Crowdsourced Tips for an Easier Summer

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'm so glad you're here. Today is episode 476. Crowdsourced tips for an easier summer. We are smack dab in the middle of summer and now seems like a great time to assess

what's working and what is making summer easier. Today we're going to hear from all of you with tons of great tips on an easier summer. And I know that there will be something in here

that will solve a current problem anyone listening might have to make the second half of the summer

easier. One of the best parts about being a lazy genius is getting better at solving small problems. The more we keep things small, the more helpful change we actually make. And this episode is that in a nutshell. Lots of compassionate problem solving of the small things about summer that can grow into bigger frustrations. We have tips on lunches and snacks and swimming dinners. We have tips on structuring days and keeping carsless chaotic and helping kids to chores

without losing your mind. If the last few weeks of episodes have been my how-to's to get you thinking about all the ways to make summer easier, this episode is the crowdsourced collection of the best of the best practically applied. So thanks in advance to everyone for sending in so many great ideas. After that we'll have a little extra something where I share about my day off.

In the latest lazy letter, my monthly newsletter that when I last week, I always answer people's

questions in a segment called reply all. We get tons of remote responses every month, and last month someone asked about my day off and if I actually take the day off,

“like for real don't do anything on my to-do list. And because honestly that sounds like crazy”

for a busy person with a job with kids and responsibilities, it is a fair question. And I did answer it briefly in the newsletter, but I actually wanted to go into it a bit more today. So that will be today's a little extra something. Then we'll celebrate the lazy genus of the week, even though this whole episode is full of lazy genus of the week, with a brilliant tip about the bay and my existence, dirty socks, then we'll close with a mini pop talk for it when you don't

feel like you can stop. Now before we get into all that, we need your help. So you guys are really

smart and your thoughts about what we do here always matter. We have made decisions based on your

feedback for years. And it's time to get your feedback again. Every year we have a survey that helps us make decisions for the upcoming year. And we for real listen to you. Like last year's survey, let us to putting my dozen or so book reviews into a separate reading email every month. And that has been a wildly good idea. The latest lazy letter, where the book review is used to live, it feels like it can breathe more, it has more room for like personal essays and ideas to share,

plus this new reply all segment that I already mentioned. And then the book list, the reading email, it is a more easily digestible email for readers with more room for me to share what I'm reading next. What book suggestions you have given me that month. And like even an essay on how reading is going right now. So those were tremendous ideas that we got from your survey feedback. Your survey feedback also led us to adjust the formatting of this podcast. We're lucky to be a show

popular with sponsors. But because we had so many more ads, the show sometimes felt like it was half ads, half show, when it used to be 20 minutes long. Plus so many of you indicated on past surveys that you wish the podcast episodes were longer. So guess what we did? We expanded the episodes to include a little extra something and mini pep talks, which offer a more balanced eye load as well as a listening experience that you like more. We have used survey data to

plan book tours, create email resources, and even make the playbooks. I just cannot tell you how impactful your feedback is to team LG. We're coming up on our annual team retreat where we get together in person and we're going to cast our vision for this next year. Figure out what we want to create for you and make adjustments that benefit the majority as best we can. In order to do that, we need your feedback and you can give it by filling out our lazy genius survey. It's a few

“minutes of your time, but incredibly important to us. And as a thank you for that time, we're going”

to randomly select three participants who are willing to share their name and email address just

of your choice. So you get to help us make better stuff for you and you just might $100 so that's

“pretty fun. Participating is super easy. Just go to the link in the show notes, either on your podcast”

app or on our website, fill it out, include your name and email address at the end if you would like to be in the thank you gift card drawing. And then you're done. Since we need time to analyze the survey before our team retreat, the survey will close on July 17th. That's about a week and a half from now if you're listening to this episode on the day it comes out. So there's plenty of time. But if you're like me, you hear about something to do. You think like, oh yeah,

fine, I'll do that later. And then like your middle-aged female brain walks into the metaphorical woods and number returns. If that is you, my deepest sympathies for our home hormonal brains that need extra reminders and maybe you can like just pause the episode now and pause what you're doing and just click on the link and do it now or like send yourself a text reminder or set an alarm

“for later when you're less busy to fill it out if you want to do that. I also think it's important”

to note that even though the survey really just give us like the majority breakdown, there are some of you that have a very minority experiences and it's really lovely for us to know that. So even though we are trying to serve the most people as possible with our choices, we also get to serve people better by knowing the minority. So even if you're like, well, I might not feel the same way about the podcast and the emails most people actually that is just as

valuable so please share no matter what. I'm just so grateful for all of you to this whole community for being such smart, thoughtful kind people. I want to continue making shows and writing books and sending emails that make your life easier, better and kinder. So thank you for helping me do that. All right, before we get into your tips for an easier summer, let's take a quick break to here

“from our sponsors, which makes this show free for you to listen to. But before we do here is your”

quick reminder about the podcast recap email that we send out every other Friday. It's called latest lazy listens and it summarizes the episode. It shares lazy genies of the week as well as the other segments we have on the show and it has a little extra note for me to help encourage you through the weekend. So if you would like to get that recap, you can head to the lazy geniescollective.com/lissons. All right, let's get into your crowd sourced tips for an easier summer. We'll run through these

in categories and first up is food. Food happens to all of us. The people need to be fed. So let's

hear some favorite listener tips to make summer food easier. First is Amanda Payglar with one hilarious tip. Here's what she says. I call it big meat Monday. Though it rarely falls on a Monday. Once a week, I will cook a big cut of meat, a roast a whole chicken, pork shoulder, a check roast, et cetera, and then shred the remaining meat to use for a couple of meals later in the week. The summer I've decided once that from this leftover meat, I will make tacos and stir fry.

If it goes further than that, we'll get a bonus pasta or whatever. The prep to cook the meat is generally quick and easy, just seasoning and throwing it into the oven or crock pot for a long cook. And having the meat on hand cuts down on prep time, planning and dishes for some other days in the week. Listen, I want to do this just so I can implement something called Big Meat Monday.

That is amazing. Please name your things. It's always more fun. Great idea, Amanda.

All right, I love this one from Shea Geiter. My most recent decide once for the summer is saying yes to popsicles. I bought some cheap silicone molds on Amazon and have been using smoothie leftovers to make a new batch regularly. My toddler thinks on the actual best mom ever for being the one to suggest a 10 a.m. popsicle and bonus points that I'm sneaking in veggies and fiber. We always eat them outside too, which gives it's out in the yard earlier in the day and leaves

only sticky hands and cheeks to clean up. Yes, let us all declare this the summer of popsicles. Like even if you don't have kids, we need the summer of popsicles always. All right, now we're going to hear the voices of some listeners with your favorite summer tips.

First, you'll hear from Amber with her own popsicle tip because it is the summer popsicles

followed by Sarah, Katie and Hillary. Hi there. My name is Amber. I live in Colorado Springs, Colorado. One way that I am making summer easier is as we know, fruit goes really bad really quickly in summer heat. And so when I see raspberry start to turn or watermelons start to get some extra juices around it, I tend to throw it into the blender, blend it all up and then pour it into popsicle molds. And we have fresh cold fruit popsicles out of almost gone bad fruit.

Hey there, Kendra. Sarah Williams from Forest Virginia. Mom of three ages 2013 and eight

becoming of age to become a swimmer. That swimming was an option. So swim team quickly became one of

“our summer structured activities. While Monday nights are crazy and we are trying to figure out”

how to get to warmups at 5 p.m. Searching for goggles and searching for towels and trying to find a sharpie to mark arms for kids events. I realized very quickly that there was no time left to make a decision on dinner. So our decide once for dinners on swim team evenings is order pizza and pack the snackle box full of vegetables. My kids know that at the swim meet after they've done warmups, they can come grab a slice and they have to pick two colors from the snackle box

so that they're well fed, energized and ready for the swim meet. We also just packer. I most of us have water bottles with ice water and this helps us save money at the swim meet which can be tempting but also to when you're crazy busy in your Monday and all of a sudden it's some team time.

“You've already had your dinner ready and decided so that's my one way to make summer easier.”

Thanks for having me on Kendra. Hi Kendra. I'm Katie Jumper from Cincinnati, Ohio and the way I've made my summer so much easier this year is by coming up with a two week summer lunch rotation. Lunch was the bean of my existence trying to figure out what to feed the kids every single day and I would wait until everyone was hungry and then make PB and J's because I just couldn't think of anything else fast. Or I'd have the kids make their own lunch but they'd have the

same decision fatigue and while all the enough to make their own food they feel extra loved when I make it for them. We were all sick of sandwiches and deciding. So I came up with 10 lunches with some help from the kids and so Monday through Friday it's written down everyone knows what's

“coming. I make it for them but they're welcome to opt out and make their own lunch of something”

else sounds better. Hi Kendra. This is Hillary Solie. I'm from Cleveland, Ohio and this

is my second summer being a lazy genius about using my freezer for meals in the summer.

Before school let out a good friend and I got together and we batch cooked and froze several different things that our families would like. This year we did talk with me, turkey meatballs, enchiladas, stuffed shells and when we made a bunch split it up between the two of us and it's a great help on nights where I can't think of anything to cook and I need to pull something out of the freezer right away or when I meal planning and I just can't think of something to eat. I know that I have

some meals already in the freezer. It's been a huge, huge help and it has made summer time cooking just a little bit easier. Thanks for all that you do. All right now let's transition into tips for summer gear and logistics. Summer has different types of needs and schedules and making rhythms for short-lived things like that that it can be a little tricky. So these are really great ideas to make all of that feel easier. So the first idea is from

Monica Holmes. Here's what Monica says. Getting the kids out the door for camp each morning is a

whole thing. We borrowed the nesters home base concept and applied it to sunscreen. For the duration of summer we keep a ceramic bowl on the kitchen counter that holds in a ray of sunscreen. Voila. Sunscreen is contained in one spot made as pretty as sunscreen can get and no one has to send out a search party before coffee. Yes I love this so much so the nester is always smart about making home decor work in a practical and still beautiful way and her home base concept is excellent

that way. It's why I have spoons in an old planter. Hairbrushes that stay in a living room for night braiding also in an old planter actually and a bowl on the table for all the keys and walls and sunglasses containing similar stuff that you need on a fairly regular basis is something that's like a little bit obvious but when you put it in something pretty close to where you use it all the time it's like so so helpful. So as sunscreen bowl in the kitchen during summer it's

such a great idea. All right Courtney to Carlos is this. I've decided once the top of the dryer is where all summer camp supplies live for the summer. Every day when the kids come home the backpack goes right to the laundry wet and dirty things go in the wash bags go on top of the dryer and

fills with dirty clothes or bathing suits and towels. I run a load and then fold and put those

“things right back on top of the dryer to enter the rotation again. Okay here's why I love this one.”

This is probably harder to do all the time because it might feel like to responsive of a process like waiting for the washer to fill up might be tricky with everyone's clothes getting dirty at different rates. But when you're talking about summerking up everyone is dirty and stinky and going to be changed out of the same clothes at the same rate when everyone gets home. So this is like such a great seasonal approach to stuff and laundry and I love it when you'll make choices just for

your season. It is truly how life feels better. All right I love this one from Nikki Flanaree. I just wanted to give a shout out to the summer at the pool episode from a few years back.

It has been in my head for a while since listening but this year I finally bought a dedicated

drying rack that now lives on our screen porch right off our mudroom towels bathing suits floaties all in there right after coming home from the pool or after being rent staff. I also know we'll get double use and winter on snow days for all the wet snow gear after playing outside. I haven't even told my kids about the drying rack house rule officially but after a few weeks I saw my five-year-old hanging up her bathing suit herself. Yeah, it's so good isn't it so fun when you start something

that does not need an official announcement but it still kind of works and then people to sort of follow suit. I love that and great call and using the rack for the winter. I do love that pool episode. I could remember the exact name of it so I just googled Lacey Genius pool to find it and it's episode 266 how to Lacey Genius a summer at the pool. We still use so many of those tips and it makes the season so much easier. So if you're a pool person and you go a lot and you

“have not listened to that episode you should go listen to that episode. I'm a so glad I helped you Nicky.”

All right here's another pool tip from Sarah Sakura. To make summer easier this year I placed three fabric bins in a hallway right outside the bedrooms of my kids ages six four into. We call those the swim bins. Each kid has their own bin with a laminated photo of themselves on the front so there's no confusion also side note I'm guessing because those children can't read yet. Swim suits, swim shoes, goggles and swim diapers for the toddler for each kid can be found in the bins.

They know where to go when it's time to get ready for water play and I've found the swim bins to be so much more convenient than going into three separate bedrooms to locate swim stuff. Man this is really great. It's so empowering too because it's giving these tiny kids ownership of their bins and of getting ready without trusting them to do like the searching of all those things.

“You know I love this Sarah such a great idea. And finally here is an audio clip from Jessica.”

Hi my name is Jessica from Jessica Pic Virginia and something our family does every summer

that I didn't think anything I would tell I read your email is we never or almost never fully

unload our trunk. We live about 20 minutes from the beach so we're there every week sometimes of a few times so we always keep our wagon, our beach chairs, fun beach game that we have, the boogie boards, the tent, all of that stays. We also have a beach bag and that pretty much stays packed for the entire summer as well. So it always has our sunscreen goggles and like the favorite ball that everybody wants to play with. It is soon as the beach towels are dry into the

bag they go because we just realized it was such a production to get ready for a beach day that that kind of took out some of the thinking. So at this point we just say suit up and then my husband and I will pack up the cooler and then we're ready. I love that there are so many great places where we can it feels like we're being inefficient or messy by keeping things out and you're not. You're actually making it easier for yourself. Like keeping your stuff in the car all the time

like Jessica is. It's so great. All right let's next talk about tips for rhythms and light structure

to help summer go more smoothly. All right this first one is from Melody Norris Melody Says.

As a homeschool mom of four I knew we couldn't abandon all sense of routine in the summer. So a couple of years ago we implemented theme days. Make something Monday, take a trip to say water Wednesday, thinking Thursday and friends at the early Friday. Some weeks the themes switch days or we even double or triple up on our themes like a museum trip with friends that includes playing in water for example. But we have a basic framework. This system has made it so much

easier for all of us to still do our thing. Play outside, read books, just enjoy summer while

we brainstormed ideas for each day and hours just checking them off as we go and I'm not pulling

“my hair out hearing I'm bored 9,000 times a day. Man I really do love a theme. If you have kids”

who respond to structure and are smaller and love like the good name of something and a good theme like write that theme for as long as your children let you like it is just the best. All right Melinda Lucas shares this. I'm a teacher in Mama 5 and I'm blessed to be home with my kids all summer. This does however make for some very long days I bet. I wanted to have somewhat of a schedule for the long days at home but a time schedule just didn't work out.

I decided that instead of doing things at a certain time we would just follow a certain order of events. This worked so much better. We still got everything done. Schoolwork, chores, lunch,

calm time and I didn't have to stress about what time it was. When the first thing was finished

we just moved on to the next and so on. After all we had all day to get things done. Yes, Melinda this is great. This actually ties in with today's a little extra something and the mini pep talk later about really changing how we think about being done. And in this case for Melinda it doesn't have to be tied to a time. You can just put the things that you are hoping to do that day in order and then do the next one when the previous one is done no matter how

long it takes. I love the ease of that. It's productive if that's the goal but it's not hustly which is something we could all use more practice in. So that's a great idea. All right this next one is from Sterling Maximau which Lissa and I should have to say is the coolest name I've ever heard. Sterling Maximau says we designated Tuesdays is our standing adventure day for me and the kids. At the start of the summer we each added must-do items to create a family summer bucket list

and we use the weekly adventure day to check off one of those items. We agreed together that adventure day lasts only as long as everyone is up for it. Rather than planning a long day of preset activities we commit to just one bucket list activity everything after that is optional. A menu of bite-sized bonus fun if the energy is there. The kids know we can head home the moment the mood shifts which removes all pressure and somehow brings out a go with the flow spirit

and even my most scheduled oriented child. Now this right here is being a lazy genius. It is so great

“to have themes for every day if you want to especially when your family like really thrives on that.”

Like Melody who we just heard from actually. But for some of you having a theme every day is like too much. You can't remember it's like too much to manage and the expectations of certain children might be so high that a theme day every day is like untenable. But this is scheduling what matters. One day a week. The summer bucket list is there and there's one day a week to do something from it. It's so simple. But I also love the ease of not making it a full day thing of deciding

that ahead of time. Like we can just go home when it's done if we want or not even done if we're done. It's like we're going to go home now. Like this is such a beautiful case of open-handed planning. Remember our plan pyramid from my book The Plan? The three sides are the PA and N from plan prepare a just and notice so that you get to live which is the point of the pyramid and the point of the whole thing in the L and plan. Sterling is equally preparing a justing and noticing

by having this adventure day. Noticing moves and energies and then adjusting what she prepared so that people can go home if they're ready. This is just like top tier lazy genius planning that puts people before everything else and I just let that. All right here are a couple of audio clips from Mary Ellen and Kola. Hi my name is Mary Ellen from Westfield, Indiana. I have two elementary age boys and so in the summer time I like to create theme weeks that give us a little structure and order

to our summer vacation so we've done baseball week and shark week. But my favorite is when we do

“Christmas in July week and we watch Christmas movies and listen to Christmas music and the best thing”

that we do is we will think of all the people in December that we want to give Christmas gifts to like the teachers and the bus drivers and the neighbors and then during Christmas in July week in the summer we craft one gift for all those people and then in December I just have to go grab my 20 gifts out of the storage room and we already have them ready to give out at Christmas time.

Hi Kenja, long time listener, first-time caller. I am lazy geniusing this summer in conjunction

with my husband by breaking up each of the 10 weeks of summer with one parent in charge so that helps

week then I know that I have to check in with all the kids schedules and make sure that I'm available or I get coverage for a drop off if I end up having an appointment and the same for him he knows

“when he can travel and when it's going to be the most convenient and so far I think it's going to work”

pretty pretty well. So splitting the summer weeks between the adults in the house is such a great way if you are a home that doesn't necessarily have a really equal division of labor or you feel like you are the mom who holds all the strings doing that kind of thing in the summer could be really great practice for your partnership to flip flop weeks or even days sometimes just to be like hey you've got this one you're checking in and kind of going through like what the process of that

would be so I really really love that also how great is Christmas and July and then like figuring out gifts for those people and the kids making them and it's like a whole activity that's such a great idea from Mary Ellen okay so our next category is giving kids more ownership and responsibility

“over the summer which is very helpful and sometimes really challenging thing to do so these are”

some of your ideas this one is from Karissa Jensen my best tax before the summer was adapted from you oh that's nice we are trying very hard to raise capable kids and part of that is giving them chores however it is a little overwhelming to try to keep track of multiple different shores assigned two multiple different kids this is correct and who is doing what this week etc so instead of a signing specific chores this summer we assigned zones that they are almost completely in charge of

the zones switch each week so no one kid has the same zone all summer I explained to them at the

start of the summer what it looks like in each zone to tidy it up clean it basically take care of it

my favorite part of this is each evening at some point I holler out own your zone at that point they each know that they need to go to their zone and go through either the actual checklist that I wrote on a no card or a mental checklist of what needs to happen in that zone it hasn't been a perfect process but I have found that my kids really enjoy having ownership over something man I love this okay a couple things so I love zones so much like Montgomery Dirty Dishes Zone there's so many

uses of zones but in this regard I know that Sam Kelly the author of the soon to be released book notice and do talks about this as a great way to manage chores and expectations with kids having a zone empowering them to be like this is what a clean zone looks like or tidy zone looks like it teaches them to own it themselves to notice what needs to be done and just doing it without having to be micromanaged a whole time I also love Carissa that you said that it has not been a perfect

process but it does make it easier this is such an important expectation you guys nothing's gonna work right away like it just won't and the sooner that you stop expecting it to the easier your small solutions are gonna be all right this next one is from Brittany Dickmeyer and years past I have packed up one pool bag and we've taken turns carrying it this year I decided each person can manage their own pool stuff I bought three pool backpacks and filled them with goggles and pool toys

now when it's time to go the kids pack a towel a water bottle and a snack in their own bag

and off we go I keep my bag ready so I'm only carrying my stuff it's not a revolutionary idea but

it's helping me put everything in its place the summer and teach you my kids planning and

“responsibility along the way I love this Brittany so I started doing this with Annie I think it was”

last summer I don't remember exactly but she will usually take her shower at the pool after we're done swimming and sometimes even wash her hair so we would have like you know a little shower bag like a little zip bag that had shampoo and a little lufan all the things well last summer like or for all the summers before it was so annoying just like pulling out that little shower bag and then another towel from the big pool bag that was like all of our pool bags and then she

might forget something or whatever but then sometimes like she would take the pool bag with her somewhere and some of my stuff was in it but I didn't have access to it because we just had the

one pool bag so yes we got her own pool bag and it's been amazing so she's responsible to

package time and it's so much easier if she is going to the pool without me right like if the time that my novel was in the pool bag and she took it away and I did not have my novel no so now she

thing I've been doing that has been making the summer easy is post it note jobs for the kids

“have a nine year old a seven year old and a four year old since the four year old can't read yet”

his daily job is to help me pick up all the toys around the house but the big kids get a post it note with a short list of jobs to finish every day it includes cleaning their room to keep them from getting out of hand practicing piano and with one short chore like washing their laundry putting their laundry away emptying all the bathroom trash cans or replacing the dirty towels around the house with fresh ones the whole post it takes less than an hour to finish this is

something we do during the school year so it was relatively easy to keep our house in order even though we've been doing so many fun things outside the house this summer you all um this is why I really love small steps like if you adjust things season to season and you just like tinker to find what works rather than quitting and starting over and finding a whole new system because it's a whole new season if you keep what's working enough and just like adjusted a bit you actually

start to create real sustainable ease at home like if you do one simple thing like post it no chores and then you just keep doing that adjusting as you go from season to season whether it's school year to summer or your kids being able to read or having like more capabilities because they're getting older like it's going to eventually work so well it becomes automated and it keeps your house more in a flow like it's a forlorn so small steps baby keep tinker and

make a mark you got this all right Lily Thayer Derek says you inspired me to do something very simple this summer to manage my teens and tweens plan less days on days when they don't have a scheduled commitment like work or camp we have told them that they need to do the three following things one move their body to use their brain and three do something to help the family community they have three hours a day to do this in any order or way they want whether it's playing

outside reading and mowing the lawn or swimming playing a game and doing the dishes so far it's working

“pretty well still much more screen time than I think they should have but at least I know the”

essentials are covered and the bonus is that I'm inspired to do those things on my down days as well this is great Lily I think teaching kids like simple rhythms with empowerment and ownership within those rhythms is something that is going to serve them for their entire lives so that's really great to start now with that all right two more categories this next one is about expectations I mentioned that a minute ago but like this it's for real now that we really need to like be careful

about our expectations we need to like keep practicing relaxation around doing all the things having super high expectations and like just do just do a matters right so first is Alice and Huffner I am in the throws of first semester nausea and simply gave myself the freedom to stop making plans kids are going to day camps and occupy during the day while my husband and I work eight weeks of no play dates or gatherings initiated by me won't kill us our calendar suddenly emptied because

I am the social initiator and now we just live and we are surviving and not lovely and now we just live

I love that it's not that Alice and we'll never play on a social event again of course you

well but in this season when she doesn't feel good and she's pregnant like just stop planning stuff what a gift that is Julie Willerie says one way I'm making my summer easier is by not thinking about new challenges in the future I'm a school teacher and found out that I will be teaching a new class next school year I'm traveling the summer and moving my oldest child to college when I found out about the new class my first thought was that I need to spend the entire summer thinking

and planning for the next school year but I have the opportunity to be with family I don't get to see often and focus on my son so I decided the new class is for August Julie August Julie will plan and think about the new class and it will be completely fine this summer I'm focusing on the people

and front of me Julie the first summer I read this I tear it up like truly August Julie

August Julie will plan and think about the new class and it will be completely fine and you're right it will and even if the fine looks different than you'd like you're still doing this because

“being integrated and whole as a person is more important than being great at planning your stuff”

plus June and July Julie will be so grateful to August Julie for taking that mental load for now so that a college movement and a trip to see family they can be their own wonderful things so I just love this so much all right here's one from Noel Denny my lazy genius hack is let go of all expectations of what the best summer ever could look like I eat planning something different for every day and assuming I know what my kids will want to do and I'm taking cues from my

so I knew it would have to be an unplanned summer so far we have done so many fun things

that have happened just because I left our days open some days we have random activities like play dates planned a few days in advance but most of our activities have been day of decisions based on what my kids want to do I know once this baby comes I'll be limited and I wanted to give myself the freedom to do what they want in the moment rather than scheduling out every hour of every day see this is also such a great take on being a lazy genius the goal here it's not about

“like having theme days or not having theme days the point is to do what matters to you”

and if what matters is to relax expectations and follow your kids lead that is what you will do if your goal is to maintain some structure so that your homeschooled kids have an easier transition back into a regular year you're gonna have theme days that's what you're going to do it's all about what matters to you and the choices that come from that even when two different people have like the opposite results in those choices it's gonna work that's the beauty of being a lazy

genius all right one more from Ashley Struggle lower the standards we are in and out as Elie times a day so the house just will not stay as tidy during the summer which is fine because we live here but in prior years I would stress myself out about it turns out just lowering my expectations for the summer it leaves us all a little less tense this is the truest of truths like if you change how you think it changes what you do and like in a story

“and then here is a fun idea from Erin in Erin's actual voice hi Kendra I'm Erin from Durham North Carolina”

we have a lot of really great friends in our neighborhood and wanted to spend more time with

them this summer we tried this in the past and always get hung up with coordinating schedules

and trying to find times that work for everyone the result is that the hangouts never happen so this summer we've chosen the same day and the same time every week to have people over in our backyard it's super casual some weeks everyone shows up other weeks it's only half of us but it's still a fun connection point that has really brought some simple joy to a summer week night that's so great if we simplify the choices especially lowering the expectation of like

is this going to work for everyone it's probably not but if you just have something locked in it's so much easier it's like it's own version of decide once it's so much easier to keep things that matter moving all right we are going to finish with a little bit of fun and whimsy these are not so much like tips about making summer easier but they are definitely ways to make summer more delightful all right carous havens says a few years ago we moved to a neighborhood that is mostly

flat and has great sidewalks our kids were two and four at the time and we started something that summer that we call jammy walks after dinner we have the kids get their PJs on and we go on a family walk sometimes we will entice them with a popsicle the kids love it and after daylight savings in March when the sun is up longer they start asking for jammy walks after dinner it gives my husband and me a solid 30 minutes to catch up on our days and have some mostly

uninterrupted conversation while also getting some exercise jammy walks is so adorable what an adorable

“name y'all ask where the names of things are so important and delightful like big mate monday”

just call something by a fun name and like it automatically gives better all right this one is from Tiffany Wolfe my 13 year old daughter and I go on periodic ice cream adventures with the dog and toe at night I announce we're going on an adventure and she and a dog get in the car we listen a questionable 80s and 90s rap songs of full blast all windows down sing at the top of our lungs get ice cream and then come back returning to our very vanilla lifestyles this is so dear I love

that getting ice cream in this adventure isn't adventure first of all but like when it's captured by

a name and 90s rap it isn't adventure like that's so fun that's the best Tiffany all right one more from Greece shoot what helped in the past was giving each kid their own day johnny day so it is less planning on your part they feel so special other kids can't complain otherwise they won't get their special day and you are a hero only and we used to do this with our kids before they became more independent and just like you know now they just do their own stuff but we did we had

a sam day a ben day and any day and it was so fun like they got to choose what we ate what we did if they wanted to funnel any activity cash into getting like a Lego set or something we put it on the calendar everybody look forward to their day we would do it in the same week usually that worked better for our family rather than scattering them about the summer because then it sort of felt like a little unfair that someone got there's really early and then like a little kid had to wait

four more weeks for their day so we would do them usually in the same week anyway it was so fun

end with these audio messages from cheney and Jess hi my name is cheney and I were in the mirror when suburbs of Washington DC and one of the things that we are doing this summer and snow

revolutionary but it was a great reminder for my husband and I as we did a full comb of all of our

“credit card points and what they can be used for and different perks that I think just by”

dormit in our emails for a long time and we basically curated a list of all sorts of things that we can do with credit card points and then built out days and weekends on our summer calendar to take advantage of those and now we're doing fun things and for relatively low to no cost including a baseball game a weekend trip to Virginia a we went to a restaurant and Baltimore that we wouldn't normally go to because of this specific very nuanced credit card perk and so

this is just a reminder that sometimes there are creative ideas and ways to save or cut costs that you might already be paying for and forget to take advantage of so we just had a meeting and went over everything and planned out the next few months with the summer and now we have a lot of really exciting things to look forward to. Hi my name is Jess Jones and I live in Hernando, Mississippi my lazy genius summer trick this year is twofold one is I have been

trying to add a little extra whimsy to my life trying to make the really mundane things feel magical so what I did was I created a summer menu for our house I have named our house and given it a brand so hillhouse provisions is the kitchen it's also the coffee shop so hillhouse provisions summer menu and I made sure to choose things that could either be made in 30 minutes or made in a crock pot so that I wasn't heating up the kitchen for long periods of time because

we live in South and so we do not need extra heat also that includes like breakfast and lunch and snacks all things are covered I just look at that list at the beginning of my grocery shopping and figure out what on the menu do we want to have that week and it makes it really simple while also being a little fun a little silly we all need a little fun little silly this is what I mean guys like giving your kitchen a name like it's a restaurant like your Joanna Gaines is so fantastic

so name things name these very very simple things to add either whimsy or delight in whatever category for the rest of your summer and just like see what kind of joy that brings

“I really think that these tiny moments where you just like smile at your own life”

there's just so impactful they're so impactful so I just loved all of these tips thank you everybody for sending them in this is living in the season out it's best and I just love how at ease everyone is about summer and making all of it a little bit easier so that is our crowds horse tips for an easier summer all right today's a little extra thing is all about my day off and if I actually take the day off so this is the specific question that we got diskindra really

spent her Fridays just relaxing how does she ignore the giant to do lists that all moms especially moms who are business owners have all right this is such a great question and while I answered it in the newsletter last week I wanted to answer it again here with my voice and a little bit more and fell so the background here is that I take every Friday off I can't do that during the summers or I just don't because it's too complicated to like kick my family out of the house once a week

but during the school year when everyone's at work at school after I drop off my last kid at school

and then before I pick up the first one and they have their news I do nothing but what I want

I read I watch TV maybe I'll go thrifting if I want to leave the house but I rarely do because it's such a treat to be home with no people and no responsibilities at least no responsibilities that need to be tended to right now because I have chosen it to be that way I am convinced that the way you view time determines how you spend it what you believe about your to-do list and your responsibilities and your freedom to rest all of that it impacts how you

“choose to actually spend your time for example if you believe that you need to finish your”

list before you can relax you will never relax because a list is never done like not really

day off or you feel this pressure to like justify it or apologize for it or you do a lot more the other days to like compensate for the day off you're not going to ever really fully relax when you take the day because you don't really feel like you deserve it if you have been here for any length of time you know that I do I do not love the way the current like a cultural way of looking at getting things done like we live in a productivity industrial complex that wants us to be better

“and faster at all costs mostly so that we can spend more money honestly like we're not supposed”

to be content with our lives we're supposed to want bigger and better we're supposed to want more we're we're told that our bodies and our homes and our jobs and hobbies and outfits and friendships and date nights and the way we drink water all of that needs to be optimized for the best experience possible so that we can have perfect futures now that might be generalizing it a bit but actually like not by much if you go to the self-help or productivity part of a bookstore

or like your podcast app and you scroll titles of books and episodes you're going to see all kinds of resources to optimize your life to help you get more done and be the best person you can possibly be everyday for the rest of your life but that is usually based on what you produce that's the measurement and and even if it's not even if that's not what the like direct thing is that your

productivity is the most important thing there is still an error of like discontentment and

“dissatisfaction with your life there's an assumption that you should be discontent and dissatisfied”

with your life because it can always be better now I'm not saying you can't be discontent so many people are and that's fine might be legitimate but when discontentment is the rule and greatness is the goal y'all there is no room to take a day off they like it doesn't compute because there's just too much to do that's why the question by this reader has almost like like an air of disbelief in it like discontent or really spent her days just relaxing like that's the wording because honestly it

sounds so counterintuitive counterproductive even countercultural to be a woman with children and a job and take a day off once a week without a apology or shame or like an neglected to do list family or life you guys I believe with my whole heart that so much of the stress that we

“feel with an overwhelmed life is because we are trying to get it all done we see done as the goal”

as the finish line so that we can nap or play or rest or whatever it's just absolutely never going

to happen you will never ever ever ever ever ever ever be done you just won't so you have to choose to be done I choose to be done on Friday I choose to let unfolded laundry weight until the kids get home from school and instead I read I choose to not see that rest as an earned thing that is just a regular part of my healthy life I want my kids to have that kind of rest I want cause to have that kind of rest I want you to have that kind of rest but it comes from believing that productivity is not the end

game and that contentment with the undone is a perfectly lovely weight-a-live now have I developed some helpful things over the years that make that day off feel more relaxed yes I don't make it to do list for the entire week I only make one for a Monday through Thursday like Thursday is the end of my work week there's no option for carryover which makes Fridays feel intentionally empty I don't click on Fridays we we get our house cleaned every other Thursday but then even on the off Thursdays

like I make sure along with my family that we do a pretty decent tidy on Thursday night before everyone

goes to bed so that Friday it feels intentionally settled now does that always happen no but the

baseline is that it will all of that didn't happen all at once either like it happened over time as I protected those five hours on Fridays and really it is it's just five hours like last year I would get home from the last school run around like 19930 and then I would have to pick up the first kid I would leave the house around 21220 to get them at 230 so this next school year it will be a little bit different because Sam is going to drive himself and his brother bent to school which is

super fun and then Annie is likely going to have an after school program or walk home so that might buy me another 45 minutes which is super fun but those hours to be our sacred like I missed

a season and I still bring that mentality of contentment and choosing to be done into my summer

life too like you will never be done so choose to be done for now you can do more stuff tomorrow

if you want so like just relax and what's weird is when you do when you choose to stop and rest even though things are undone you have more efficiency when you do get stuff done like you you get more done when you stop trying to get it all done it's very bizarre but it works the rest and loose grip on productivity they make actual productivity so much easier now if you're new here and you're like what is all this tell me more please go grab my book the

“plan and just start reading but for now yes I do actually relax on Fridays because I believe that I”

can and then I should and that is today's a little extra something now it's time for this week's

lazy gene to save the week this week we have Lori from Atlanta Lori writes I was listening to

talk recently about being irritated by dirty socks on your floor and the summer which inspired me to reach out with this idea that we used at my house when my kids were younger for my three boys we declared no socks summer they wore only crocs keen sandals and loafers for church no socks required no socks to pick up laundry or match or put away it was the perfect solution and then this is this is really fantastic like a no socks summer for those of you who hate dirty socks

too like please use this tip sadly my children are like anti-sandle and anti-crock elegantly the boys are and they're the main culprits of the socks I know thoughts and prayers for me cause is also a culprit he does wear socks when it goes for a run and like moody yard or whatever but I might just have a life of dirty socks and that's okay but listen I absolutely love the ITF no socks summer this needs to be an option for many people and many homes

and again great name guys just name the thing it's way too fun thank you so much for sharing this Lori and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week all right now for a mini pep talk for when you feel like you can't stop I think I just sort of gave one in a little extra something but let me quickly reiterate this particular piece of it again if you think you're not allowed to stop then you're not telling yourself the truth you can stop like you get sick and stop

your friends stop and you don't get on them about it people stop all the time the lack of stopping isn't about not having the right systems or like being the exception the one

“person who has too much to do you have to believe that you can stop you have to believe that you can”

leave something undone and go to bed you have to believe that you can read for an hour on your couch even though there's stuff to do and that you're not a terrible person because of it and might I remind us that men rarely have this belief or at least not to the extent that women do like men stop all the time men don't feel guilty about resting in general like this is a belief that women have been taught and have internalized like over decades and it is preventing you from believing that you are

allowed to stop it's keeping you in the cycle of believing that the well-being of your home and your people it relies entirely upon your shoulders and that well-being should also be like top notch in order to count I do not believe any of that is true now if you do that's okay you can keep trying and hustling and being efficient and not stopping if that matters to you there are lots of other like podcasts and books and stuff out there for you but if you stay here

with me and I hope you do I will keep telling you that you can stop when you feel like you can't

“it's because you've lost sight of what matters which ultimately is your humanity your humanity”

matters far more than your productivity ever will and you're always allowed to stop the more you

practice stopping the better you'll get at stopping and like I said before getting things done in between those stops so change your beliefs and you will change your behavior and that is a mini peptop for when you don't feel like you can stop if this episode was helpful to you or if you've been looking for a way to support the show please share this episode with someone you know or leave a kind review on Apple podcasts every mention and share it makes a difference and turning

more people into lazy geniuses so thank you so much for your support this podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the office ladies network this episode is hosted by me, Kindredachi and executive

production and an additional special thanks to Cara Smith for preparing all of these submissions

“for this episode if you would like a podcast recap every other week be sure to sign up for the latest”

lazy lessons email that goes out every other Friday head to the lazy genius collective dot comm slash listens to get it 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 Kindred I'll see you next week

hey it's Jen Hatmaker here's what I've learned in mid-life joy isn't the reward you earn

“after all the work has done joy is the work that's what this new series on for the love is all about”

the sacred yes it's choosing delight rest and pleasure on purpose because saying yes to yourself

that's the thing that finally lets you fill your table with everybody else come find your sacred

“yes with me follow and listen to for the love wherever you get your podcasts”

and you're ready to go to the next episode of the love story and share the video with your friends and friends It's so good. With visual steuers, it's on 31st Newly Upgeben.