in the house, is to make chicken salad.
I love my chicken salad recipe.
I will share it with you at the end of this episode and a little extra something.
But we use this chicken all the time and I hope it never stops being available for lazy chicken people like me.
Okay, the second convenience food item that continues to save my life and especially now in the winter when I'm making like way more curries and stuff like that than I usually do are those frozen cubes of garlic and ginger from Trader Joe's.
I'm guessing other stores and brands probably sell frozen cubes of garlic and ginger, but I just get them from Trader Joe's.
I still use fresh garlic and fresh ginger occasionally, but I love the convenience of those cubes when I'm making a marinade or something where the garlic or ginger are playing with a lot of other flavors.
And I also need a lot of them.
Having something like super fresh is less necessary because there's so many other things at play.
And also I can just like pop out like eight cubes of garlic rather than having to chop eight cloves of garlic.
It's just so nice to do that when I'm making tikka masala or Korean beef.
I'm just like that much closer to being done and I didn't have to use a knife.
Like I love it.
I love those things so much.
So that's the second favorite convenience food.
The third, I love Rao's marinara sauce.
Now making your own sauce is not hard.
I understand that.
I used to do it all the time and I still do on occasion.
But because we depend on pasta as a meal, like once every week or two, and usually on days that are already naturally busy, which is why I put pasta on those days.
I like being able to just dump a jar in a pan.
My kids can dump a jar in a pan.
Plus, Rao's sauce is outstanding.
I grew up on ragu.
I graduated to Prego when I got married.
And then Kaz and I went like really fancy with Borrella pasta sauce for a while.
Their tomato basil pasta sauce.
Rao's, bless the other sauces' hearts, Rayo's general, like it does taste like it was made by an Italian grandmother over the course of three days.
It's just spectacular.
It's so good.
And I love it for both the flavor and the convenience.
Yes, it is more expensive than other jarred sauce brands, but I will usually stock up at Costco or when it's on sale at another store.
So we love Rayo's.
The number four, convenience food.
We eat a fairly absurd amount of Trader Joe's Mandarin orange chicken, and I will never apologize for this.
It happens at least once every two weeks.
It is the go-to convenience dinner when anyone else is cooking.
Well, me too, but for sure when anyone else is cooking.
The kids and Kaz can both cook it without having to think, and everyone mostly loves it.
Annie is like, Less enthused, but she'll be fine.
Remember my gauge for a successful dinner is if three out of five people like it.
So four out of five is like winning all the way.
I am so glad that we have a Trader Joe's five minutes from our house now.
It used to be we would, we would have to drive like 40 minutes to the one in the next town.
I kid you not.
I would buy like 20 bags of chicken at one time.
It was a problem, but it's like, such a favorite.
It's, we love this chicken and it saves many a stressful dinner plan.
And don't forget my tip for that chicken, by the way.
And this is true for any chicken that you cook and then cover in sauce.
So you cook the chicken in the oven, right?
This breaded chicken, and then you toss it in the sauce.
Cool.
Well, after you toss it in the sauce, put it back in the oven.
You could even turn the broiler on for a minute if you wanted to, But that extra hit of heat it helps the sauce stick to the kitchen.
It gets like beautifully sticky, way more flavorful.
And it only takes like an extra minute or two.
It is such a worthwhile step that adds a great level of flavor to even the most convenient of convenience meals.
And then the final convenience food that I desperately love is the better than bouillon jar of chicken base.
That snuff is like sneaky special.
It makes anything taste homemade in a flash.
I use it in tomato soup and chicken soup and any soup to make it feel like it's been cooking for a really long time.
If something I'm making just needs like a hit of umami of just like depth, right?
I will throw a little spoonful of that chicken base in there.
Plus I don't ever have to buy cans or boxes of chicken broth.
Because I can just put some chicken base in whatever amount of water that I need and then make something delicious.
This also comes in handy when kids are sick, because you can put together the convenience of a pre-shredded rotisserie chicken and the chicken base and you have homemade chicken soup for a sniffly family member in like seven minutes.
It's amazing.
Now, there are three things.
I will say this.
There are three things that are beloved convenience foods that I rarely buy.
And I want to share this list too, even though this is not what saves my life, because I think it's important for us to sort of identify that just because something works for one person doesn't mean it's going to work for everybody.
And it's okay to like not choose things that are convenient for other people if they don't work for you.
So like the first one is shredded cheese.
We don't buy shredded cheese.
We buy blocks of cheese and then shred ourselves.
I have a small box grater for like quick jobs.
We also have that, that Giedel, Giedel?
I don't know how to say it.
Grater that like suctions to the counter.
The kids love using that thing.
Oh my gosh.
I desperately prefer the flavor of cheese from a block.
And maybe I'm making it up, but I can tell the difference between pre-shredded cheese and one cheese that we just shredded.
So we buy the blocks like always like we never buy strategies.
Another convenience food I rarely buy are spice blends.
I threw together, like taco seasoning and garam masala and all of the things, instead of buying spice packets, because I kind of enjoy putting together spice blends.
I enjoy the vibe of like pulling out a few spice bottles.
I'm acting like I'm doing some sort of delicious experiment.
It's fun for the kids to do that too.
I enjoy that part of cooking.
I do have a couple of blends that I use in particular places that I just can't really make myself.
They're both from Trader Joe's.
So the 21 Salute seasoning from Trader Joe's is a solid all-purpose seasoning for like steak and any kind of meat or anytime I just need, like a general like herby peppery vibe.
I also love the umami seasoning blend from Trader Joe's.
It smells like mushrooms and it makes anything taste richer.
I use it when we make noodle bowls or when I'm cooking anything that is Asian or French, which is a I don't know.
It's a weird gauge, but whatever.
It is just magical.
And it's not something I can recreate from spices I have in my spice cabinet.
So outside of those two jars, we don't really have spice mixes.
Because I like mixing what I need when I need it.
And then the third convenience food that I don't get that a lot of people do is pre-cut produce.
I don't get pre-cut fruit or vegetables or even salad kits.
I don't know why, but they get eaten less than buying something and cutting it up myself when we need it.
So I just skip that part of the produce department at any grocery store I'm in.
Okay, so that was a lot of real estate for one thing.
But I really, really love convenience foods.
And I think it's good to name the ones that actually are convenient for you.
And you don't have to choose ones that are convenient for everybody.
Like choose your own and you'll enjoy their convenience even more.
Okay, technically that was number one.
Like the number one thing that saved my life is convenience foods.
I've been talking for 10 minutes.
Okay, number two.
The second thing that's saving my life right now is actually going to have like A similar vibe to what we just did.
But it is having a simpler, just like really dependable makeup routine that I love.
So I did an episode a while back on makeup.
And I think it's called The Lazy Genius Guide to Makeup.
I don't remember.
I still stand by that episode.
I think the idea that I presented in that episode.
It's great to have go-to choices of how you're gonna do your makeup, based on how made up you want to be.
I find that really helpful.
One of the faces is called fancy face.
Like sometimes we need to put on a fancy face.
So it's nice to know what you personally are gonna do when it's time to put on a fancy face.
It's like a weird decide once for your makeup.
But for most of us, we don't have fancy face very often.
We just need regular face, just daily face.
And for me, I want my daily face to be as simple as humanly possible.
Also, now that I'm in my mid-40s and my skin is changing, I want to use makeup that makes me feel alive and look like myself, without being cakey or weird or taking a million hours to apply, because I don't want to spend my time doing that.
It's okay if you do.
I do not.
I'd rather just like not wear makeup than have to do anything else. complicated.
Well, I've spent.
I love makeup and I've spent years trying products, honing my, honing my routine, all the things.
I feel like I've landed on my go-to makeup routine and my go-to products that I will use every day, for everything and like never deviate.
Like I do still have some products that I will sub in on occasion, like favorites still stay in the drawer, especially in the blush area.
Cause man, do I love a blush?
But I would really be fine if I could only have this one look for the foreseeable future.
I just love how it saves my life to just know what I'm going to put on my face every day.
It's my favorite.
Now, listen, the point of this is not for you to copy what I do, right?
We know this.
I'm just reminding you.
Products are different.
Skin is different.
Colors are obviously super different based on your skin tone and your undertone and all those things.
But it is really fun sometimes to experiment with something that another person might rave about.
So I would encourage you if you want to try something, get something that has a really great return policy.
Like Sephora, you can try anything.
And if it doesn't work, you can take it back.
And they'll give you your money back.
It's fantastic.
So if you want to try something risk-free, you should do it.
But this is not like, don't copy what I'm doing.
Pay attention to what would work for you.
All right.
But here's my routine.
Ready?
So first...
I use Elsa MD tinted sunscreen every single day.
Jamie Golden taught me that sunscreen is the most important and effective thing that you can put on your face at any age, any skin type, and she is right.
I use sunscreen every day.
I love this tinted version, especially on days that I don't wear any makeup at all.
It's got a great glow, but not like too much.
It's not a glow forward sunscreen.
It goes on really smooth, just like a great moisturizer.
It doesn't have a cast.
It's just great.
I've been using it for years.
I love it so much.
And I've tried others that other people swear by.
I keep going back to Elta MD.
Next, after I do my sunscreen, comes the Merit Beauty Foundation Stick.
I've talked about this like weirdly enough on a podcast ad before.
You might have heard an ad on the show for it today.
I don't know.
So, while what I am about to say is not an ad, you have heard me talk about this stuff on an ad that I love this product.
I cannot explain to you how good this foundation stick is.
I've tried so many foundations over the years.
One's recommended by friends, smart people in the beauty industry.
I've tried the viral brands on Instagram.
I've gone through so many foundations and none worked the way that I hope they would.
Some came close, but there were never any that I loved as much as this one.
Merit beauty for me wins here.
I put the stick on whatever parts of my face need coverage for like spots or redness.
It's usually like around my eyes at my, um, like my lip crease lines.
I don't know what that's called, but you know the line from your nose to your, to the edge of your mouth.
What's that?
It doesn't matter.
That's usually kind of red.
And then the top of my nose, like I'll just do a little bit of that and then be done.
I blended in with, like this brush that Merit has but you could use any brush or your fingers and it's great.
It's like.
It's like blending like the softest butter over crunchy toast it's just because my skin is sometimes crunchy toast.
It just goes on like a breeze.
It's amazing, and it stays like.
I still look the same when I take my makeup off at the end of the days when I put it on.
It's magical.
It's so great, I love it so much.
After that, I use the RMS powdered bronzer.
I have been using this bronzer for a long time.
I have tried a few other bronzers to see if this one would lose its seat.
It has not.
It has not lost its seat.
It's just the best bronzer.
I don't use a bronzer in the traditional way.
Like I don't use it for contouring.
You know, I don't put it under my cheekbones.
I actually put it on top of my cheekbones.
And over my nose, because that's what Rosemary, the founder of RMS, says to do, especially for women over 40.
She's like, think about where you get sun.
It's not under your cheekbones.
It's where the sun hits the highest parts of your face.
So I follow her instructions.
She is right.
And this bronzer is my favorite thing.
When you guys see me on Instagram and you're like, you're just glowing.
That's why.
It's RMS bronzer.
Put on top of my cheekbones instead of underneath them.
It's just so good.
The next product i use is also from rms.
It is the powdered luminizer, basically a highlighter.
It's so subtle and it's another thing that makes you guys think i'm glowing.
It really just gives a really great natural glow and no other highlighter i've ever tried comes close like these are.
These are really really excellent, excellent products, and i like that they're powders as opposed to anything like liquid.
Okay, so after I do those things, I hit the blush.
I have many blushes that I love.
I have Merit blushes.
I have RMS blushes.
I have Rode blushes.
They're all fantastic and I use them all.
The one that I will reach for if I don't want to have to think about it is the Glossier Cloud Paint Blush in the color Burst.
Burst is this bright color. blue, red.
So if you have cool undertones, this is what you want.
I am obsessed with this blush.
I learned this from Rosemary, that she would use red blush instead of pink blush when she did makeup for fashion shows.
She would do Victoria's Secret shows a lot and she would use a red blush instead, because it offers more of like a natural sun-kissed look almost like a sunburn color than pink does.
Well, for my skin tone, that's definitely true.
I just love this blush so much.
I got to try it when I went to New York with Jamie Golden last year.
We went to the Glossier store and I tried it and I was like, this is fun.
Let's give this a shot and take this home.
I use it like 80% of the time when I choose blush now.
If I had to choose only one blush for the rest of my life, it would be this one.
The only downside is that it's not as easy to put on as say like a Merit Blush.
It blends really well, but it's so strongly pigmented that you just have to pay attention.
Otherwise, you look like a clown who got a sunburn, and that's not fun.
But that tiny bit of attention is worth it because of how much I love the look of this blush.
If I don't have time to pay attention, I'll just swipe on one of my other blushes like Merit or Rode and blend and go.
Then after that, I do my eyes.
So I use the eyebrow pencil from Kosas, K-O-S-A-S.
It's called Brow Pop Nano Ultra Fine Detailing and Feathering Eyebrow Pencil.
Long name, great pencil.
It really is ultra fine and it feels like you're drawing actual hairs on your eyebrows.
I have very thin eyebrows.
They're also turning gray.
So they're disappearing before my eyes.
So I just really love using an eyebrow pencil to frame my face.
This is the best one I've ever used.
I've used many.
I've probably tried 10 different eyebrow pencils.
This is for sure the one that I will buy again and again and again.
For eyeshadow.
All I do is a quick swipe of the Bobbi Brown Longwear Waterproof Cream Eyeshadow Stick.
Again, another long name.
But I love this eyeshadow stick.
I love the color Nude Beach.
Great name, right?
Because it's a cool beige instead of warm.
And it's just a great pop of brightness on my lids.
I don't do a brush.
I just do like literally a swipe across the bottom of my lid and I'm done.
And then I do a swipe of the Bobbi Brown Longwear Cream Waterproof Eyeliner Stick in black.
I do that only on my top lid underneath the eyelashes. not on top of the eyelashes.
So it's like the waterline.
So I have to like pull my eyelash up and then do it underneath the eyelashes.
I think it's called the waterline, right?
But that's my favorite eyeliner.
And I only do that on the top.
And then I use Merit Beauty mascara and I'm done.
Now I just talked a lot about makeup.
It takes me quicker.
It's less time for me to get all that on my face than to tell you what I just put on my face.
Like it's just so fast.
It's like Two minutes, maybe?
It's so fast.
And those are the products that would go in my bag for makeup I have to use for all of eternity.
If I could only use one product for each thing.
So we'll have all these listed in the podcast recap email as well, if you want links to the things, to the products.
But remember, it's really about finding what works for you.
Having these products that I love, that work, that make me look and feel like myself, but just like a little bit more awake and alive, that are super dependable, that work well for what I need, what matters to me, which is maturing skin.
It makes getting ready every morning so much more enjoyable.
I'm not trying to decide what products to use.
I know.
I know what I want to use.
So I think think about it that way.
Like sometimes it takes some experimenting. to find what that is for you.
But once you land on it, oh my gosh, it's the best thing ever.
It took me a couple decades that I'm here now and I love it so much.
So that's what's saving my life right now.
Okay, here we go.
Half the episode on two things.
Let's keep going.
The next thing that is saving my life right now is my reading chair.
So I shared a photo of my reading chair in a podcast recap email two months ago.
Maybe she's still going strong.
Maybe my favorite spot in the whole house, except for my cozy bed.
So we've had this wide, soft chair in our bedroom for about a year now.
We got it at West Elm after hunting for a specific chair we wanted for like a really long time.
So when we found the chair, I was like, this is the chair.
Let's just get this chair.
Much of our furniture is secondhand or we've had it for like 20 years.
But we have had really good success with West Elm Furniture the couple of times that we had decided to invest in something.
It fits our style pretty well.
Anyway, so we got this chair.
We put it in our bedroom.
Loved it so much.
Kaz and I both use it like daily.
But where it is in the room, in our bedroom, it doesn't get natural light.
The window is in front of the chair.
So if I'm sitting in the chair, my pages are backlit.
They're not lit, they're backlit.
So it's just, it wasn't quite as practical to read in, but it was definitely cozy and I would sit in it sometimes.
Well, after we took the Christmas tree down after this year, I was like hey, I wanna move my favorite, most comfortable chair to the room I spend the most time in, where I wanna read the living room.
We already had a chair in the corner where the tree was.
So I just swapped the two chairs.
I put the cushy chair from the bedroom into the living room and I moved the living room chair to the bedroom.
Then I got like a little table that was already in the house.
I did what the nester tells us to do.
Shop the house, shop your own house.
I found a little table that I put next to that favorite chair.
I pulled candles and matches over there because actual matches are everything.
And I sit there every single morning and many evenings as well.
I read my Bible there.
I read my books there.
I sit by the window and I just look at the birds sometimes and don't read at all.
It is just the best.
And I look forward to sitting in it every single day.
What's so funny to me is that chair has been in my house for a year, but moving it to the living room window it's changed everything.
It makes me so happy.
It makes me so happy.
The next thing that's been saving my life, which I did not anticipate to be the case once we were done with all of our travels this past year.
You know, we went to New York, we went to London.
I told harrowing stories from both in the newsletter, but I got this magnetic wallet thing.
I bought one of those wallets that like, protects your credit card from getting scanned and then scammed.
And It's a little credit card holder that sticks to your phone.
It's like magnetic and sticks to your phone.
Listen, this thing is a total favorite.
It is so fantastic, which is actually sad because I really love my actual wallet.
I found it at a thrift store.
It's like cute and compact and fun bright colors, but it wasn't easy to carry in one hand with my phone.
Now dude, I love this thing when we traveled and well over a month later, I have not yet picked up my old wallet.
I keep using this thing.
I think I love it because I rarely take a lot with me.
Usually I just need my phone and my wallet.
Now, when I need more than that, I take my Quince sling bag, because it's so compact and cute and I love that.
And of course I have like a handful of purses.
I have a larger bag for when I need a lot of things, but that is rare.
Most of my driving is taking kids to school or running to the store real quick.
And I just need my wallet, my phone, and my keys.
Well, now my wallet and my phone are connected.
They're connected.
And bonus, the wallet is super strong and it unfolds to become like a little phone stand.
So I use it like as a pop sock.
I prop it on the counter to read while I'm doing something else.
I use it to watch a video when I'm brushing my teeth.
I love it.
I never thought I would love it so much because it's kind of like a bro wallet.
But in times like these, I guess I'm a bro.
It's just so great.
The next thing that's saving my life right now is this music project.
I've mentioned it in a couple of places.
I know I mentioned it before.
I'm just so obsessed with it.
So, if you have missed it, I am intentionally listening to more complete albums in one sitting, just like on purpose, with the goal of 150 albums I've never listened to and 150 that I have in 2026.
I started writing things down in a little notebook and I've already moved to like a spreadsheet because of all the details that I want to capture about the albums.
It is bringing me So much joy.
I don't think this would be true for everybody because we all like different things.
I have no desire, let's say, to hike a bunch of different trails, or to try the nuances of all the beers on tap at a local brewery, or any number of things that people love to spend their time on.
But for me, music wakes me up.
It makes me feel.
It makes me feel like myself.
It makes me smile, dance.
It makes me be in total awe of like how talented and creative people are.
It's just one of the best things of all time.
And even though I've always given it a lot of time, like I listen to music every day, this is the first truly intentional investment in listening to full albums of music since those days before COVID.
We could just listen to music digitally wherever we wanted to, and you had to go buy the album from the store and then listen to it in your car or whatever.
Like I haven't been this thoughtful about music since then.
I also love that I'm listening to specific types of music.
I'm prioritizing new music and enjoying full albums as the artist intended them.
Y'all know I love playlists.
Don't shuffle my playlists.
I always will love them.
I never will shuffle them.
But I'm like really enjoying the experience of an album.
This might be a project I do for a really long time.
Not just 2026, because there's just like so much music in the world and I want to listen to all of it.
I don't want to listen to heavy metal.
I don't like all the screaming.
Like good for them.
Good for the people who listen.
But that one is not my thing.
But everything else is fair game.
So that music album project thing.
I need to come up with a better name. is really, really saving my life right now.
I plan on sharing some of the albums in the newsletter in the latest Lazy Letter each month.
So if you want to hear what those are, you can sign up for that at thelazygeniuscollectivecom.
Slash join.
Okay, the final thing saving my life right now is scheduling rest.
It is so counterintuitive.
But when I am on a deadline, or I'm really busy or I feel like I don't have any time, I need to take time to do nothing even more.
The less time I think I have, the more I need to schedule rest.
It changes the calculus of time.
That's what rest does.
So I have something for work I'm trying to finish by a deadline.
And it's funny how, the closer I get to the deadline, the more I panic that I'm not going to have enough time.
But as we know, and we have heard for years, tasks take up as much time as you give them.
They grow to the size of the time that you have.
If I give anything all the time I have, that thing will take it.
It will take all the time.
It's why I love cleaning by timers and saying that I'm going to do something until a particular time of day and then stop.
Then be done.
I schedule rest into my days because otherwise the day will simply fill up.
And what's weird is that when I rest, I have more energy to get the things done that I need to do done.
I'm less bogged down by stress and by the pressure of finishing.
I enjoy my life and I feel more balanced in it.
Rest and fun and play and relationships and joy.
They take up just as much real estate in my life as work and responsibilities do, because I'm scheduling it in and it makes a massive difference.
I know that everyone has a lot going on, but I will say this until I am blue in the face.
Schedule, rest.
You have more time than you think you do.
Many of you have come to me with what your life looks like.
You shared how busy you are, how little time you have.
And I genuinely feel deeply compassionate for you in all of that.
You do have a lot going on.
But I would rather you spend the time that you just spent telling me how much time you don't have and go take a nap.
This isn't true for everyone, but I think it is true for some.
I think sometimes we talk about how busy we are and resist resting because we feel guilty when we do.
We feel afraid that we will lose the leverage that we have over an unhelpful partner.
If that's the current situation, or we don't know who we are outside of our busy busyness.
So we just like keep it going.
So we don't have to stop and realize that we don't have as many hobbies or friends or joyful things in our lives as we would really want.
We stay locked into our busyness because our parents were boomers and worked super hard and we feel incredibly guilty doing anything that involves stopping.
This is moving away from something that's saving my life and into more of a big sister pep talk, but I don't care.
We're doing it.
If you are someone who resists resting, who says that you simply don't have time, that's a problem, right?
That's a problem you should probably solve because everyone needs rest.
If anyone in your life came to you with your situation and said they were so tired but did not have any time, you would encourage them to find time right.
You would encourage them to figure out a way to regularly rest.
Remember when we talked about solving problems on the podcast a few weeks ago?
One of the tools you can use to become a better problem solver is to look for the invisible problems.
If you are resisting rest, there is an invisible problem there.
And I would encourage you to look for it.
I see this over and over again in this work, also in my own relationships.
The people who rest on purpose, who schedule it, who value it, who protect it, no matter how much is on their plate.
And often that is a lot.
Those people enjoy life more.
And they still get the stuff that matters done.
Again, it's some weird time alchemy that doesn't feel like it should make sense, but it works.
Schedule, rest, you guys.
Do it even when you think you don't have the time.
Somehow it actually gives you more time.
Okay, pep talk over.
So, to recap, my list of things that are saving my life right now are a long list of convenience foods, a long list of the products I use for a makeup routine that I will probably take to my grave, my reading chair, my little wallet that sticks to my phone, this music project and scheduling rest.
And that is what is saving my life.
All right, for today's a little extra something, here is my chicken salad recipe.
Ready?
It is not a super official recipe since there are no real amounts.
And I know that you hate that.
I will approximate as best I can.
Do it to taste.
Here's the thing about chicken salad, especially if you're a lady trying to eat more protein.
Chicken salad has a lot of protein because chicken has a lot of protein.
That's a win.
But this chicken salad, it is the best I've ever had in my whole life.
So it's worth making.
And bonus, you get protein.
I kept waiting for a chicken salad recipe to beat this one.
And in 10 years, nothing has.
Now, obviously everyone has different tastes and preferences, but maybe you can try it.
See if you're as obsessed with it as much as I am.
It might be just a tremendously go-to lunch for you.
Here are your ingredients.
Ready?
And again, this will be written down in the recap email and latest Lazy Listens.
Here's the ingredients.
Rotisserie chicken mayo, Greek yogurt, Herbes de Provence, which is an herb blend that I just butchered the name of and you can laugh, it's fine.
You can find that blend in pretty much any grocery store.
It is the low-key secret ingredient here.
Red grapes, walnuts, salt and pepper.
That's it.
Now, You can absolutely dump all these ingredients into a bowl and stir.
That's great.
I personally like to do the sauce ingredients first and combine those and then taste them for seasoning before I add the other stuff that you can do you.
If you're in a rush, just dump it all in.
It doesn't matter.
Okay, so let's say I'm making one batch of chicken salad for myself, probably enough for like three lunches.
So I will start with the mayo, yogurt, and herbs.
I usually do half and half mayo and Greek yogurt.
The tang of the yogurt is really nice.
It cuts the like sometimes kind of intense flavor of too much mayo.
And obviously it adds an excellent dose of protein if you care about the protein.
So for like three big handfuls of chicken, I'm doing maybe a quarter cup of sauce maybe ish, probably.
It doesn't really matter.
You can make it saucy or lighter, like who cares? but you do like half and half of mayo and yogurt.
And then to that mayo and yogurt, I will add like maybe a teaspoon of herbs de Provence.
This is a blend that has rosemary, thyme, oregano, and a few other things that are just like floral and rich and delicious.
It is a rockstar ingredient for this chicken salad.
I have it in my pantry only for chicken salad.
So I will like put the herbs in my palm, in the palm of my hand, And then rub it between my hands like rub my hands together and let the herbs fall into the bowl.
And what that does is it releases some of the flavor a little bit.
And then it also breaks up any like big pieces, right?
So I stir that together with a pinch of salt, a good few cracks of black pepper.
And then I will taste that sauce to make sure that nothing is overpowering anything else.
And that the sauce tastes awesome and very herby because I like it to be very herby.
You can always adjust and add more seasonings later.
Totally fine.
And then from there, I just throw in my chicken.
Like I said, two or three big handfuls.
And then my preferred ratio of like chopped almonds and quartered red grapes.
I like a lot of grapes. in my chicken salad because I like the sweetness.
Um, and I will, I'm a grape snob.
If my grapes are not, if they're not like hard and crisp, I, I will not use them.
I will not use them.
I like a crunchy grape.
None of these softies get out of here, but I love grapes in my chicken salad.
That sweet crunch is so good, especially with that rich, like herby dressing.
I have used apples before when I didn't have any grapes around.
I just didn't like it as much.
So I just use grapes now.
I use fewer walnuts than grapes, but you decide what ratio you like.
You're just throwing stuff in there.
It doesn't matter.
Then mix it all together.
Taste it again to adjust any seasonings and then eat like a daggum queen.
It's great as a sandwich.
It's great in a pita.
It's great scooped next to some lettuce or arugula or just shoveled in with a fork or a so good i'm so obsessed with it it's so tasty now remember cooking is just playing around with like the balance of flavors that you like i love grapes more than most people probably do in their chicken salad i've also been eating this for so long that i like more herbaceousness than a newbie to herbs provence might might like that's fine start with less than you think And then keep adding until you find what tastes good to you.
It's fun to tinker with something when you can't really mess it up.
Like this is low stakes.
Now, if you add too much of something, just add more of the other things.
Like if you over season it, just put in more mayo and yogurt.
And like dilute the sauce a little and then put more chicken in.
You know, like it's not a big deal.
Just enjoy it.
Enjoy it.
So that is my very artificial recipe for chicken salad. for today's a little something extra.
All right, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week.
This week's tip comes from Michelle Augustine.
Michelle writes, today this idea saved me once again, so I thought I would share.
Always keep a Lunchable or something similar on hand for kids.
I started doing this while my husband was away and I was solo parenting, and it saved me several times if I was sick or unable to make food.
My young kids would grab a lunch and I could rest where we live.
Many kids come home at lunch every day.
And although we live within walking distance of school, we're a single car family.
And some days it's too cold for them to safely walk outside.
Enter the Lunchable.
I shoot an email asking permission for my kid to stay during the lunch hour, which is never denied for weather reasons, and I can just add a Lunchable in with the snacks already packed.
Lunch covered, no stress.
And my kids love eating them in general, so I just make sure I buy long expiration dates and use them before then.
I know nutrition-wise it's not ideal, but in a pinch, it's great to have on hand.
Living the season and magic question answered.
Well, this is a great example of creatively using a convenience food and letting it save your life.
I love small little solutions like this to problems that, like honestly, don't feel like they matter all that much, but they really do.
When you can take the stress of feeding your kid off of your plate.
When something like weather or sickness get in the way, man is the road smoother?
I love this, Michelle.
So thanks for sharing and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week.
All right, let's close with a mini pep talk for the over organizer.
So I am an over organizer.
I 100% will sit with a stack of paper and pens and highlighters and try to understand my life.
That was my whole Sunday evening for years and years.
I don't do that anymore because I have the playbooks and I've grown up a little and it's helped, but Still it's like kind of close all the time.
But then I started to realize the thing that I'm about to say to you, that you know in your heart, but you don't always remember in practice.
Planning your life does not make you in control of it.
Planning your life does not make you in control of it.
It makes you in control of what you hope happens, but it doesn't make you in control of what does.
Sometimes, when we organize and organize things again and then organize some more because it wasn't quite right the first time,
We trick ourselves into thinking we're in charge.
It's often a sign that we want to be, that we would feel better if we were.
You know, we're grasping at something because life just feels like it's running away from us.
And I'm just here to tell you that you don't have to grasp so hard.
You don't have to organize everything within an inch of its life in order to enjoy your life.
In fact, trying to control so much might contribute to less enjoyment of your life because you're managing like so many irrelevant details.
Remember our plan pyramid from my book, The Plan.
This is what the playbooks are based on.
The bottom of the pyramid is what matters in the season that you're in.
Like, just that, nothing less else.
Okay, that's what we're focused on here.
That's the foundation.
Then the three sides of this pyramid that lean on each other are the p, a and n in plan, because it's an acronym prepare, adjust and notice.
Now you are preparing plenty, but don't forget to balance it with adjusting when you need to and noticing what you need.
If you make the preparation lopsided, If that part of the pyramid is like bigger or leaning differently compared to the other two, the whole thing is going to fall over.
So remember, adjust when necessary.
Notice what has changed.
Be present and flexible within your preparation.
And then the point of the pyramid and of the whole thing is the L in plan, which is to live.
We seek to live in this balanced way. in this season that we're in so we can enjoy our life.
So if you're an over organizer, like join the club, welcome.
But remember that planning your life does not make you in control of it.
It might actually take you out of it.
So think about balancing all of your preparation with adjusting and noticing within your season of life.
And that's a mini pep talk for the over organizer.
If this episode was helpful to you or if you've been looking for a way to support the show, I would be so grateful if you would share this episode with a friend.
You can leave a review on Apple Podcasts as well.
Every share, every mention, all of those things matter.
So thank you so much for supporting the show.
This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office Ladies Network.
This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey.
Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production.
If you'd like a podcast recap email every other week, be sure to sign up for the latest Lazy Listens email that goes out every other Friday.
Head to thelazygeniuscollective.com slash listens to get it.
That's where the chicken salad recipe will be as well.
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.
