Hey there! You are listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Dachie and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter, lazy about the things that don't.

Today is episode 221. Get your back to school life together. It is the first Monday in August and I think August is a very unique month. It is a transitional month for people with kids or if you are an educator, it still feels like summer outside, but you are transitioning into fall routines and going back to work.

There are just a lot of things to do to prepare for the next season and it can feel very overwhelming to keep up with all of them.

Now even if you don't have kids, August is transitional. It just is. Summer I think is just a very particular season with vacations and friends who have different schedules and they normally do, and more chill vibes and all of the things.

I think we are all feeling a little bit of that. I've got to get it together. Kind of energy. Today I want us to put some specific words around the challenges of this season and then we are going to go through a simple process to handle those challenges in a very lazy genius way.

We are going to embrace some new perspectives and also be super practical. We always want to try to do both around here.

Okay, so first thing, if you are new here, welcome. A lot of what I'm going to be sharing is based on the principles from my book, The Lazy Genius Way.

It came out in August of 2020, a super great time to release a book into the world and it lays out 13 lazy genius principles that you can apply to any situation in any season of life.

It is a very versatile, personal approach to life management. So when I talk about the principles, when I say like lazy genius principle, that's where they come from. They come from that book. Also, everything about this lazy genius space, everything starts with one thing, name what matters.

If you don't know what matters to you, you have no way of knowing what to be lazy about and what to be a genius about. So we're going to talk about that as well.

The subtitle of that book, The Lazy Genius Way, is embrace what matters, ditch what doesn't and get stuff done. And we're actually going to use that subtitle as like our three sections today. We're going to do that in this episode.

So let's start with embrace what matters. Right now, I think you're likely feeling a little rattled by like all the things. I think a primary reason for that is because there are a lot of one off tasks happening right now, especially if you have kids, not exclusively, but especially.

There are just a lot of things to get done, right? Buying school supplies, maybe back to school clothes, transitioning summer stuff out of the house, bringing school stuff or fall stuff in.

You might be thinking about haircuts and doctor's appointments, any number of things I have not mentioned. Plus, I think summer to fall is one of the most transitional times of the year.

Top three for sure. It's like summer fall, like back to school and maybe New Year's, you know. So when when you add what happens is when you add a higher number of those singular tasks, those one off tasks to an already shaky routine that's in transition.

It feels like a really big challenge. It can easily feel in fact like you're drowning and let's not forget that we are still dealing with the aftermath of living in and through a pandemic. I say that a lot, but it's a lot.

So what can we do? First, we're going to embrace what matters. Now, how do you know what matters? You start with a list. I want you to do a quick brain dump of all the things that you feel like are on your plate this month.

Just this month or maybe it's just a week or two weeks, whatever whatever you want your range to be, you know, because like maybe school starts for you in another week or two or you go back to work or whatever it is, but pick a small, finite length of time.

What are all the things you feel like are on your plate? I would also like for you to put on that list the things that you value or need or what during the month.

What is getting left behind because you're dealing with all the urgent stuff? Like what are things to, you know, take care of yourself? What are things that are fun? What are things that you're missing out on?

Are you feel like you're missing out on? Because you're focused on all of the urgent things. So if it's in your life, I want you to write it down. There are no wrong answers here. If it's in your life, write it down.

Now we need to embrace what matters. Okay, so one of the most common things that I hear from you guys is how do I know what matters? Right? So many things matter. And I get that. I totally get that. And I see how when I say I want you to narrow down what matters to one thing.

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