Hi there, you're listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't.

Today's episode 175, how to create a cozy space. We're about halfway into September and even though temperatures and even seasons depending on your hemisphere are different right now.

Something about life shifts when we hit September. And whenever I hit that shift, the importance of my environment is more obvious.

In fact, if you take anything from this episode or need to just like piece out right now, hear this sentence when you're in a place of transition or inside what Brunei Brown calls day two, that messy middle, pay attention to your environment.

Creating a space that feels safe and cozy, whatever that looks like for you, is important for your mental health truly. Don't ignore your space.

I'm not saying you need to like decorate within an inch of your life and buy all new things or upend your entire house or copy someone else's style or even have something that resembles like the common idea of what style is. Just pay attention.

This episode will give you steps on how to do that, but the important thing here is to name the importance of your environment when you're in the middle of something long or at the start of something new, which in some ways I guess that includes like all life, but that's okay too.

So now in this episode, it does not have, we don't have an official sponsor in the traditional sense, but this episode is gifted to you. We'll say on behalf of Michael and Smith's new book, Welcome Home.

She is not paying me or even asking me to mention her book here on the podcast, especially in the sponsor section of the episode, but I believe in her message and in this book as a beautiful enhancement to your lazy genius life as it relates to your environment.

She is my home guru and has taught me everything I know, including a good portion of what I'm going to share in this episode. So while this episode technically isn't sponsored by her new book, Welcome Home, releasing tomorrow, Tuesday, September 15th, I'm going to talk about it and encourage you to consider if it's right for you.

I think the likely answer is yes. In my experience, if you like me, you'll like Michael and fun fact, so many of you listen to the next right thing with Emily P. Freeman, who is my real life best friend and a lot of you say that our spaces hold hands really well together, which they do.

Well, Emily and Mike will in our real life sisters, a lot of people don't know that. So in case you're one of those people, they're sisters, which is so fun. All three of our spaces are such good companions to each other.

Michael and says all of our books would be friends at camp. So it's very likely if you resonate with one of us, you'll resonate with all of us, not always because again, we're all different and I don't know your life, but I would be remiss to not tell you that they both exist and can very much be companions to your life as they have been in my life.

Okay, so let's talk about how to create a cozy space and I'm so grateful for Michael and perspective on so much of this over the years.

Okay, the lazy genius step one for creating a cozy space is to wait for it, name what matters.

Okay, first, what matters is that you have an environment that feel safe, welcoming, peaceful, encouraging, whatever adjective you need for your life.

Most of our homes are always in at least a minor state of transition. So don't have expectations that your entire home will feel like perfect or exactly the way you want it to feel all the time and right away, right?

I would encourage you, as Michael and has encouraged me to just focus on one space, start small. So starting small matters. And once you choose the space that you would like to make cozy, name what matters about that space.

I encourage you to choose a space that makes a big emotional impact. Maybe it's the room you hate the most. Maybe it's the room you're in the most. Maybe it's a reading nook that if it served your purposes would improve your life in massive ways on a daily basis, you get to choose.

And once you choose, name what matters about that space, pick your words, choose its function and how it feels.

It's also important to name what season of life you're in, what season of the year you're in, what your limitations are and not ignore them. Sometimes we ignore all the components of a space because it just kind of feels hopeless.

It's too much like having no budget or like we can't get anything new or we have orange, for my countertops that we can replace.

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