Kendra Adachi on Being A Lazy Genius

If you have ever felt like you don't have enough time, if you have ever felt like, I am running out of the time I need to do the things that matter most. If you have ever chastised yourself for being a little lazy, needing a break, needing a nap, this podcast, listen, honey, is for you. It is possible for very driven, ambitious people to hold their ambition and a pacing that is sustainable in two hands and move through life in a balanced way. And today I'll be talking to Kendra Adachi, who has put the two words lazy and genius together. Can you be a genius and live your life well? I believe you can. Can you do that while giving yourself grace to take a nap? I believe you can too. And listen, from one woman who values productivity to maybe another woman or man who's listening who also does the same, from one person who who wants to focus and live in the niche to also wanting to give myself grace to do random things with my kids or have a friend stop by or pull over when the sunset is setting beautifully and not necessarily get home right at the time the buzzer goes off for dinner. If this is you trying to hold intention, all the things you want to do well with your life and all the ways you want to actually live your life well, It is possible to give yourself grace to not do the things you plan to do today and still live a very focused, very intentional, and very purpose-driven life. If you've struggled with this, wondering if there's enough time in the day, wondering if you fail to serve your family well, or if you fail to do good at your job and get the promotion, can you have the career? Can you have the relationships that matter? Can you leave a legacy while also leaving a few extra dollars in your bank account by the work that you do. The thing is, yes, you can. You can. We all have 24 hours in a day and it is up to us to use those 24 hours well. Howsomever, this lie that we believe that in order to use your time well means you have to manage and micromanage every minute of your day to the highest level of productivity. You know what that'll do? It'll wear you out. You know what will keep you from getting burnt out? Making time to breathe, to do fun things, to rest, to be flexible with your schedule, to get and pay for help when you can, and to let a whole bunch of things go. Can you tell that I was ministered to, that I was encouraged, that I was invited into this conversation today? Yes, I was. And I believe that you'll be invited, warmly invited into this conversation and leave this conversation knowing a little bit more about how to give yourself a break and still get to all your goals. Wanna hear it? Here it go. Join me for this conversation with Ms. Kendra Adachi. So y'all, I have a wonderful group of women who work alongside me to help produce the content that we produce, and that involves the podcast. So when you hear from guests on the podcast, they're either guests that have asked me, can they be on it? I'm releasing a book. I have something to talk about, or they are guests that I am dying to meet and I've hunted them down and totally stalked and requested their presence. Or they're guests like we have today, because someone on our team has said, Chrystal, you need to know about this person. So our guest today is one of those. Kendra Adachi is joining us because one of my interns turned contracting— contracted writers and strategists turned friends has been telling me for the last 2 years, Chrystal, have you had Kendra on your podcast yet? Well, today's the day and you get to join me as I get to know, and we get to know Ms. Kendra Adachi. So Kendra, thank you so much for joining me on today's podcast.

Such a pleasure. I'm so excited. I'm so excited.

So Kendra is here because she believes in the concept of being a lazy genius. And what that means is that you can be lazy and be a genius too. First of all, that whole connotation is attractive because if we tell the truth in some way, shape, or form, or on some day, we all want to be lazy, right? And not do the things that we really don't want to do. But in the things that matter, most of us would say we do want to be a genius. We want to have efficiency in our homes. We want to have a career that fills our cup. We want to have a life where we do things that matter and where we build legacy for what happens with the things we've touched after we're gone. We want to, uh, make money and save money. We want to have great relationships in our home and outside of our home. We want to do all the things right. But doing all the things right, let me tell you, honey, because I know this personally for sure, they can wear your tail out. And when they do, they do. If you're like me, then you crash and burn. Like, you know, you'll run that thing out, do all the things, be a genius, know all the things, accomplish all the things, and then be tired. So I would love for you, Kendra, to just start out with talking to us about what is a lazy genius?

I just need to have you follow me around when I talk about my stuff and do that. And then I'm like, see, she gets it. She said it right. A lazy genius is someone who is a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. And simp— that's the Simply Put way to think about it. But really, it comes down to what matters to you. What matters to you and what matters to me are going to be different. And there, also going to change from life stage to life stage, season to season, sometimes day to actual day. Like what mattered to me yesterday, you know, beyond like deep soul purpose levels, it doesn't matter the same because like a kid got sick, or I'm hormonal, or I was late for this thing, or the chicken that you pulled out for dinner is actually disgusting. Disgusting and old and you can't cook it. And so there are things that shift what matters in the moment. And the more that we pay attention to that, the more we ask that question, what matters right now? What matters most right now? It kind of helps the things that are clouding our brains just fall away because we have this, we have a spotlight on, all right, here we go. This is the decision we're going to make. And then you can sort of move forward. And I started all that honestly, because Every—

everybody was so tired.

I was like, why is everybody so tired? What's going on?

We gotta fix this.

So, um, yeah, that's exactly— you nailed it. You nailed it.

Well, I want to concur with you that the chicken, that's nasty for dinner. Yesterday I had this pizza. I went to H-E-B, and I don't know if y'all have H-E-B, but somebody told me over here to try this H-E-B. It was this— so 30 minutes away. I went there. I bought all this cute food. It's like the kind of food that you buy when you go to Whole Foods, the stuff that your regular grocery doesn't have. And you're like, I'm going to try that. I'm going to try that. Okay. So I bought this superbly beautiful pizza, put it in the fridge, and then we've continued to get interrupted. And I was like, this is it. Yesterday was the day we were going to eat the pizza. And then the kids came in and they said, Mom, we can't eat the pizza. Why? Because it has mold on it. Well, that was the plan. Like, that was my plan for lunch. So it was like, uh, and so, you know, in the middle of my easy day that was supposed to be easy because I had preplanned my food with the nasty pizza that I had to get up and go over there and figure out what they were going to eat because nothing else was really ready and available.

Right.

And this is the thing. It's important, but I didn't plan it. And I think the hardest part of trying to combine— I'll at least speak for me, right? And I'm getting to know you, Kendra, and I'm working through your materials and learning more about who you are, listening here and there to your podcast. But the thing that making these words come together is that I can actually be both. I can be having a genius day at work and then totally have a lazy day at home. So that's what happened yesterday. It was like, y'all figure it out. I know that between the fridge and the pantry and the deep freeze, there's something you can nuke. There's something you can put between some bread and treat it like a— like meatloaf can be a sandwich. Y'all can figure this out. My kids are teenagers. So that wasn't my ideal. My genius was I meal planned and there was a pizza in the fridge. My lazy was I can't be genius at two things today. And what I'm doing right now needs to take priority. I think the biggest thing is Making peace with not being a genius everywhere. So I would like to know a little bit about your journey in making peace. Are you more the lazy who works up to your genius, or are you more the genius that has to give yourself grace to get to the lazy?

I'm the second one. The second one. So I think that what often happens is we are taught— well, again, I will speak for myself too. I was taught. And believed that I had to be perfect at everything. And there was not a lot of language. I'm 41. There was not a lot of language, I felt like, as a young person, as a young adult either, that there could be balance. It was more like, you can have it all, end of sentence, and no real tools. It was like you were just— I felt like I was MacGyvering together, like, all these different life hacks from all these different people and trying to kind of manufacture this optimized life and I could do, I could do everything. And I also, because of my own story, everything also had to be perfect. So I was like genius at all things to the point where I would not try something new if I did not think I could be the best at it. I just wouldn't do it. I just wouldn't do it. So I think what happens though, a lot of times is we, we're kind of living in that space. We're living in that genius space where we're like, we have to do everything. We're going to do everything. And, uh, and then we crash and burn and we're too tired and it's not sustainable. And then what happens is we swing the other, to the other extreme, where we're just like, I don't care. I don't care. Hot mess. You know, we wear it as a badge of honor that like we never take showers or like, and granted, I mean, there are many days where I am very much like, my hair is, you know, I haven't washed it in 5 days. Like, that's not, that alone is not bad. But when we wear our laziness and our, I just don't care, as this, when we conflate that with vulnerability and being real, and then we look at the other people who are like, quote unquote, have it together, or they're, they look cute, or somehow they aren't stressing about dinner at 5:30, like it's already made or whatever. We look at them and we go, well, they're just pretending. They're not real. They're fake. And neither of those extremes is true. Neither are true, but we live like they are. And, and that's just a disappointing way to live as an individual. And then also collectively, because that's where comparison comes in and that's where, well, she can do this. Why can't I do this? But then it's like, she can do this. Why can't I get it? Like, depending on how you say it, you know, like it can come out different ways, come out sideways. And so I want to create a space. Where women especially, because I think this is a majority female challenge, you know, I haven't run into a lot of, a lot of men that sort of fight this battle. But that we can care. You can care about things. You can be really good at things. You can seek after things. And you can let things go. You cannot care. You can, and those things, you can, that peace, I love that you said that to find peace with that. The, the kind of foundation of being a lazy genius is there are 13 principles there in the 13 principles are laid out in my first book, The Lazy Genius Way. And one of, I think the most important principles of the 13, some are super practical and then some are be kind to yourself. If you do not move through your day with kindness towards yourself, when you don't do what the plan said, when you didn't plan at all, when you got so obsessed with the plan that you forgot about the people that you're interacting with and you kind of bypassed them. Like, whatever the case may be, if we are not experiencing kindness and self-compassion, we're going to get distracted by the wrong thing. We can't really remember what matters or show grace when we forget or are too tired to make the choice or we snap at a kid or, you know, like. So I just, I want there to be, there is this wide expanse between the extremes of lazy and genius, and we act like we're not allowed to live there. And that's really the reality of where we do live. So let's have some tools to help us stay.

So I'm curious about, you mentioned because of your story, I'm curious just about your background. So when you talk about the struggle that you had with learning to make peace with anything less than genius. What has your life looked like? I mean, are we talking about genius at home, genius at work, genius— what was the— at the height of the tipping point, what life were you living? What story were you living?

So I would say that the tipping point, the height of my genius was I would say when I had my first kid, which was in my mid to late 20s. But so much of what our, so much of what our lives look like are impacted by how we grew up, by our family of origin, by all those things. And I grew up in an abusive home and my father was, was abusive in multiple categories to my whole family. And he was also a narcissist. And so that was tough to live with. And, and then my mother, because she was in this abusive relationship, she experienced a lot of mental illness. And so there was a tremendous amount of instability in my home. And I thought, I'm the oldest. So that's a thing. That'll, that'll paint it. And, and, and honestly, my, my sister, my little sister is 7 years, 7 years, 6, 7 years younger than I am. And so when she was born, um, shortly after she was born, my mom had a nervous breakdown and didn't live with us. And my dad wasn't consistently around. And so, I mean, he was, but he wasn't. And I remember, I mean, I like raised my little sister, you know, as a 7, 7, 8, 9 year old. And so really, you know, you ask like, what's peak genius? Peak genius in terms of the chronology of my life was in my my, well, really like being a teenager, like when I started to feel like I needed to be an adult now, into like my mid-20s, late 20s, when I had a kid and everything falls apart when you have a kid and you're like, oh, I can't do anything. What is happening? Um, but the peak, like mental, the, the peak, um, what's the word I'm looking for? The space that occupies my brain the most, the loudest genius voice is 9-year-old Kendra. 9-year-old Kendra is so afraid. 9-year-old Kendra wants everything to be exactly right, namely herself, so that her dad doesn't leave, so that her mom is okay. So, you know, like all of these different things. 9-year-old Kendra is so scared. And so a lot of my work now is so redemptive because I, I mean, I talk about laundry and cooking and lots of practical time management, lots of practical things. But there is such a redemption in being able to offer self-compassion and kindness and permission alongside of all those practical things to people who are in, you know, the Lazy Genius community. Because I am able to like tend to and nurture and love and parent 9-year-old Kendra, because really 9-year-old Kendra is the biggest genius. She's the one who tried the hardest. And, uh, and so it's actually like really lovely and sweet to get to minister to her now. You know, I love that.

I love that. And I think, you know, one of the things I talk about, um, in my book, She's Still There, is looking at yourself. You know, I'm no psychologist, but now I've been told, girl, this was this philosophy and this was this principle. I was like, really? I didn't know. But the idea that you if you're, if you're disconnected from the story that you want to live in some way, then there's a story at some point you told yourself, right?

Yeah.

And you have to be able to search out that girl and see what it is that she wanted that she doesn't have. And you have to be able to objectively view her, love on her, tell her the truth that she may not have known at that time that she's been holding, like all these different things. So I love how you can say Um, as many people can say who've been through therapy and counseling, like, here's where I got stuck, or here's where these beliefs were formulated, or here's what I've had to unwind from this girl in this season of this part of my life. And I think a lot of us can ask ourselves the questions, where do we feel dis-ease because we are trying to live life and something is breaking down quick, but it's because we have a story that we have ho— held onto that actually doesn't work. It doesn't work to do things the way that story was woven when you were 9 or 15 or 21 or what have you.

Right.

Um, I would like to know, like, fast forward to the Kendra we have today, who's unwoven some things from that 9-year-old Kendra. So now, of course, I know that you're married. You've been married for over 20 years. You've got 3 kids. I know that teenagers are a whole story in and of, you know, in and to themselves. But now you don't just have home and taking care of people. You have all these other things that you do. So of course you're an author. The Lazy Genius Way, The Lazy Genius Kitchen. You're a podcaster, The Lazy Genius Podcast. You've been in multiple large and very familiar publication. My goodness, your podcast has over 20 million downloads. So there is a content Kendra and a writing Kendra and a business owner Kendra. There are— so, you know, this area of your life that you have been nurturing and caring for while you've been nurturing and caring for your family, what are the things that have cropped up? Uh, well, let me start with this. When did the lazy genius like start? Like where you would consider, even if you were like mommy blogging, when do you think, oh, this was when lazy genius was a whole thing and I realized it was a thing. So at what point did lazy genius start and what are the battles that you've had to fight as the lazy genius girl, the permission giver, all the things.

Yeah, totally. Well, the lazy genius space was actually my third internet business.

That's why I was like, it could have been other things.

No, yeah, there were things before that. And, you know, they all build on each other. I actually did an episode last year sometime about kind of the origin story of the lazy genius. And it was really beautiful. Like I had not even recognized some of the things that I had done as a teenager in my early 20s before I started this that were building to this, you know, that the path was being laid. And it was just really special to, to put that episode together and like surprise myself with my own story.

It was really cool.

But this was my third internet business. And so, um, I already had some experience in trying to find kind of your content creation rhythms and like, who is this for? And all that. Um, the first one, I was a cooking instructor. The second, uh, business I had, which was not profitable, it all. But it was called the Sugar Box. And I would, it was really a local thing. And I was, cause I love to bake and I would make a box of desserts that were inspired by a pop culture theme once a month. And so there were like 7 or 8 different things that were thematic based on whatever the thing was. And you'd come to my house on Sugar Box Day and I was the only person. So like I would bake 1,200 cookies in a day. I was like, it was a whole, it was a situation. It was so fun. And then I'm like, could this be like Should I do this forever? And I did the math and, um, I realized I was making 2 cents an hour per box that I sold. And I could only do 75 boxes on my own. That was my— it was so, it was so silly. So I was like, hmm, we got to pivot. So anyway, I've also started all 3 of those businesses started or ended around having a kid. So every kid has one business attached to them. So when So the Lazy Genius Collective began in 2015. My daughter was born in 2016.

That's how it goes.

And so I knew this is what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to offer a new way to see. That it's good to have practical tips and hacks and there's a place for those, but they are misplaced if not seen in the proper context of your own life and what your season of life is and all of that. And so I just really, I really love that. Now, I will say, I think that one of the biggest challenges, but also has recently kind of morphed into, well, it is a privilege, but it's also something I think is not spoken about very often in the space, is how much help I have. And I didn't always. You know, like when my husband and I got married, we were both in school. So like we had no money. And, um, but also he had saved a lot before he, he had a job before he went to grad school. And so we had money in savings and his parents were really helpful to us. And, you know, there were things that were, that set us up where even though we weren't making anything or we were, you know, we were struggling, there were several years in our marriage where financially we really Like I cried when we got our property tax bill and it was $500 higher than I expected it to be.

Because that thing is real and I need it to be to the penny of what I planned.

And I did not, I was like, I don't have $500.

What are you talking about? There's not $500 lying around for this.

Because it was, it was to the penny. And so, um, and so over time, honestly, one of the biggest challenges has been to take advantage in a good way, not the phrase like take advantage of, but to really embrace without shame, but also with a lot of transparency, the help that we have. So for example, you know, my, uh, like my mother and my mother-in-law are within 5 minutes of me and they can help me take care of my kids when I need to. You know, my mom picks my kids up from school every Tuesday so that I can work past school pickup. So I can have one day a week that's like full work day.

For deep work, you gotta have some deep work.

You gotta have a deep work.

Yeah.

I need long, long runways. So there's that. Um, as the business has grown, it has become more financially successful, which has created, uh, money and margin. Now I had to choose to spend my money this way. That's really important. And that was something that was hard at first, but now I'm like, oh my gosh, of course. I pay to have my house cleaned every other week. We have a house cleaner every other week. Um, I still do, uh, the cooking, but I have my groceries delivered. That's a new thing. I used to do pickup and now I'm like, Oh, I have to— it's only $100 a month. I mean, not even a month, a year. $100 a year, and you'll bring—

for you to bring it to me, my groceries to my door?

What?

Okay.

So it's— so I, I have a team. I have a team that has removed the things about this business that I either don't like doing or I am not skilled at doing. So I have a team of 3 around me that allow me, I mean, I pay them, but their time allows me to do the work that only I can do. I talk about one of my biggest things from a mental health standpoint is I take Fridays off. And I just sit in my house and I read, I go for a walk, I don't do anything productive. And I would never ever tell someone prescriptively, yeah, you should just take a day off. That's insanity because that's not everyone's story. That's not— everyone doesn't have that option. But I also think that people like look at me and other people on the internet, like people who have like relatively public lives, and they're like, "Man, how does she do it all?" I don't. I do very little. I do very little. I have a husband who he does the laundry. I don't— it's like his job. Like our division of labor is really equal. There are just a lot of things that have taken time to get to. They required hard conversations like the division of labor conversation, the choice to be like, okay, we're going to forego these things financially in order to hire a house cleaner, in order to, you know, hire an accountant to do my taxes so that I don't cry every April in the teens. Because I hate it so much. Any time something stresses me out—

How long did it take you to give up the taxes?

Oh my gosh. Uh, 2 years ago. Oh, 2 years ago. Just 2 years ago.

I said this was going to be my year. I still, I still— listen, I did it one time. I had an accountant do it one time. And this is the, this is the battle, right? This is an example of the battle of letting other people help you. Yeah. When you let someone do your taxes, you still have to be involved. So you have to give them things. You have to have a meeting. You have to answer questions like you're still involved. And by the time they did my taxes, I thought all they did was enter the numbers. Like, that was it. I mean, like, if I still have to do all of this, I still got to get you the paperwork and get it to you. I might as well do it. But the reality is, is there's a weight that comes from Even if it is just entering numbers, there's a weight that comes from reading the lines in TurboTax and is this me this year? Did I do this right? Especially when your taxes, as most things do as life goes on, become a little bit more complicated. Things become complicated as they can become complicated as you get older or your kids get older. I'm looking at my taxes like, do I have to report what you earn? Did you have enough? And a person who does this all the time, Yeah. Is not going to be learning as they're doing. Even if the learning is not a lot, that learning still adds to my plate.

Right.

And I think that's the battle of, and the shame that's involved with help of any kind, whether we're talking about a team for work or a housekeeper in your home or afternoon nanny for your kids. I have a lot of friends who work at home and it's that same thing. Pick them up from school, get their homework done because I need a full workday.

Yep.

Is that it seems like you're getting help along the fringes for little things that I could do that, I could do that. That's not that big of a deal. I mean, it's not like I can't go to the grocery store. And because we tell ourselves the story of what we can do, because we've always done it and it's not a big deal, those little foxes, you know, the Bible talks about little foxes, they will come and steal away. And those little things add up to a lot, you know, that you nickel and dime your time. You do. The other thing I had to reconcile, which feels hard to say, and I'm curious if you would agree, I can go to the store, but that, you know, that $10 or whatever I paid, if I don't have a membership or the membership that I'm paying for, my time is worth a lot more than that.

Yeah. Yeah.

The $15 that I'm going to pay them to go get my groceries and come. If I get in my car, go get my groceries, then come back home and it's a full grocery shop, I'm going to be at that store. For an hour and a half, 2 hours a week. I make more than $15 for 2 hours.

And let them do it.

Absolutely.

And I should. I understand. I understand. And you absolutely should. And I understand that tension because there is so much. This is why I feel like this message tends to be more resonant with women.

Yeah.

Because I have yet to meet a man that feels bad hiring somebody to do something. They do not. Maybe that man exists, but I have not met him yet. And so I think that that is part of it is that there, it feels slimy. It feels like, uh, I'm going to use an A word that people are scared of, women are scared of, ambitious. It feels ambitious. And I'm just here to say, now listen, you do not have to have big dreams. You do not have to have big ambitions. There is equal value in choosing a life where your influence is with the people who are in your immediate circle, with your children, with your neighbors, with your parents that you're caring for at home. It— there is no difference. There is no difference in the kingdom of God with the person who chooses to spend their life on purpose for one or a million. There's no difference. And so I think that actually really helped me because I thought, well, this is This path has been laid for me. I see it as clear as day. And I don't want to squander this thing that I have been given, this opportunity, this hard work, these giftings. I don't want to squander that with my own guilt because it'll eat you alive. It did, you know, like, and I, you talk, I hate cleaning my bathrooms. I hate it.

So much.

And I would— what it would do is would make me resent the fact that I had to, and then it would make me get mad at my kids because there's toothpaste on literally every single surface and I don't know how that happens. And so it would just cause like this upheaval in me rooted in discontentment around an area that I could actually release, that I could actually be lazy about so that I could spend my time doing things that truly matter. That truly matter. And so now, having a home that feels warm, that's, you know, tidy and, and clean, that is something that is of value to me personally. That doesn't have to be of value to everyone. It is of value to me, but I can choose to do it myself or to pay someone else to do it. Now, if you are a person— and there are a lot of people like that— if you are a person who you're like, I would love that, I can't afford a house cleaner, You know, that is why there are Lazy Genius principles to give you frameworks for how to simplify tasks that you have to do, but you really don't want to do, you know, because I realize that's just not an option for everybody to like outsource as many things as possible. So I really try. That's why my work is founded so much on, on principles, not on rules, not on hacks, not on specific things. Because our lives are too dynamic for that. But principles are versatile and personal and they grow with us. And, uh, so it's, it's really important to me to communicate that I have a lot of help. I choose a lot of help. And those are kind of two different conversations.

I love that. And I think too, one of some, someone said this to me one time. I was on a call, I was on a Zoom call and it was near Thanksgiving. So I don't know about you, but like the world wants to slow down at holidays, which is amazing. But the holidays, because the world slows down, gives me more free time than ever to like finish projects related to home and work, or for the phone calls that I never seem to be able to have. It's like, I am wide open the day before Thanksgiving. Do you mind talking to me while I, you know, pick greens? And so I literally was on a Zoom call with this lady while I'm picking greens. And so we were talking about some business strategy stuff. And she says to me, as we were discussing also how I didn't have time to execute all these things, she said, you know, I'm watching you clean these greens. I just think that's great. Uh, she said, but you do realize that you can pay somebody to do that. I said, well, first of all, if I paid somebody to clean these greens, my family would know. They would know. They would absolutely, positively know that I had slipped them a Mickey. So I don't know if I can do that. But she said, let's hypothetically say that you find somebody who's— that your family doesn't know the difference. You know that there's somebody out in the world who you can pay to do that. She said, and I'm, I'm interested to know why you wouldn't, because it's not just about your family. It's about You feel like there's something in you that you have to be the keeper of the greens. Um, and this is what she said to me. What if, because you're doing something good for your family and that's a part of the joy that you get out of it, what if you realize that if there's another woman or person, I guess, man, whoever, chef who can make some mean greens better than yours, and not only are you being good if you cook them for your family, You are being good to bless someone else because you're blessing their family by letting them do what they love to do. So it's not this choice between if I do it, it's good, and if somebody else does it, it's bad. It actually is, if someone else does it, not only is it good for me, but it also is good for them. Um, that they are able to make a living because you're letting them excel at their expertise. Why can't it be seen as your, uh, good fiduciary in both cases. And I had never thought about it like that. I was thinking about the expense of it and not the fact that this is someone else's business and this is their gift, that they're a great graphic designer, that they're a great video editor, that they're a great writer, they're a great project manager, they're a great strategist, or they're a great keeper of the greens. So, right. I think for me too, that has added a level of feeling good about it, that I can free myself up to feel good because It's not bad that I don't do everything, or it's not bad if I don't do everything, double negatives. But I'm also not bad because I'm helping someone else. If me having them do work for me or for the business helps them too. Um, I don't know if that's been ever a part of what has helped you to reconcile, but it certainly helped me.

No, totally. It totally has. And you said, and it could have, you know, we just, we say words and sometimes they kind of slip, but you just said it's not bad. For me to have someone and have someone help. And whether you really deep in your bones believe that there is morality in that, I think that a lot of us have morality in that, that somehow we are being lazy. We are being irresponsible. Like if you can do it, you should. That's a message that I heard, not just in my own home, but like in, you know, I grew up in the South. I grew up in evangelical Christian culture. Like that's something that was told to women all the time. Like, if you can do it, you should do it. And also the things that you should do are you should be, be a mother and stay at home. Like that, that was the thing. And again, that is a beautiful— I am a mother and I do kind of stay at home. I mean, I work at home, but like that's, and that's a valuable, I mean, obviously it's an incredibly valuable purpose and role. And that's not the only option. For women. And so, but we have to— you talk about like the, the lies that we have heard and internalized as children, whether it's from our families of origin or whatever. I think that's one that I've had to sort of untangle is that there was morality, that it was good or bad, that I had to hide choosing to not sign up to be a room mom for my kids' kindergarten class or something because I needed to stay home and work. Or I don't volunteer for field trips. What I do is I send supplies. If a teacher puts out a call for markers, I'm like, I will buy everything you want. What do you— give me your list. I'll fill it right now. Don't— but I don't have time. It's the same thing about going to the grocery store. Like, this is how I have chosen to use my time. And it took a while to release this, what felt kind of gross about that, because it felt selfish. It felt like capitalistic. It felt really like, you know, ambitious being a bad word. And so I think that removing— there are definitely a lot of things that have morality to them. Yeah, I think whether or not you have a house cleaner is not one of them.

Right, right. And I think it's also cultural. I mean, you mentioned, you know, just living in the South. You mentioned, um, you know, evangelical Christianity. I think there's a lot of stuff that I struggle with, or I notice a lot of friends will struggle with, that my friends that live on the Northeast Coast or on the West Coast do not. They don't.

They're so confused.

They're like, why is this even a— this— why are you eat— why are you in tears? Why are you crying about that? One of my friends, um, it's a girl who actually does all of my speaking engagements. She does booking for me. For 8 years we worked together without ever seeing each other face to face. Okay. So, um, she's known me a long time. We just had the chance to meet last year, but every Friday morning, and I have done this for 20 years, um, I make my children pancakes. It started when my oldest was about 10 years old, right around the time I got married and A year into that, I did have the opportunity to stay home and I had done corporate work for the first 10 years of my life. So I had all these things I wanted to do because I was a stay-at-home mom and I'm going to be a great stay-at-home mom. And so making pancakes on Friday was one of them. So fast forward later, 15 years later, everybody's gotten older. I'm still making pancakes on Friday, but I'm speaking now. And a lot of those speaking engagements require me to leave on a Friday.

Yeah.

Right. So I am getting up in the morning, making pancakes at Friday. 4:30 in the morning and putting them in this, you know, putting them in foil. You're not even there. So they're there, that they stay warm. And if they get cold, you can put them in the toaster because I made them the right size. And one day I was just scrambling for my flight and I was like, I got to figure this out. And I was talking to her about it and she said, can I ask you a question? I said, sure. She said, have you ever thought about moving Pancake Day to Thursday? I was like, no, no, I have not. Because I'm committed to Fridays. And I think that, you know, whatever it is that we've committed to is often as simple as that. We've made these alliances with our culture, with our upbringing, or with what we read in a book, or we saw Susie Q do. And we have made that the Bible when reality, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't even matter that they get pancakes any day. It's like, did they eat? That's what matters. You know, like, and we don't reduce what matters down to its simplest denominator. We make the problems more complicated. Complicated than they have to be, or at least I know I do.

Yes.

Um, yes, I'm so curious because when this is the message of someone's life, um, and it's not the only message of your life, I'm sure, but it's definitely been a major one, um, it's an ongoing, um, learning and growing, um, and development for even you. You're sharing things that you've learned You're sharing these principles. I mean, I love, I love even as I was thumbing through your podcast, how to meal prep, you know, how to keep up with your household, uh, how to make, what does ease at work look like? How I get books read, like, and I'm a how-to girl. Don't tell me that I should do it. Tell me how to do it. Um, your expectations for your holidays, uh, all of these things, it's so practical, but these are lessons that you have learned and you're saying, this is what I've learned that can maybe help you. Um, or you just learned it a couple of weeks ago and you're like, you know what, this was a, this was an eye-opening thing for me and I'm going to share it. What right now, like if you think about maybe 2 to 4 weeks past or what you are wrestling with 2 to 4 weeks in the future, what right now are you having to learn real time or still currently developing in? Right now?

Mm-hmm. I would say it is trusting that there is enough time.

Is there? Is there really? Because every day I have to try to convince myself to put whatever it is down that I'm working on and leave it till tomorrow because I'm just trying to— what do we hear? You've got to maximize your time, make the most of your time. Don't waste your time. And so we're all running around trying to squeeze all the things in because really— and then we say, I say, if I just— I don't even need like 36. If I instead of 24, if I just had 28, do you know what I could do with an extra 3 to 4 hours? I mean, it's true. It's true. That cut me deep, Shrek. I didn't even plan that either.

I didn't even know that question was coming. I think that, um, so honestly, time is my favorite thing to talk about. It's my favorite thing to talk about because everything stems from that. Like how you spend your time is your life. Like it is your whole life. And so I, I love talking about it. And I think that we have been shortchanged in the information that we have been taught about how we manage our time. And I will say this, um, I'm doing, uh, I've been doing some research for an upcoming project regarding time. And did you know, you want to guess the percentage of, uh, time management books written by men?

Oh, it's, it's got to be upwards of 75%.

It's 93. Yeah, 93, 99, 93. And here's, and here's why I say I think we've been shortchanged. It's not that the information we've been given is, is, is wrong or inaccurate or whatever, but it is absolutely incomplete. It is absolutely incomplete. Because you cannot have 93% of time management books written by men, mostly white men. And they are, they don't have bosses because authors don't, Authors don't have bosses. And then also men tend to not be the ones who are, if they have a family, they're not carrying the invisible labor of that family or even some of the actual tangible physical labor of that household. You know, there's not always equal division of labor in couples.

They have one job.

They have one job. And they don't feel guilty. They don't feel guilty about that. And I don't, I don't want to, you know, I have to be really careful. I really, I can get kind of fiery about things, and I really want to be careful about not, um, just like demonizing these guys. Yeah, putting these things like they, they wrote what worked for them.

That's right.

What worked for them doesn't work for us. It doesn't work for us. And so we, that's why I say we've been shortchanged, and some of these these sort of overarching principles of time management that we've been taught is it's about optimization. It is about making every minute count. But there are also things about like, what is your ideal life going to look like? And you're thinking about like these 20-year, 5, 10, 20-year plans. And I'm like, so I, I have a kid in preschool and also she is, she has a cold right now. And this whole ideal day that you set up thing that I'm supposed to follow in and out like a machine, it doesn't work for me right now. So what do I do with that? And there are no options for that. There, there's no like wiggle room. One of my, uh, sort of lazy genius time management principles is stop measuring every day against your best day. Stop measuring every day against your best day. And also What does best day even mean? What does that even mean? Because we also measure best day by, I got the most done. I don't know that that's a great rubric all the time. And so I really think that there is so much richness in what has been missing in the time management conversation for so long. And so all that to say, That is why I feel really grateful to be moving into this space mentally of like, there is enough time. Now, the reason that I feel like there is enough time for me is because I have been applying Lazy Genius principles to my time. One of them is to decide once. You decided once to make pancakes for your family every Friday. But the thing about decide once, and then you don't have to think about it. You just know it's coming. But the thing about decide once is you make a decision one time about one thing and then you let it ride until it doesn't work anymore. And then you change, then you move pancake to Thursday.

4 AM pancakes don't work. They don't work.

They don't work anymore. And so that's why I say like naming, like the more that you get into this habit of like, what matters right now? And also like, what is stressing me out? Like, what isn't working right now? And then why is it not working?. It could be that if you only were stressed out about pancakes one time, it's that you didn't sleep well the night before, and maybe you just needed to like toss it. But if it's like this consistent, like I'm traveling a lot, oh no, oh no, this is not, this is not working, that you can identify, well, how can I make it work? And then these principles help. So that's part of it is that I have decided once on a lot of things in my life. Another one is, another Lazy Genius principle is to put everything in its place.

Yep.

And, and I think— are you a neat freak?

Are you an org freak?

I would say no, I'm not a freak. I'm not a— like, I don't have— if you, if you opened any of my cabinets or closets, you would not be impressed.

You know, it's not like all Container Store labels.

No, not at all.

Not at all.

Now, if you want to live—

put everything in its place. That's what they think. They think Marie Kondo in their house, and it's not.

It's not. It's just put it in its place. Like I, um, we have a, in our like kitchen pantry cabinet, we have this like long pantry cabinet with drawers. And, uh, one of those drawers is everything crunchy that's in a bag is just tossed onto that drawer. It's just a pile of chip-clipped bags.

Amazing. Amazing.

But you can, you have to dig.

But, but you know where it is. You know where it is.

It's in its place. It's in its place. And so that's the thing. If it matters to you, that's why what matters is so important. If it matters to you that things are like really, really, or they are organized, that they are labeled, that you do have clean bins, that like it, that, that is, that is something that you are willing to put your energy into, do it. I am not. I'm not. I am not willing to do that. That is, it does not matter to me enough. But I think so, so I put things in their place. I put things in their place, but you can also put tasks in their place. You can also put lies in their place. You can put anything in its place. But when you start to kind of triage all these things in your life, and then you go, well, that's stressful, because that's just floating out. It hadn't landed anywhere yet. I need to let that thing land. The mail always lands on the kitchen counter. And that stresses me out. I need a new place for the mail. This comparison thing is always in my head when I meet with this other person. I need to figure out where that should go, because being up here with me and just following me around, that is not a place for that thing. We need to put that in its place. So it's the reason that I trust that there is enough time is because I've put my time in its place to, to the extent that I know that things are probably going to get done, but I also have the grace if it doesn't, that it's also going to be okay.

So inquiring minds, everybody's wanting to know what tools do you use to do that? Everybody always, because I always tell people, you hand, you hone in on the tools. It's not the tool, whatever tool works for you, it doesn't matter. But inquiring minds, what do you use? Are you digital? Are you analog? Are you spiral? Do you buy Thomas Covey? Do you have like, what is, what does it look like for you to put your time in its place and to say, this is what I have to work with and what fits fits and what doesn't doesn't.

Right. Uh, I don't have a single answer because I, like many people, am still looking for the tool that is going to cover it all. And I haven't found it yet, but I have made peace with that. I have made peace that it doesn't exist. So my calendar is digital of Google Calendar. I didn't use to, I was so resistant to anything digital because I do love analog things. I love making a list with a pen. I love reading a book in my hand and not on a Kindle. Like I really do love analog things. But when you have a business, when you have a team that needs to know, like, when you have an appointment, they need to schedule an appointment. It's, it is, it is ludicrous to assume that that is going to be done well when they have to call you so you can write it with your pen and find the pen that you bought to go with the specific planner. And then I'll make sure that your handwriting is like really clean today because you don't want it to look mad. It's like so much pressure. So the calendar is digital. And then I use paper. I kind of look ahead at my week on either Saturdays or Sundays. Sundays are usually pretty full for me. Because, you know, I, we, we go to church in the morning, we host community group, which meets on Sunday nights, often we host and that means I'm cooking dinner. So Sundays are not usually a day of rest. That's why I take Fridays, so I can rest. Cause Sunday's not a restful day for me. So, um, so I will either like Saturday or Sunday, just kind of look ahead at the calendar. I'll meal plan. I'm a meal planner. Um, but I also have learned that, um, here we go. I think, I think that your best tool when it comes to planning is that you develop the skill of learning to pivot more than you plan. Learning to pivot is so much more important than learning to plan. Like, because it doesn't, like you said, you had the pizza, you had the lunch, you were ready, the plan was in place. And then a million things could happen. Yesterday I was doing carpool for my oldest going to middle school, and I drove him 10 minutes to school and his friends, dropped him off. I'm 2 minutes down the road. He calls me, Mom, I forgot my band music. And I'm like, well, I had a plan to go home. And read Beth Moore's new memoir and drink coffee before I started on my day. And you're taking that away from me. Now, did I say that to him? No, I did not. But I was also kind of huffy. I was annoyed because I had a plan. I had a plan and he broke the plan. And then I go, I went and I was like, all right. And I was okay, fine. I'll go get your music. Meet me in front of your school in 20 minutes. I go home. I try to find his music. I can't find what he, where he said it was like a whole thing trying to find it. And I'm getting more angry. And I go back and I take it to him and then, and he opens it and he goes, this is the wrong music. And I was like, I don't, I don't know what, how, I don't know what to do here. And yet I, in that moment, I was like, all right, my, what matters most? That my kid does not feel shamed for needing me. I said I would do this. I said I would go get his music. I'm not going to hold him emotionally responsible for how that makes me feel. If I'm not going to do it, if it's not valuable enough for me to do or I don't have time, I should have told him no. I'm not going to do the thing I said yes to and then guilt him for it. I'm not going to do that because that, that my connection with my kid is the most important thing right now. And so I was able, and then when I got home, I was like, well, I wanted to, this was my plan. But I'm pivoting. And that's okay to pivot. That doesn't mean that the plans— plans are not pass/fail. Plans are not pass/fail. They don't— there's no moral value on plans either. A plan is just an intention. And there are plenty of things that we intend that don't come to pass. And that does not mean the plan was wrong. That doesn't mean that you need a new planning tool. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't have planned at all. It just means that not always our plans don't always come to pass. And that is a normal part of being a person. That's where that peace and that kindness come in, where it's just like, all right, I'm gonna be kind to myself right now. I'm going to be kind to my kid right now. I'm going to recognize that my life is not rooted in having the best day possible where I get the most things checked off and I drank all 8 of my glasses of water and I tracked them in the third planner that I bought since January.

Because somehow if we have a planner that has a tracker, we'll get the water drunk. I mean, like, yeah. Um, you said what's most, uh, what you're most passionate about right now in life is contentment and naps. Why is that the case? Why contentment and why naps?

Oh man. All right, so contentment to me is the the antidote for optimization. And I've never said that out loud. I feel like that's a really good line.

That's quotable. That just came out of my head, but that's what it is.

That's how I live my life. Contentment to me is the antidote for optimization. I need to write that down for my next book.

That's really good. Like, I literally made a little note right here because I was like, that's definitely going to be a quote from this episode for sure. So you should write that down. Oh, I'm going to do it.

I don't know how to spell antidote, but we'll, we'll figure it out.

You'll just have to remember.

So, but I, I, because I am, I don't know how familiar you are or how much you care about the Enneagram, but for people who speak Enneagram language, I'm an Enneagram 1. That's all I need to say. But an Enneagram 1 is a perfectionist. Uh, they seek things to be perfect and exact and ideal. And there is great beauty in that when you release your own control. Like, I believe that my energy in believing that things can be better is really good sometimes, you know, like, I don't want to be— I don't want to be content with not knowing my purpose. I don't want to be content with letting my story and my abuse define me. There are a lot of things I'm not content with. However, I think that contentment is the antidote to optimization because if we are where we are, if we are just where we are and we see where we are and we look at the people that are in front of us and we can be at peace and feel kind of rooted and grounded and like, like, like good heavy in your bones, you know, with where we are, it, it sort of releases this frantic energy to get everything done and do better. And I just, I already, I already have that energy naturally, like on my own. I don't need I don't need help with that. I say I have caffeinated squirrel energy. Like I'm just always like this, always, always, always.

And so I drank a Red Bull one time. I'll never do it again. I didn't need it. I didn't need it. It took me to a place that people ought not go. And I was like, you know what? Red Bull is not for people like me.

It's not for me.

I am natural Red Bull.

It is in my veins.

It's fine.

So I have had to spend my entire adult life, like, I was about to say working towards, but also that kind of shows like a, like a, that's like effort me language. I have had to release a lot of my control and what I thought mattered. And, and so contentment to me is just such a valuable thing. Because it, it I want to be, I want to be at peace where I am. I don't want my, I don't want my family to feel like mom's always unhappy. Mom's always trying to fix it. Mom's always trying to make it better. Now, mom sometimes does try to make it better. But there's, it's just a, there is a rest. There is a, there's a stillness and a serenity with contentment that is, I think, a something that is not valued as highly as I wish we valued it, which kind of dovetails into the nap thing. I don't, I also don't think we value rest enough. And are you a natural napper or is this something we're working on? All right. So here's what I do. It's called the 17-minute nap. Okay.

And you don't wake up mad after 17 minutes?

No, 17 minutes for me, 17 minutes is the sweet spot. And I have been talking about the 17-minute nap in my space for several years and there have been many, many, many, many, many, many people who have vouched for this being the thing. But here's, here's how it works. You can't just be like, okay, I'll take a 17 and then you lay there and you just stare at the ceiling for 17 minutes. What it is, you know, that time of day for me, it's always around 1:30 and you're, you're like, if I closed my eyes right now, I would fall asleep. Like I would just fall slap asleep. When I feel that, usually I used to push through because that would be lazy. That would be lazy to stop in the— who do I think I am stopping in the middle of the day to take a nap? Like, how dare I choose such a thing? But I also would just like start to get discontent with where I was. My work would suffer. My attitude towards my children would suffer. I would just get real pissy about everything because I was tired. And so I started to listen to my body. When my body needed to sleep, I wanted to honor that and say, okay, but sweet body, we cannot do this for 2 hours. Number 1, we don't have the time. Number 2, you do wake up angry. Like you just, if I give you too much, you make me pay for it. So what I, I started to kind of play around with the amount of time. And what I do, the 17-minute nap, when you start to feel kind of dreary-eyed, you lie down wherever you can. I will literally do this with my children in the room. I have a white noise app on my phone. I turn on the app and I stick it by my head so that even if noise is happening around me, I can still kind of zone. And I set my timer for 17 minutes. And I, I don't know that it has ever not worked. For me. For me, hear that? For me. And it has worked for a lot of people. I'm not a scientist. I'm not a sleep expert. I just know that this is one of the things I do. But it has, not only has it been, it's so layered. It's such a beautiful layered thing because I'm practically resting. I'm also listening to my body. The more we can practice that, the better off we're going to be. I also am valuing rest and I'm learning, I have, I now feel zero guilt about napping. I'm like, Mama's napping. I mean, I'll say Mama's taking a timer nap. I call it a timer nap in the house. Mom's taking a timer nap. And they're like, okay, seeing, you know, seeing a few, like they know it's part of our culture, which I actually really like our family culture. And I love that. I love that because I have a daughter. I mean, it's good for my sons to see it. It's good for all of them to see it. But it's good for our people to see us prioritizing rest. I just think that's something that we—

It's so good.

And so those are why, that's why I'm really passionate about contentment and next.

I love that. I love that. I love, you know, just the idea of when you were talking about your body, like that we are the soul of who we are is the caretaker for the house that carries us around. Like paying attention to your body, noticing what you need is super, super important. Yep. Listen, this conversation has been so great. I have a whole list of other questions, but we'll reserve that for podcast number 2. It sounds like you may be working on another project that may require a PR stint. It probably does. And then maybe I'll get in on that. How about that? Listen, I like when you were talking about the whole writing of the books by men. When I read, um, and again, I'm with you, don't want no demonization necessary here.

Sure.

But I wrote, uh, read The One Thing by Gary Keller, and I remember getting about halfway to 3/4 of the way through that book and crying.. And I called the friend who recommended the book to me, and I was like, how in the world am I supposed to focus on one thing? I mean, like, if I can focus on one thing in different areas, like I can focus on one thing at home and one thing at work and one thing in my marriage and one thing at— but who could— who is supposed to be able to focus on one thing? Like, this is the prescription. If this is the answer, I'm going to fail miserably because I actually— my life won't allow that. And I think that that's the reality that you were talking about. And so even when we were talking about time and having enough time, but living with focus and giving your time a home, all that is the stress that I have felt and that I know people feel from feeling that they're going to run out of time. Um, we were even talking about topics that we wanted to cover for me, just solo episodes that I'll do. And the topic was faith. And the number one recommendation for our team was how, based on the purpose and plans God has for you, how to use your time well for God's purposes. I mean, now we're bringing time into, can God use me? Like, if I don't, you know what I mean? Like, do I have enough time for God to use me? It's a whole problem that actually, I think, handicaps us because you can't move forward with confidence when you are carrying mountains of anxiety and worry about, are you going to be able to do enough. Absolutely. You know, that it will cripple you. It will cripple you.

It does.

It is. So that's a whole topic I want to spur you on in your research about. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

It has been so fun to have this conversation and get to know you. And I'm going to continue binging your podcast and hopefully so many of the people who listen to mine will now subscribe to yours as well. If you don't, know where to find Kendra, you need to go to thelazygeniuscollective.com. There you're going to find her store, her podcast, her library, all things. And of course, the links to her books. And if this conversation has been life-giving to you as much as it's been life-giving to me, then you need to know there is a better way. You can maximize your life in healthy ways while at the same time maximizing the time that you have to do the things that matter most and forgiving yourself and giving yourself grace and giving yourself a pass on the things you don't want to use your precious time to do. Listen, this is the Lazy Genius Way, and I'm so grateful to Kendra Adachi for joining me today. Thanks, Kendra.

Thank you for having me, Chrystal Hurst. This was a delight.