Hey 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 is episode 394, five ways to feel grounded in a busy month. i almost named this episode five ways to find balance in a busy month but finding balance isn't a thing balance is teetering back and forth between two sides hoping to not fall over balance is so precarious
That's how time management often feels in a busy season. We're trying to do everything really well, holding it all successfully without falling over. Finding balance is actually a major drain on our energy and our calm and our contentment. What I think we really want to feel is grounded, whether that's in a busy month like December or honestly, just any time at all. So let's just jump into five ways to feel grounded in a busy month. Number one, find a busy month mantra.
i'm gonna give you a few to choose from or you can come up with your own essentially you are grabbing onto an important reminder that helps you stay grounded in whatever area has you feel like you're floating and untethered and out of control during this busy month. So your busy month mantra could be, I will match my expectations to the energy I'm willing and able to give. I will match my expectations to the energy I'm willing and able to get.
Most of our frustrations in life are due to unmet expectations. And busy months, especially December, are chock full of expectations. You have your own. You have the expectation of family members, of culture. Expectations, they're all over the place. They're like twinkle lights, but not as chill. If you are surrounded by expectations that you feel like are being unmet.
The tendency is to try and hack our energy in order to meet the expectations. We try to do more and be more and attempt to cram in more. And all that does is make us tired and cranky and behind. Match the expectation in the energy by adjusting your expectations. vacation. Maybe I won't make baked treats for every neighbor this year since the oven is on the fritz or this work project is taking me deep into December or I've been sick or whatever the case may be, right?
And honestly, that case could simply be I just don't have the energy. I don't have the energy. Adjust your expectation. Sometimes we also have to adjust the expectations of others.
letting them know how sad we are that we can't make the snickerdoodles this year, but that this season looks different than years past and adjustments have to be made, right? I will match my expectations to the energy I'm willing and able to give. Another busy month mantra could be, I don't have to make the most of everything. I said this in an Instagram reel a couple of weeks ago, but women are not given permission to be mediocre. And that is wildly true in December.
We're making cookies and memories and wrapping gifts beautifully and hosting gatherings and getting thoughtful gifts for other people and decorating homes and attending all the functions and trendy outfits and without any stress around our schedules. Now I know all of that is kind of cliche, but it also feels really true.
Women already have to tell themselves that it's okay to just be okay at something. And there's a little encouragement from outside voices to that end. But in December, I think the voices feel extra loud. In busy months in general, the chaos of the to-do list, it can drown out the voice of reason and kindness in your head. So your busy month mantra might need to be, I don't have to make the most of everything.
You don't have to capitalize on every gift, every gathering, every memory, every moment. Just let your life be what it is. Let some things be mid. It's not giving up or giving in to do that. It's human and wise and normal and good. A final busy month mantra you might want to borrow is good is here right now. Good is here right now. When we're super busy and in a chaotic season, it is so easy to not notice.
the good that is around us. We just stay sucked into this vacuum of celebrations and to-do lists and projects and whiny kids and overbearing parents and whatever is on your list. Busyness usually puts us in survival mode, which takes us out of noticing mode. So this mantra can help bring you back to that grounded place of noticing. Good is here right now.
So that's the first thing that you can do to feel grounded. Have a busy month mantra. Find your own, borrow one of these, choose a different one based on what the day needs, but have a busy month mantra. The second way that you can feel grounded in a busy month is by actively releasing the expectation that everything you do has to be great. This is a little bit like the mantra above, but I think it is a real shift.
that we have to actively keep making. Our culture and the time management industry and retail in general is all about making you think that you need to level up. Level up your winter outfits, your planning methods, your wrapping, your holiday appetizers. Everything seems to be about making everything great. Sometimes with language about impressing people or making neighbors jealous or putting your old self to shame.
It's such a damaging message and moves us further and further from feeling grounded. Discontentment and leveling up and greatness are all about dislodging us from where we are. so that we feel motivated to change and make things better and more optimized and more memorable and more impressive and spend more money.
That's a huge reason why you feel all over the place right now. Every message you see and hear is actively trying to make you feel that way. So you'll spend money. It's really wild once you see it. So instead, actively release the expectation that everything has to be great. It does not. It does not. Things can be average and mid. Some things can be left for another time.
Others that really matter to you, they can be elevated to a place where you put more of your time and your energy and your care, that genius energy, right? You can make some things beautiful and great and memorable, but they're not in order to impress. or to be better, they're coming from a deep sense of what matters to you, almost certainly for the sake of love and kindness and connection.
So the second way to feel grounded in a busy month is to actively release the expectation, sometimes daily or even hourly, that everything you do has to be great. It doesn't. before we get into the third way to feel grounded in a busy month is to note that I'm almost certainly you can hear it that someone's cutting a tree down close to my house so
My apologies for the buzzing because I am almost confident that you can hear it pretty well, but we carry on. All right. The third way to feel grounded in a busy month is to activate your senses. There is so much research on this, y'all. But grounding yourself from a mental health standpoint is literally about looking at things, hearing sounds, touching stuff, tasting stuff, smelling stuff. It helps us come back to ourselves.
and not drift off in the chaos of optimized activity and stressful expectations. If you are feeling stressed out and untethered, you can ground yourself in that moment. by touching something natural like grass or dirt or even a soft blanket on the couch if you don't want to go outside.
You can light a candle that you love and smell it. You can look around your space and look at things that bring you joy or look into someone else's eyes that you trust and just take a deep breath. In the moment, you can ground yourself with your senses. You can create an environment of feeling grounded in your home or at your desk, at work, or even in your car by actively bringing in your senses. Have some playlists at the ready that you play while you're driving or working or making dinner.
Simmer cider on the stove. You can get a lotion that you love that has like a wintry scent or that matches whatever busy month you're in. And you put it on when you need to feel grounded, like being tactile with your hands as you rub in the lotion. Put your hands over your heart. I do that all the time, like press into your heart. Dance, light a fire, or turn on the Netflix fireplace show.
Activate your senses. Lean into them. Don't see those choices as silly or small. They're not. As we all know, starting small works way better than anything else anyway. All right, the fourth way that you can feel grounded in a busy month is to schedule reps. And I think it would be a compassionate choice to do that every day.
I was talking to a friend recently about her busy schedule and it's way busy. She's in grad school. So she's like creating papers and running classes. She's also doing research as part of her degree. So she's managing the schedules of a ton of people who are involved in her research study. She also has a partner and hobbies and family and regular responsibilities. And she was feeling like she never rested.
But then as she kept talking, she realized that she did have some joyful, restful things in her life already, like a scheduled weekly movie night. It always happened and it always made her happy and feel grounded in herself and her home and her life. Now I share that little story to say, sometimes when we hear the idea of scheduling rest, we see it as starting from scratch. Like, oh man, here's one more thing I need to do that I'll feel bad about when I don't actually do it.
But I wonder if most of you already have some rest scheduled most days already. You just haven't named it that way or noticed it. Maybe you read after every kid goes to bed at night. That's scheduled rest. Maybe you intentionally take a lunch break like I do and actively enjoy yourself by eating food you love and not doing anything productive or feeling bad for taking the hour. That's scheduled rest. So notice if you already do schedule rest.
And then notice it more. You might not have to add anything to your life at all. But in busy months, those regularly scheduled bits of rest are often the first thing to go. So maybe your practice can be adding it back in. Or you might want to consider scheduling some form of rest and connection with yourself where you feel like yourself and you fill up, you slow down on the inside every day. You know, it doesn't have to be for hours and hours.
But I encourage you to look around at your days. Notice what's already there. And if there isn't any rest, schedule some. Or adjust something that's already there to look more like rest than it currently does. This isn't just about refueling. It's about showing yourself and your body that you can stop. You can not be productive. You can hit pause on the projects and the work and responsibilities long enough to tell your soul that your value is not connected to those things.
Yes, it is for bodily physiological rest and restoration, but it's also like a small protest to the constant hum of productivity. Schedule, rest, just be where you are. What a gift to give yourself. So the fourth way to feel grounded in a busy month is to schedule rest. And the final way, at least in this episode, to feel grounded in a busy month is to remember that you're not missing anything.
Some of our stress and busy months is rooted in the anticipation of forgetting things, not doing everything really well, or holding urgency in our brains for every task. When not every task is even close to urgent right now. You have done this before. You will do this again. You can do this with more compassion than you ever have. Because you can know that deep down, you're not missing anything. It's going to be okay.
Your organization is not going to save you. Your lack of organization is not going to destroy you. People live through busy seasons all the time. And the process and results both look wildly different from person to person and season to season. There is not some optimal way that you haven't figured out to get through December. There is no normative standard you have to abide by. There is not a magical approach that somehow makes everything line up and work out.
You can do what works for you. You can get by in whatever ways you need to. And you can believe in your soul that you're not doing it all wrong just because it doesn't look like some ideal. You're not missing anything. So to recap, five ways to feel grounded in a busy month are to have a busy month mantra, to release the expectation that everything has to be great. to engage your senses, to schedule rest,
And to remember that you're not missing anything. It's all going to be okay. You don't have to be great. You can say, I am here. This is now. And there is good. There is good here. So take a deep breath and enjoy your season, even if it's a busy one. And that's five ways to feel grounded in a busy month. All right, a quick heads up that this week I will be writing the latest.
lazy letter. It's my monthly newsletter that goes out to over 60,000 people on the first Wednesday of every month, except in January. We don't come out the second Wednesday because the first Wednesday is the first of the month. So we're not doing that. And this month, I'm going to be sharing book reviews from this month's reading, my favorite books of 2024.
A story about three people that I encountered while I was in Indianapolis at the same time as Taylor Swift. People who changed how I see the impact that one individual can have on a huge space. And some words about gift giving and winter vibes, including links to my favorite Christmas slash winter playlist. So if you would like to get that newsletter, you can head to thelazygeniuscollective.com slash join.
All right, before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it's Sarah Parsons. Sarah Wright. For a long time, I've held on to meaningful cards and notes that I've received from family, friends, co-workers, and my students, but I haven't found a good system for keeping them that eliminates paper clutter in my house.
I had a brilliant idea to take a photo of them and create a digital file with pictures of all these cards and their sentiments to revisit and read over years to come when I need encouragement or a smile. This has helped me hold on to words of life that matter while eliminating clutter from my surfaces. You know, we sometimes give technology a bad rap, but this is a time when it totally comes in handy. Making a digital keepsake box for important things is so fantastic.
I did this with years of my kids' artwork. I scanned the art, but then I actually put those images into a photo book. That way I can still have like the tactile analog experience of the art, which I love, but with a lot more safe space, space saving energy, which I also love. where I don't have to keep like piles and piles of paper art, right?
Which it is okay if you choose to keep your kid's art or if you choose to keep all of your meaningful notes and cards, right? Remember, it's all about what matters to you. It's what matters to you. So if it matters for you to keep the actual thing.
Find a way to keep the actual thing. If it doesn't matter so much, but you still want to remember, then you can do something like this, where you have a digital keepsake box or print it in a book or whatever. So thank you for sharing, Sarah. And congratulations on being the Lazy Genius of the Week. This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, an executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. The Lazy Genius Podcast is enthusiastically part of the Office Ladies Network.
Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production. 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 Kendra and I'll see you next week.