The Overlooked Secret to Loving Your Home

This podcast is not about hacking the system to find more time, or hacking your energy

to get more done. Hustling to be the best or to make the most out of every opportunity is exhausting and unsustainable. So here we do things differently. On this show, we value contentment, compassion, and living in our season. We've favorite 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 461, the overlooked secret to loving your home.”

A few weeks ago, I followed my boys into the house, like as they were walking into the house, and one of them said, "Man, I love home," and the other said, "Me too, home is pretty great," and I tried to play it cool, and thankfully did not cry because out of embarrassing so much. But I was so grateful to hear them say those words, and it got me thinking, "Why do they

love home? Why do any of us love being home?" I was able to identify a couple of things that surprised me, and I'm excited to share those thoughts with you today. After we talk about loving your home, we will have a little extra something that helps

us love where we live on a larger scale. We're going to talk about how to actually call your representatives and share your thoughts. This was requested as an episode topic, but it felt like just the right size to put here is a little extra something. We hear this often as citizens of the US call your reps, call your reps, and yet so many

“people don't because of all the unknowns, you know, who do you talk to?”

What do you say? Is the person on the other line going to get angry at you if you disagree with them? How often should you call? Does it actually work? I want to demystify calling your reps.

It's a core part of our democracy that we, the people, have a voice. So if you would like to do that, but I've been held back for whatever reason, maybe today's run down of just the basics of that, we'll help make it easier to do. After that, we'll celebrate the lazy genius of the week who shares an incredibly easy but super fun tip on making home a place that she loves, and then we'll close with a mini

pep talk for when everything feels too heavy.

In today's pep talk, you will hear my voice as well as someone else's, which is always

fun. Before we get into all that two quick things, number one, our next latest lazy letter goes out a week from this Wednesday on April 1st.

“Also is it just me or does anyone else think that there are just 30 days in March?”

I mean, I know March has 31 days, but does it feel like it should have 30 days? It's fine. Next week on Wednesday, April 1st, not April 2nd. I will send out the monthly newsletter with all kinds of personal essays for me, my favorite book at the month, as well as a new segment, we're calling the reply all, where I answer

your questions from the previous month's newsletter. I almost called it a super letter, that would be actually pretty great. It's kind of like an AMA, like an ask me anything in the newsletter, and it's, we've only done it one month, but it's been really fun. So if you would like to get that newsletter and have not before, you can give it a try.

I don't know what I'm going to write about yet, because the words are always driven by

what my life looks like on the day I write it, which will be next Tuesday. Based on how 2026 is gone so far, there is no actual telling what we will get, but it is always a good time. The newsletter is pound for pound, the most impactful, and maybe even successful thing that we do, the people who get it open it, they read it, and they stick around.

Like our unsubscribe rate is super low, and our open rate is super high, well above the national average. Those are like data driven ways to say people like this newsletter, and they like reading it, and they stick around and want to read more, and you might too, you might too. You can sign up for it at the lazygeneyscollective.com/join, and if you do that before

next Wednesday, you'll get the latest one that goes out next Wednesday. One more quick thing, we are about to talk about loving your home, and I would be remiss if I did not talk about my favorite person to speak about the home, especially decorating your home, which is a little less of what we are going to talk about today. I need to tell you about Michael and Smith, aka The Nester, virtually everything I know

about decorating a home is from her, and she is a resource you will absolutely love if you do not know her already. I'm going to suggest her book House Rules. It's 100 rules for your home that actually make it feel more like itself. My home is super empowering, cares about the right stuff, and makes a beautifully imperfect

home feel accessible in a way that no other home influencer, author, whatever, ever has for me. So I would encourage you to grab House Rules by Michael and Smith if you want some practical help on decorating your home if that is part of eventually loving your home, like we're

All right, before we get into the overlooked secret to living your home, 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, shares the lazy genus of the week as well as 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'd like to get that recap, you can head to the lazygenuscollective.com/listen.

Okay, now let's hear from our episode sponsors who make this show free for you to listen

“to, which is super rad, and then on the other side we'll get back to the overlooked secret”

of loving your home. Hello, I'm Melissa Beth Day, the creator and host of How to Fail is the podcast that celebrates the things in life that haven't gone right, and what if anything we've learned from those mistakes to help us succeed better. To tweak my guest share three failures, sparking intimate thought-provoking and funny conversations.

You're here from a diverse range of voices, sharing what they've learned through their failures. Join me Wednesdays for a new episode each week. This isn't Elizabeth Day in Sony Music Entertainment Original podcast. Listen there wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, let's get into the overlooked secret to living your home.

I want to start with three foundational beliefs that I think every lazy genius wants to believe to be true in your home.

“These are the three things that keep us focused on what matters.”

After we talk about those three beliefs, I'll share three phases that you can walk through that practically help you create a home that you really love to be in. You spend some time in phase one, you get comfortable there, then you move on to phase two, get comfortable there, and then to phase three. But first we need to start with a three foundational beliefs for learning to live your home.

These beliefs are compassionate boundaries that keep you from floating away into the abyss of discontentment. The belief number one, how my home feels is more important than how it looks. That's what I want you to say to yourself and grow to believe. How my home feels is more important than how it looks.

Whenever I hear someone talk about their home and how they wish it were different, they

always start with how it looks.

Which makes sense, but for a lazy genius, it is the wrong place to start. How something looks is low on the list, because looks don't actually do the thing that we want our homes to do, aesthetics and great furniture and well-placed lamps or whatever else that you wish you had, they do not make your home a warm, welcoming place, not on their own.

I want you to imagine homes that you've been in or even lived in that felt good to be in, right? They felt warm and welcoming, inviting, safe, whatever words you want to choose. What made the home feel that way? I'm guessing it wasn't the size of the couch or the intricacies of the bookshelf vignettes

or the uniqueness of the art on the walls. He was probably the person, it was how they looked at you, how they welcomed you in, how they weren't precious about their things or focused on their home more than they were focused on you, that they didn't apologize for their home in a way that you made you question your own home.

Now I want you to imagine the flip side.

“Have you ever had or been in a home that was beautifully decorated?”

It looked like a million bucks and you did not feel at ease. The house looked amazing, but you didn't necessarily love being there at a friend who's childhood home felt that way to me.

The house was a stunner, but I always felt a little nervous being there because it was

such a stunner. I was worried about messing stuff out or putting the chips back in the wrong place or upsetting her mom who liked things a certain way. The home looked beautiful, but it was not easy to be in. Beautifully decorated homes can be cold, plain homes can be warm.

Therefore how your home feels is more important than how it looks. The more you believe that to be true, the more at ease you'll feel in creating a home you love and the better your choice is about how it looks down the road. The second belief that helps you love your home is that it's good to take your time. It's good to take your time.

I recently saw a photo of our family living room from just after we moved into this house,

None of the furniture or decor from that photo is in our living room now.

Now some of the furniture and decor is like in other parts of the house, but the living room itself is completely different than it was 15 years ago. However, at no point have we done an overhaul of a living room, no overhouse, no immediate makeovers, over 15 years. We have taken our time.

I have found pieces I love, we learned how the room suits our family well, it's taking me time to understand what my style is. So today our living room, it is one of my favorite places to be in all the world. It feels good, it feels like home, and it does look like a room that is us.

But I never would have gotten that living room all at once, ever.

It feels and looks this way because I took my time. Now I did the opposite in our previous home. I was in my early 20s when cousin I moved from our small townhouse into a house that was way too big for us, and I did not take my time. We had virtually no furniture, definitely no style, no decor, very little, and I went all

out on decorating the entire thing immediately, almost like I was on decorating television show, like there had to be a distinct before and after, nothing gradual, all immediate. And almost everything we put in our home, then, is no longer with us. That's not because it got too old, it's because I went too fast. I did not take my time, learning and trying new things, and finding out what I liked.

I just went for it, tried to set it up and leave it, and it did not go so great. This is common for so many of us, we're discontent with partially done rooms with half measures, with a couch we like, but a coffee table we don't. We think that our options are a total makeover, or unhappiness. I'm guilty of this, of thinking that a room is not done until I absolutely love everything

about it.

“Well, we just established that how a home feels is more important than how it looks.”

So if that's true, it's good to take our time getting to a place where we love, how it looks. There's a lot of trying and learning and waiting and hunting, and yet, a room can still feel the way we want it to feel, even if it doesn't look the way we want it to look yet. Not belief changes how we feel at home, that gradual is better than immediate, that

it's good to take your time, and the third belief is that small things matter.

Loving your home isn't about how it looks overall, or how it looks, having it all look awesome right now in this moment. We have to believe that small things matter, as we gradually create a home that feels good to be in, not just looks good. Small things, like a shelf that displays photos that make you smile, plants, a candle

that you love to light, a lamp where you change out the light bulb to be either cooler or warmer light, depending on what you want in there. Cuddling up on the couch with your partner or your kid at the end of the day, and being happier about the cuddling than about the couch itself. Small things matter.

Small changes matter. Noticing those, tending to, and being grateful for the small things in your home.

“I think it inspires you to keep doing small things.”

And small things are so much easier than big ones. It's way easier to slowly create a living room you love over a year or 15, like me, than try and redecorate the whole thing. This weekend, based on whatever is available at Lose. Because I think that's one of the reasons why remodels are so stressful, especially things

with permanent fixtures, like bathroom circutions. You're having to make all of those design choices like tile and countertops, and faucet finishes and lighting, and stuff all at once. It's all immediate and big. Like there's nothing small or gradual about it, and that's hard, that's really hard.

So creating a home that you love is actually a fantastic opportunity to practice smallness, to value doing one small thing in a room, to make it feel a certain way. And then being done until you do the next small thing.

“The secret to loving your home is not having a home that's beautifully decorated, regularly”

tended to, super tidy. It's really clean all the time that matches the pictures in your head or on Instagram.

and unhappy that you don't have that yet.

And that's okay.

“But I truly believe that the secret to loving your home is to focus on how you want your”

home to feel, to take your time and to believe that small steps matter. You might not be able to completely change your home right now, in fact almost certainly now. You can't change all the decor or the floor plan or its location if you're unhappy with where you actually live, but you can change how it feels based on what you believe, which

I think is pretty great. So if we are starting with the three beliefs that how your home feels is more important than how it looks, that it's good to take your time and that small things matter. Let's talk through the practical side of this. How can you create a home that you love to be in?

Like for real, I think there are three phases that help you get there. Each one is like learning a new skill that builds on the next. So don't move too quickly through these phases, like a control with one before you move on to the next one. So phase one is how your home feels.

We have already established that how your home feels is more important than how it looks. So this makes sense is our starting place. As we talk about this phase, keep in mind that it's good to take your time and it's good to start small.

“All right, what do you want your home to feel like?”

You get to choose. There are some words that might spark like a little energy for you. Cozy, comfortable, welcoming, peaceful, colorful, playful, calming, reliable, warm, earthy, interesting, inviting, choose a word for your home, or you can start small and choose a word for one room.

Now, ask yourself, what makes my home or this room feel that way already? Don't sell yourself short, like I want you to spot the good that's here right now. I guarantee that whatever word you've named can be felt at least a little bit in your home because it is something that matters to you. So what are you already doing?

What's already making your home feel that way? For me, I want my home to feel cozy. I think that's one of the reasons my voice, I've been home so much because it's cozy and inviting. So what makes my home feel that way?

“All right, yes, I think the cozy couch and the big basket of blankets definitely help.”

But I also think it's the culture. I try really hard to make it a point to welcome my family when they get home. Like I really try to look them in the eye and warmly greet them and say that I'm glad they're home.

I don't always remember to do this, but most of the time when the kids walk in the

door from school, I don't say, "How's your day or even be in a different room?" Like I try to notice when they're going to get home and go to the door where they're going to be and say, "I'm so happy to see you." Coziness and warmth in that invitation, I think it comes from people, more than from furniture, you know?

In our house, we also have a lot of texture and sensory stuff that makes it feel cozy. For example, light, we use lamps, more than overhead lights. I open windows constantly to let in, like the naturally setting sun, which is sort of a nice cozy feel that we're sort of moving with the day. I like candles sometimes.

We play the fireplace show on TV. That attention to light, that adds coziness and it has nothing to do with how the house looks. We play chill music a lot, we keep the couch cleared off except for pillows so that it's easy to get in there and be cozy.

We have a lot of food and bowls like our dinners are served in bowls because I feel like a bowl of food is so cozy.

We always have baked bread and snacks and stuff on the counter, which I think is also cozy

and inviting. Those things all contribute to our home feeling the way that it does, and really none of them have to do with like furniture quality or how shelves are decorated, you know? So ask yourself what already makes your home feel the way that you want it to think about all your senses and then I want you to keep doing those things, keep doing them

with great intention and then you can say like, "Oh, well, what else can I do to keep that feeling alive to cultivate that feeling here?" Like if you want a peaceful home, you're probably not going to like have the clash, blaring on the speakers when everybody gets home from school, but hey, if you want a fun home,

If you want your home to feel playful, you might high-five your teenager every time you

pass them, but if you want your home to feel warm, you might give them a hug every time

“you pass them, or a pad on the shoulder, it's different, right?”

Those are really simple things that have nothing to do with decorations or vignettes or style shelves or new furniture. So I want you to spend some time here, I want you to spend some time in phase one for a little while, and focus on how your home feels, starts small, and take your time. So that's phase one.

Next is phase two, focus on how your home functions, okay? It's usually easier to love your home when it works pretty well, when it has space for the things that matter, when the right things work, and when people have what they need. This is my favorite phase to be a lazy genius. In fact, a lot of our office hours questions are in this phase, a lot of our lazy genius

of the week answers are those ideas are responses probably to this phase, to making something function, just a little bit better, right? We're trying to identify small problems that keep our home functioning well, solving those

“small problems, and enjoying the small, but mighty results of them.”

I've shared the story many times before, but I always come back to it because it's something

that is stuck for so long, that fits in this phase two place. So for the longest time, I was not loving my home because of how many cups were everywhere, how many itch cups and water bottles, new cups because a kid couldn't find their old one, that they were already using. Like, I was a little dramatic about it, but I felt like I was living in a house of cups.

So rather than get different kinds of cups, or being mean to my children, or coming up with some complicated cups system, or going beyond the cups and being like, "Our house is just small," or whatever it might be, "I lazy geniused it. I use the principle, put everything in its place, and I created a place for cups and water bottles that were in use.

I just got this like wooden, lazy Susan. It's very simple. It doesn't matter what it is. I put it on the kitchen counter, on the open, that is where the cups go. We have been implemented a house rule, which is another lazy genius principle that said,

"Hey, cups and water bottles for the day, they go on the drink spinner when you're not using them."

“Now, it took a few weeks of encouragement for that to work, you know, for people to remember”

to use the drink spinner. But here we are, years later, like many, many, many years, and that drink spinner is still on the counter and doing its job. It makes our home function better, and therefore easier to live in and love. It's nice to live in phase one before you interface two, because you might hit phase two,

and start solving problems with like a harder spirit than you intend. If you don't have a sense of how you want your home to feel, you might start solving problems like an angry robot, and that sort of defeats the purpose of creating a home that you love that has this specific feeling that you're after. So know how you want your home to feel, cultivate that feeling for as long as it takes,

and when it's time to solve small problems, that help your home function better, you will do it with more intention and kindness, because you're letting that feeling lead rather than the mechanics of the problem. I feel like 80% of what I make exists in phase two. So we won't go into it anymore, but I tell you what, phase two, figuring out how your home

functions works a lot better when you've spent some time in phase one first, and figured

out how you want your home to feel. Then after that, after you know how your home, you want your home to feel, and you've cultivated that feeling, and you're experiencing it outside of what your home looks like, after you have started to make things functional a little bit better. Now it's time to move into phase three, which you can probably guess what that is.

Phase three is how things look. So once you have established how your home feels, and you have solved enough small problems to help it function better, how it looks actually falls into place more easily. Now, hear me, I'm not saying that you can't like buy anything to your house. You can't choose like a pretty rug for your living room until you've named how you want

your home to feel, and how that you've made everything into your living room functional. I'm not saying that. However, however, the kind of rug you choose for your living room, it will change depending on how you want the room to feel and how you want the room to function. The aesthetics of your home support feeling and function.

They're not necessarily the source for it. Now because I don't know your style, and also because I am not a home decor expert at all,

I just want you to go on the right order, which is another lazy genus principle going on the right order, and stop putting how your home looks above how it feels and functions.

If you are unhappy with your home, focusing on how it looks first, it probably is not going

to get you where you want to go, especially if you ignore the first two things. So because I don't know your style, because of all the particulars to decorating, it's not really the point here. I just want to tell you a story. I want to tell you a story of how I went through the three phases.

In my living room, over the 15 years that we have lived here, already told you, the furniture and decor has changed, like almost completely, but it happened over a long period of time. Okay, so I want to cozy home, I want my home to feel cozy, like I said, and I also, I like for everything in the living room, especially to be contained. That's part of its functionality for me.

I want enough storage so that our stuff has somewhere to go where we don't look at it. I'll still leaving plenty of floor and couch space to be cozy and play games and hang out, right? I want the stuff to not clog up where we're going because I want it to have a place to go.

So storage has always mattered in the living room and in my whole house, frankly.

Now at first, warmth was generated from within. It was more of a culture than an aesthetic. We have always had a big cozy couch because that matters, but the decor from 15 years ago, it did not add a lot of warmth, really, like I can see that in the picture. But we still had light and music and family connection and that was plenty, it was great.

The functionality was pretty steady too. We had a couple of pieces for my Kiev for a long time that held our staff.

“Most of our furniture actually was for my Kiev for years and years because that's what you”

do. You don't have a lot of money as you go, boss stuff at IKEA. So the stuff, it functioned and we were fine, right? We were generating warmth as a culture in our family and we had pieces that did what they were supposed to do.

It was great. That's fine. But the aesthetics were not warm nor were they really our style. Everything was like that IKEA white and I wanted to start substituting in, like swapping out IKEA white hard lines for texture and wood and warmth to continue making my home

feel cozy, right? I had lived in phases one and two for a really long time and a few years ago it was like time to start small and take my time and find similarly functional pieces to what

“I already had that looked warmer than what we had, right?”

It looked cosier than what we had because that is what I wanted the room to feel like. So over years, the IKEA furniture, it was like moved into other parts of the house or sold at yard sales and in the places of those furniture, I have slowly added again over years mostly thrifted pieces that have warmth and personality like in their literal bones because they're like made of real wood and they're old and they have like marks on them

and they have like cool legs and interesting. They're just interesting, right? But I don't buy furniture that's just pretty. It has to be warm and cozy feeling like in its vibe and it still has to function in a way that the old piece does or else what am I even doing, right?

I need it to be cozy, it needs to contribute to being cozy and it still needs to function. I'll share this photo, it's actually two photos, in the next latest lazy listen's podcast recap, email. The just this month, just this month, I made a fantastic small change in my living room with a piece of furniture.

I was at my favorite consignment store and I spotted a tall, like dark blue green wooden dresser with like the coolest hardware, it had really cool inlay detail, it was just so rad. My immediate thought was, everything in my house is functioning fine, I don't really have anywhere to put this and I left the store.

But I kept thinking about the dresser and I texted a friend and I was like I found a pretty dresser but I don't know where I'll put it and if it's worth it to buy it and she was like girl, a dresser that's cheaper than something you'd find in IKEA and unique that you

“keep thinking about you should just go get it and figure it out later.”

So I split the difference between how I was feeling a wearer advice was and I went back

for a second time that day and because I was on my way to school, pick up and the store

and some measurements because I didn't do that the first time and I wondered I was like

“I wonder if this would go well by my reading chair in the living room that is also a recent”

addition to the warmth and functionality of my living room space right right after Christmas. I've talked about that before and that photo was also in the latest lazy lessons email. And I wondered I was like huh, like this could be really great next to my reading chair. I already had an old target desk that functioned well enough next to my reading chair that this would function the same if not better because it had more storage and it would add visual

warmth and coziness in a way that this cheap desk did not. So I took a photo of the dresser and then I left again two times to that store in the same day. After I got home from school drop off I kept thinking about the dresser I couldn't stop thinking

about it I kept visualizing it in its place I measured like the space you know it would

totally go there I realized it would be so much more beautiful to look at than the desk that was there and then I realized I was like man if I go back to the store tomorrow and that dresser is gone I'm gonna be kind of heartbroken. So I hopped in the car and went to the store for the third time that day I got there with five minutes to spare before closing and I bought the dresser.

Oh my gosh. It now lives next to my reading chair. It functions even better than the desk before it and it looks like a million bucks. In fact it makes the whole room feel like itself now. It's like the dresser was made for my living room and like the living room's been waiting

for the dresser for a really long time.

But listen my living room would never have felt that way all at once.

The living room needed to feel the way I wanted it to despite the decor for a little while. It needed to function properly even with pieces that weren't the prettiest. And then I was able to slowly and thoughtfully swap functional pieces for cozy functional pieces.

Again I'll share photos I've like before and after in the latest list of clothes and see me. I think creating a home is like it's kind of like becoming a person. You just don't turn 21 and suddenly have everything figured out even though you think you might.

There is constant becoming there are changes in adjustments and realizations and things

“that you have to unlearn and new skills that you require and taste preferences all kinds”

of things that develop over time with experience and like living your life. Who you are 21 is not who you are 31 or 41 or 51 is I want. We don't just come out like a completely formed person. And I think the same is true of your home. Your home is not going to become it's like static self right away.

It will grow and adjust based on your season of life, on your preferences. Even just like trying certain furniture configurations slowly over time. Your home is going through its own journey of becoming itself so don't rush it. Go through the process honor the order. So in conclusion, I want you to start with beliefs that help guide you how your home

feels is more important than how it looks. It's good to take your time and small steps matter. Then I want you to live in each of these three phases before actively moving on to the next one so that you can like immediately love your home, immediately love it and continue to love it even more as you move from how it feels to how it functions, then to how it looks.

Starting with how it looks might be fun on renovation television shows, but it's not real life for most people.

“So go in the right order, don't overlook the secret sauce of how your home feels.”

And I genuinely believe that you will continue to love your home and you can actually love it right now. And that is the overlooking secret. Tell what I think you're hoping for. Simon, you're about to start with the story.

This is also a schoolflashback. Just take a look at what's right and then take a look at it. No, no. I don't know. This story is my safe space.

Do you think it's all right? Yes, exactly. This story is like the story of the story that you just understood. The story of the studio, the job, or the music. I don't think so.

I don't think so. Do you love the story? With this story.

Once again, you have a photo.

You look like an angel. That's true, and there's a lot to it. Stop. Come out of the recruiting spiral. With Stepstone Alljobs, you'll be able to show you all the story for a year.

In one package to a fixed price. So let's look at it at 75% cost-probe value. And there's every time Flexible. Now let's take a look at Stepstone.de/Alljobs. Stepstone, infact, the real talent to finden for all jobs.

All right. Now it's time for a little extra something. Today we're going to talk about how to call your elected representatives. So we want thoughtful people in office who are responding to the opinions of their constituents, right?

And they won't know what we're thinking unless we tell them. I'm telling you, this is far less scary than it seems.

So if you've never done it, because you feel nervous or awkward or even a little afraid,

hopefully the next couple of minutes will put those feelings to rest. All right. Let's start with the basics. Let's just start with what happens, like how the call works. All right.

“So you're going to call one of your representatives, right?”

You can call a US Senator, or the person who's in the House of Representatives. You can call a state Senator. You can even call like a City Council person. Whoever it is, you're going to call the person. You are going to either speak to someone in the office of that person, or you're going

to get voicemail. And either way, you're going to say the same thing, okay? Either way. Whether you talk to a machine or a person, you're going to say the same thing. You're going to say your name and your address that verifies that you are a constituent

of the representative that you are calling, right?

So it's tally properly. And then you're just going to say whatever it is that you want them to know. So you can say, I would like to express my support for the bill about XYZ. Now, if you don't know anything about bills that are up for a vote, that's okay. You can just say, hi, I am for this thing, or I am against this thing, or I am concerned

about this thing. And I would like for Senator So and so to work with the other side to come to an agreement on this thing. Or whatever. Like, you don't have to be eloquent.

You don't have to use fancy words. You don't have to know about every bill in order to call about just one. You don't even have to know about the bills at all. This isn't a quiz.

“You're simply going to call, say who you are and where you live, and then share what matters”

to you. Just share one issue in the call to keep it easier on yourself and easier for the person on the other end to log. What is it, you say? Okay.

Now, let's talk for a quick minute about the person on the other end. Unless you get voicemail, which has happened to me about 90% of the time in the last few months, like I have not talked to a person in forever, I don't know if they're just getting a lot of calls or staffing is low. I don't know.

But if you get a person, you're going to speak to a staffer or an intern whose job it is. Is to just take and tally calls. They are not there to argue or agree with you. They are there to simply log the issue that you're calling about and your opinion about it.

That's it. Maybe you haven't called before because you're like, maybe you're in favor of common sense gun laws, but your Senator doesn't seem to be. And you're afraid that by calling, it's like the same is going to like a Thanksgiving

“dinner with an uncle who argues with you about guns.”

That's not what happens here. The person listens to what you say, they log it. They will often ask if you would like a follow up from the representative and you can say yes or no. And they thank you for calling and they hang up, like it is not a confrontational process

at all. In fact, the one time, the one time that I got really angry, calling one of my representatives was because the staffer did not engage with me. I was hot about a particular issue. I wanted to know what my rep was going to do about it.

I also asked when that rep was going to have a town hall because she hadn't in like a super duper long time, and I wanted to go and get some answers. I wanted to hear her say some things. It felt like she was hiding. That's how it felt.

And I was really hot about it. And the staffers, and I called kind of hot. And the staffer said, I can't give you an information about that, but your call has been longed. It was like almost like talking to a robot and that actually made me mad.

Like because I kind of wanted to argue, you're not going to get into a heated argument with the person that answers the phone. Any heat will only come for a meal. In fact, I've seen videos on Instagram of people calling their reps and putting the person on the other end of the line like on the spot with the issue and that person just does not

flinch. They don't engage.

They are trained to take comments, no matter how emotional they are, and log them in the

daily calls day after day.

“I have only ever talked to humans that mostly sound like robots.”

So don't worry about having to defend an opinion or prove your point. You just say what you want to say and then you're done, it's like weirdly civil. Now, one of the biggest hindrances to this other than like, am I going to get in a fight with someone is knowing what to call about or like what to say at all, once you call, right? I find that the app, five calls, is the most helpful because it lays out the most pressing

bills that are up for a vote, like it has the process even of like, this is past the house and it is now going to the Senate for a vote, like it's very specific about what is on the docket and more like largely pressing issues and it has all of your representatives like once you put in where you are, it tells you who to call, it gives you the numbers of who to call, it even has like a way for you to log what happened.

Like I got a voice, I left a voice mail, no one answered. I haven't called yet or whatever and it like a logs what you did that day, which is pretty

“rad and it has a script if you want to script.”

Now I don't always have the same reasoning as to why I want to build to pass or not as

say the five calls script does, some of them are really general, some are pretty specific. So you don't have to follow the script, but it sure is nice to have like a framework that you can follow. So regardless of like how you feel about the different issues in the app, five calls is a really, really helpful place to start, especially on the federal level. It just makes it really easy.

Now you might not think that calling matters because your representatives are in favor of the opposite things that you are, but it does matter, like pressure matters, people in government often want to stay there and they're not going to stay there if the majority

of their constituents are unhappy with them. So you call and share what matters, but here's

the other thing, and this kind of ties into one final question which is like how often you

“should call, that's completely up to you, but honestly I wouldn't even worry about that”

right now. If you're starting from zero calls, I want you to move from just zero to one, like don't come up with some big routine. This is an opportunity, much like learning to love your home. This is an opportunity to value small steps. Start small, call one person one time and then be done. You don't have to make a whole system about it, right? Right or type out what you want to say. You can use the help of five calls if you want or just

your own thoughts, call one time, read the thing, and then be done. It sometimes feels like it doesn't do anything like I said. And depending on where you live and what you care about, it might not move the needle on the actual issue as much, but what I love personally about calling my representatives is it is a way for me to stay engaged in building the kind of country that I want to live in. And it also teaches me the value of small steps. One phone call might not seem

like a lot, but a lot of phone calls is a lot. Plus I am learning to, as Mother Teresa says, do small things with great love. It's practice and being the kind of person that you want to be in the world. There are other things that you can do to be the kind of person that you want to be in the world. You don't have to call your representatives for that account. This is not a checkbox here, but if you have struggled doing this before, because you just didn't know what to expect or to say,

or any of that, I do hope that this helps clear the air a little bit for you and gives you the courage to just make one phone call. And that is today's a little extra something. All right, now for the lazy genius of the week, this week we have Kara from Charlotte, North Carolina, my kind of neighbor. Hi Kara and Charlotte. Kara writes, "I'm intentionally investing in my analog hobbies these days. I love an analog hobby. I love to geek out all around my house,

depending on my mood. I have my favorite chair in my reading book. The comfy chair in the living room, and sometimes I curl up in bed to read, color, or do a word search. Tired of hauling all the individual items from room to room. I bought a diaper catty to hold everything. It holds my pens, stickers, snacks, water bottle, and my current read. All of my stuff is organized and easy to move around the house. It's also easy to hide out a site when necessary. I love my analog diaper catty.

And now, now we're all going to go out and find some kind of catty. For our stuff, this is just so

feel like it was a pretty long time ago. But it was someone who did this, but for her stuff to

“get ready for bed. I'm going off memory here, some sorry if I get this wrong. But like,”

I feel like it was something about trying to get a new baby to go to sleep. And sometimes the baby went to sleep in her bedroom, making it harder for her to get ready in there because of the noise and stuff. So the catty helped her either go to another bathroom or another area to like do her stuff or she could sort of reach like nighttime meds without waking up the baby, something like that. A similar idea and also really great one. I actually recently did this with my travel bag of

toiletries. One of my, this is different than analog hobbies. But one of my kids was like in my bathroom and I was ready to go to bed so hard, so tired. And I needed to still like brush my teeth and watch my face and stuff, but I wanted to give my kid his privacy. But all my stuff was in the

“bathroom. And so I grabbed, I was like, oh my gosh, I have a bag of travel toiletries in my room.”

I'll just grab those and so I grabbed that and I got ready in the other bathroom. And it was amazing.

So doing that kind of thing, where like everything you need is in one place, doing that with fun things like books and crafts, such a great idea, such a great idea, put everything in its place and make the place portable. So good. Thank you so much for sharing this idea, Cara, and congratulations on being the lazy genus of the week. And now for a many pep talk, we're when everything feels too heavy. It feels that way kind of all the time right now. Um, some days I'm like,

I can't take it anymore. And it's not just the news or huge issues like war, which is already too heavy. It's like regular life things too that are heavy, like a season of super hard parenting or

“when you find out you have to move because of a job or honestly the fact that the store never”

seems to have your oatmeal can stock and that on top of everything else just feels like a bridge too far. You know, so during heavy seasons, I've tried all kinds of things. I have tried ignoring the heaviness completely, like acting like it's not even there. That didn't work. I have tried to stay completely connected to the heaviness at the expense of everything else that also didn't work. What we need are counterweights. Shannon Martin, who is a friend and author and just a lovely human,

coined this word in the context of heaviness. And it has been such a gift to me. It's why I call my representatives and read the news and also why I feed my birds and I bake bread and I do puzzles and I watch bake off with any and I take family walks with the family around the block after dinner, now that the sun is out longer. Those are the things that balance out the heaviness that have their own weight. Shannon wrote a book that comes out tomorrow, March 24th, called counterweights.

And when I say that it is exceptional, I mean it. It's a little memoir. It's part memoir, part guide of how to navigate the heaviness of the world. It is both gritty and lush, just extraordinary writing and like a pep talk in book form for living in a heavy world. I was going to read an excerpt from the book here on the show and then I realized like oh, I have Shannon's number, Shannon can do it. So I texted Shannon and I was like hey,

can you send me a voice recording? A view reading this part of your book that I love so much and she kindly said yes. So here is Shannon. Heavyness is part of the human equation. Our tears will look different depending on the day. The hour or zip codes and our skin tones to name a few. The lists we write tomorrow will diverge from today's new wonders thrown like confetti against fresh sorrows. We might as well make a habit of taking stock because the

fire that will consume us is the one we refuse to face. Run headlong into its heat and we are

guaranteed to bottom out. Turn our backs and it will eat us alive. As usual, there is a third way.

We can stand at its edge, cheeks, rosy hot, eyes bright from the flames and choose the path of growth and valor. We can bear witness and live. The goal is not perfect equilibrium but balanced flavor. There is no precise method for weighing our buckets of beauty and terror. We are not scientists

Time moves both perilously slow and at warp speed. Somehow there is far too much

and far too little to waste in the tidy pursuit of basic survival. Reach down, reach up, we will teeter and wobble. But most days we will stay on our feet beneath the lights strobing against the darkness. It will almost feel like dancing. I think without Shannon's like wisdom and

“grit frankly, I don't know that I would feel like much of life is dancing. But she has given”

me such incredible language and helpful tools to live in this world with an open heart, a strong

back and eyes that see other people. All while praising the gift that is like a warm from the sun to make. Sometimes the book just hits you at the right time and I think counterweights is a book that is being released into the world at a time we need it most. Thank you Shannon for being my pep talker and sharing some words from your book today and for those of you listening,

“go check out counterweights. It is a gift of a book that I am so grateful that I got to read.”

And that is a mini pep talk for when everything feels too heavy. If this episode was helpful to

you or if you have been looking for a way to support the show, please share this episode with someone you know or you can leave a kind review on Apple podcasts every mention and share. It makes a difference in turning people into lazy jemuses. It is a beautiful way to start small. So thank you for being so supportive in that way. This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office Ladies Network. It was episode as hosted by me, Kendra Adachi and executive produced by

Kendra Adachi, Jennifer Fisher and Angela Kinsey, special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production. If you'd like a podcast recap every other week, be sure to sign up for latest lazy lessons that goes out every other Friday, head to the lazy jeniscollective.com/licens to get it. And you can see a picture of a dark green dresser. Thanks y'all for listening and until next time, the jenis about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra,

I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough? Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think okay,

“and A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of”

becoming ourselves. Listen to becoming you wherever you get your podcasts.