IN-DEPTH: Greatness vs. Contentment (w/ Kendra Adachi)
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I'm called newport, and this is in depth, a simi regular series where I interview interesting people about the quest to cultivate a deep life. The day's episode is presented by defender, a vehicle design. For those of us seeking adventure in a distracted world.

I'm excited about today's show because i'll be talking with kindra doc of no kinder for a while. She's a leader in the movement that he calls compassionate time management. You might know her from her lazy genius podcast or from her book the lazy genius, but SHE has a new title, al. That's what are going to talking about today, a new book that is called the plan, manage your time like a lazy genius.

So can I are expLoring similar spaces that I explorer in my prior episode with Oliver burk min? But we come at IT from, uh, different angles that I think are fascine and useful for our quest on the show to understand depth, how to build a life that matters without getting obsessed about the process of the building. I think kiner s fantastic on IT.

Here's some of the issues we get into in today's episode. Why being a genius in one thing means you might have to be lazy in many other things and that that's okay. We talk about why the unseized pursuit of greatness, which is the focus of a lot of time match and productivity advice, this idea that everything you're doing now is about achieving some greatness in the future, we get in the way that can be self feeding and exhAusting.

And how the alternative, which kinda calls integration, which involves live in holy with your current situation, can in the nb so much more fulfilling, we get into my own recovery from greatness, pursuit, addiction, and get some free therapy here from kindle about my own middle age evolution of what I think is important in my life. And I think this is critical. We get into a tie, management and productivity, writing, tints and neglect, reality of women, and how kindle is trying to remedy that with this book and her podcast and writings in general.

Now, I gave a cover blurb for the plan. In fact, I think i'm the only male barber of this book, something that i'm very proud about. Here's what I wrote on the cover of kinder er's book.

Striking the original and compassionate kinder offers a vision of time management that embraces the unique messes of your life instead of trying to optimize IT away. I very much agree with that sentiment, and I think you might too, if you hear our conversation. But first, I want to say a word about today's presenting sponsor, defender.

Let's start with the idea of a presenting sponsor altogether. This is new, but IT was what I have said from the beginning of this series. My goal is to try to find for each episode a single presenting sponsor, a high quality brand I actually like that would then allow us to present the interview without interaction, so that once we get to the interview, we can really get lost in a conversation without at bricks.

Well, I couldn't be more excited that our very first such presenting sponsor we have found for the series is defender. The connect defender line of vehicles has been reimagined for a new generation of explores. The defender ninety, one ten and one thirty, which can seat up to eight passengers, all maintain the legendary offered capability for defenders is known, but now combined with legendary new on road capabilities as well.

This includes, for example, twenty first century technologies such as 3d surround cameras， the ability to see underneath your car as well as to see through your rear window, even if IT is obstructed, the next generation P V pro infotainment system and intuitive driver displays. But I really like about the fenders, however, is that, psychologically speaking, IT keeps you connected to a since of adventure. So even as you're enjoying all those technologies on your smooth driving commute to work, you will be reminded because you're in this iconic vehicle brand that adventure awaits and that there's more to life than just the the pragmatic through the motions chores that you might be looking at today.

It's a mindset that I think at our current age of email to means is important to keep in mind. Sometimes you wanted just get out there and get after IT. Would would that be physically or metaphorically? So i'm glad that defenders is our sponsor.

You can visit landrover U. S. A dot com to learn more about the fenders. And with that, let us now get to our interview with kindle adobe, presented without any interruption or what kinda is great to see you again. Uh, thanks for coming on the podcast up and looking forward to this one.

I you've done something very interesting with this book that i'm looking for her to getting into. So i'll start with IT. I'll start with the book is called the plan.

Plan capitalized because it's an acronym. We get to them. The second, manage your time like a lazy genius, a certified new york time's best seller. Thank you.

I should say for a lot of people who know you, the phrase lazy genius, like a course this is like what you're associated with, but for the part of my audience is new to the world of kindra maybe like bring us up to speed on this term. Lazy genius was not chosen at the last minute as you're writing this particular subtitle. This is a long existing concept in your universe. So, so what do we mean by that?

Yeah, that's right. So a lazy genius is someone who is a genius about the things that matter, and lazy about the things that don't. And the the key here is that you get to decide what matters to you.

And whatever season of life figure in or just most of the most of the retina C I heard for so long years ago, over a decade ago, was either you're just amazing at everything like you can do IT or you are like, messy here, don't care yeah like there there was these two extremes of either you're amazing at everything or you just care about nothing and you've given up and even that giving up is like a badge of honor. Now that's definitely something that is in, I would say, the female space a lot more um but IT is a it's a really tough spectrum to kind of swing between those two ends. And I think most people, not just women, most people live in a very wide middle where there are things that they want to be excEllent at.

You want to give your genius energy and your time to these things that matter to you. But if you do that, you do have to be lazy about other things. You do have to sort of let things slide e, or be happy with sea level work or delegate them a lot, whatever. So what I what I try to teach people is not just it's not necessarily about like hacks and specific tips. It's more this almost lifestyle of paying attention to where you are in the season of life you're in and naming what matters there so that you can actually make wise decisions about your time.

I mean, I learned that phrase for the first time. Lazy here, don't care in your interview is eric matus, who also has a cool new book out. And I was like that, that is a cool phrase. Well, and there's also an interesting sort of nitch in the market out there of, I guess, people who are in that camp, but aren't really because of spending a lot of very focus time trying to market that message and writing books about that message or whatever. It's the the performative laziness is an .

interesting thing IT is he really is. And that's that's why I found such resonance with this message, because a lot of people, we sort of already know intuitively that trying to do IT all doesn't really work. Yes, sometimes we keep going, but there are actually more resources out there for people who are trying to do more.

So it's it's easier to find a path sort of to feel like you're making some headway in this direction, even though I am not sure a lot of us to do, at least with not some expense that we pay on the back in with our health and our time and our family and whatever. But this other side had the performative laziness. Um it's it's like this, it's just as unfulfilling and takes is just as unsustainable is trying to do at all because it's not authentic to most people. We actually do want to care about things like if life is fulfilling because we we feel a purpose in certain directions. You just can't feel a purpose in every single one.

This is an odd connection to make, but stick with me here. I I want to connect that to college missions. What's okay? When I was Younger and I was writing books for students, I got very into giving talks and even went a book about this, about college missions in the stress surrounding IT.

And this was a very interesting dynamic that arose in the early two thousands, when there is a huge stress of the echoed OOM, sort of squeak into a smaller number of spots and call has got more competitive. What I found was there was A A whole industry whose response to the stress of college admissions was just to reached the message, there's more to life than harvard, right? Just chill out like you shouted, be so stressed about college life as long IT doesn't matter that much.

And most of these people were I really educated and was a sort like, pull the latter up behind you. And so this wasn't resonating with the people who are suffering the most stress, because they were the most locked in on like IT really matters where I go to call IT. So they were just completely that message.

So then I came in. I was given these talks around the country where my whole approach was validating. Okay, I this is A A valid, you know, ambition you care about the college go into.

But the stress of the way that people are doing this is not worth IT. So maybe we can find a way this is like lazy genius that had a time. Maybe we can find a way to keep interesting options open for colleges, but you're not going to burn yourself out at the age of seventeen. And IT wasn't really hard path to go because there was the the crew of like, no, no, no, just there's more to life than college and parents are bad because our kids want to get into IT and then on the other end, he was no type tell your state told your eyes bleed like that's all the matters yeah the .

rest yeah in between .

resonated because people yeah I have the ambition but also I don't want to sleep three hours a day when when i'm sixteen so there but I love that sweet spot. S so so okay, here's a terminology from your book that I thought was profound, talk about integration versus greatness. As this spoke to me in a lot of ways.

I love hearing that. So I have read so many timing, engagement, productivity books over the years, like I. For the purpose of trying to do at all, like that was my original reason.

And as I was researching this book and trying to think about what this was going to be, I just had this like light, bold moment where I realized, wait a minute, almost every single book i've ever read, and every episode, podcast episode that I listen to, like everything in the space in general, is trying to make me Better. It's trying to make me amazing. It's trying to level up and tennis.

Everything is just this upward movement. And I went, I don't want that though, like that's not what I want the goal of my daily day life to be. It's not greatness because if that is the goal I will always be behind. I will always feel like a day is a failure. Because what is great even mean like what's what's the measured for that there is no universal gage for what that's going to be like.

And when you talk about a female experience in particular, where you're you know kind of holding like you're holding the domestic tasks of the home, it's like the invisible scaffold ding of your household management and all those things, it's just IT feels so debilitating to feel like you have to be great all the time. And but our even our country in many ways is built on that, is built on potential and chasing your dreams and you hustle your way to the top. And anybody can get what they want.

And I think in many ways that's really beautiful, like that's a hopeful, beautiful thing that we can have as part of our DNA. But this expectation that everyone wants to be great and has the capacity and interest to be great in every element of their lives is just like false. I just think we've been, we've been sold a lie.

So instead, what if we have a different goal? What if, instead of greatness being our goal at every turn, what if its integration? What if IT is being a grounded whole person, right where we are, where we do not, like you just said, about those college kids, where we are not sacrificing our humanity on the altar of productivity, on the altar of optimization, on getting more done in less time.

What if integration is where we began? So what that what that IT honestly changes everything. If that is your lids.

If you're looking through a lens of integration, you stop asking questions like, well, how can I make the most of the day off? And I have, how can I make the most of the everything no longer becomes about making the most of how can I be here right now and honor who I am and who's in front of me? And my season of life is just a very like it's a very present perspective.

And I will say it's a bit of a hard cell though because it's not it's not very like you can't make a list out of IT. It's not a very sexy cell and yet it's the most sustainable fulfilling cell sale. I think that there is for most people.

What's the role? Because I can help my connection to this. I'm talking about the roller of technology in this, right? Because I went back.

This is like a hobby horse of mine. I'm very interested in like the state of book publishing on these topics versus other discussions on these topics. And I actually think book publishing has got until like a an interesting place.

I haven't here somewhere. I went through and actually got the top ten, top ten best sellers on amazon right now in time management. And I went through him.

And like right now in this moment, very few of the books that are big right now are about car. Tennessean are doing more. They almost like weren't like a backfat back last.

Some of these don't know as well. Number one right now is buy back your time. I think that's like one of these entrepreneur books where is basically saying you see the outsor stuff if you're not like you see that as a business investment like any other. That book seems really popular.

Slow productivity up there, which is the outset of that four hour work week, was like the original complete dismissed, I mean, is interesting, ferris, seen as the optimization man, but that book was, like, the original work is so unpleasant that you should just figure out a way to take event to the internet to automate something that makes you just enough money that you can learn tango. It's like analytics, almost like anarchist book. The organized mind is up there right now, which is just athletica neurosciences book. Deeper work is on there, which is about like a business, business is not as valuable as we think twelve week year I is. I think a traditional corporate get more done, right, because it's like compress your time frame, you'll be more urgent.

yeah but like if you really name what a year is, you have more years available to you.

You can hustle harder because you have the pressure yeah, then we have essentially m your book are a laziness, getting things done. So it's like the and getting things done also I have this long argument about is that's like A A cry to cure. This is like David out and like how do you like maintain your sanity when we have so much stuff we have to do all day was like this. Words are analytic, but online the conversations much .

different.

Everything you're talking about feels like IT is in lights on the markey online, the the morning routine stuff, the the fitness stuff is crazy.

I mean, men and women, every man doing fitness stuff online is like a super hear of muscle body and it's like, well, and to you like this of forty five, what are you doing with your time? This is only three hours a day and way in all your food or whatever like that is as well connecting the optimizing the hustle culture. And so this is all like that, the heart approach to discourse and move online and seems like it's for the worst. And i'm wondering if, because of algorithms, because of what works, it's that the discourse around productivity, because that is shifted online, has shifted towards ds extremes. And that is why, like a book, like years, is residence with so many people, because were tired of that online, the online spaces treatment of this is really trying exhaustion.

Well, it's because contentment does not drive the social media marketplace, you know, the messages of contempt and are not going to keep people on line. So IT is there's always a deficit know we have to be told where the bucket is emptying or where we can do Better. So that will stay on.

And really, I wait, is that a problem? I guess I okay, well, let me see how this guy can do his burbs when he's doing. You know, like IT is kind of silly. And I think to a point, we are I think most people are intuitive and wise enough to sort of see, you know, you know, they take kind of the the is like the blue pill or the red pill like they see the machinery of at all.

And yet we are so easily influenced by IT because contentment is not something that is highly valued for a lot of people in western capital, alisa culture, like it's just not something IT doesn't doesn't drive anything forward. IT doesn't make money. If you're happy with your life, if you're happy with what you have, if you're like, you know what? This is enough.

That's not great. Yes, for the industry. And and so that makes sense to me that the online messaging doesn't alive as much as the publishing world um because it's not going to you is not going to keep the internet moving anyway.

But I also think its just IT just speaks to our I don't know. It's like there's this there's this deep need that we have to feel like that our lives means something you know, that they matter, that we want our lives to have purpose. And if we don't already have an answer to that question for our own lives, we're going to fill in the blank with what the internet is telling us we should do because we don't have anything there.

So that's why really, the ultimate work that I want to do is to help people name that to where are you right now? What matters to you right now? What makes you feel like yourself? How do you feel like you're contributing? Are you resting like you are a like a tree planted by the water, right? You are not a balloon floating in the air.

Like, let's be planted where we are. And I think that that is the the more that people are that way individually and the more the contentment and just things being enough as they all IT feels like you're not being counterintuitive. IT feels like you're not being countercultural.

It's like, again, back to your college mission thing that you were trying to convince these people. There is a third way to think about this, but they didn't know because the only things that we're filling in the blanks with these two extremes. So it's like you're trying to like wide widen that gap and help people see IT through a completely new paradigm.

So maybe you can help me because you know, i'm a recovering greatness attic this is like a recurrent theme in my own life is moving beyond that narrative, which has been a driving narrative for my life for a while and now i'm kind of about the limits of the various things i've been doing for twenty years. Yeah and just a good job have a .

lot of things that you've been great .

at yeah but i'll tell you say it's sister hen right? Because the matter where this is, what this is, what I found it's my book is number two in the new york times spelling. So what's the thought has a take to get the number one. You know.

that's is always moving. It's always moving.

But there is a satisfaction right in the hatching of the plan. I think this is a lot of what sort of that hustle oriented productivity is leveraging. There's a SaaS faction, and I have a plan imagining the reward of the plan allows you to get a downpayment feeling good about IT.

yes. And so there is that kind of fulfilment you have. It's I don't know if it's distracting from life or orienting life or whatever when you have some sort of plans in place.

So so i'm trying to figure out with your help, how does the integration mindset sort of replace that need to have too much? You have your focus on a future state. I have this plan in this excitement.

Daydream about the plan um how do we get more satisfaction out of being more present with our life as IT is now? And what's good about and what we're doing with IT like hell me walk through his recovering greatness addict. How to move more towards like an integration mindset.

I think that you are and and i'm the same way people who are really good planners and the norm ative way. People who are really good at organization in the way that the narrow way that we've all been taught IT should look. It's harder for us to actually disengage IT because we've been we are rewarded buy IT because we're good at IT.

We can get that doping hit when we make the plane and when IT might come come true. And so it's actually, I think, hard to work for people who are naturally gifted a preparation and organization and and even optimization. And if your you're actual work, if your career trajectory is one that you know people would would envy, people see you I know people see you as um as somebody that they want to follow.

Like I like cow has done IT. What did cow do? How can I do? I like cow. I like so it's it's actually a lot harder for people who are good at the thing to dissented um and I will say I you had mentioned that before the plan is capitalized because is an acronym.

So the three of the letters of that acronym, the pa and the n prepare, adjust and notice those three words work in harmony with one another. They work equally with one another. And what what has happened is that we have been given this very narrow view of what that means to be a planner.

And I think a way that we can disengage from this idea of greatness and looking at our life's lds of integration, and almost in this state of recovery almost, is to look to the people in our lives who are actually really, really good, maybe not a preparation, but at making adjustments in in the moment, who are really good at noticing what's happening in the room. But they know what's happening with the people that we walk in, like, okay, here's our chickle go and they walk IT and they go the vibe in here. Yeah, somebody, somebody y's worried about their job, or somebody is what know, like, there are people who are really gifted at these other, just as important elements, in my opinion, of planning.

And so if we can expand our definition of what that means to be a good planner into someone who is also really good at pivoting, really good at immediate problem solving, that they don't have to have the collar code list, they don't have to have the of the google calendar that's set up in such a way that every single minute is accounted for, that there are people who can, again, they are two ative and they walk in a room in their relation or they're quiet or they just they just know what's going on under the surface for people. People like that have been left out of the conversation of what that means to be a good planner, and therefore, they don't have a problem with what i'm saying. No, I go.

I'm on board because you're give you're living space for me, for people like you and I it's like i'll wait him in IT. But I really good at this though. Like why do I have to? Why do I have to stop? And I would say that for people like both of us who are yeah kind of have this addiction and have this addiction to greatness and optimization and leveling up all the time, is for us to look back and go like what what is IT done? Like what is IT good for what IT IT has gotten me things, of course it's gotten me, it's gotten a career success or whatever.

But if you stop and go, if that's where I begin, if I open my eyes in the morning and I put on a pair of glasses and that lions is a lions of greatness, like, how much am I onna get done today? How impressive i'm going to be, how organized am I going to be in this very Normative sense that i'm already good at and have been affirmed in? Listen, IT is really hard to switch those glasses to glasses of integration because it's it's smaller.

IT makes people smaller in a way at first, that's really scary. I think yeah, I think moving to a place of integration is sort of takes you take yourself off the pedestal in a way that's like, oh, it's like it's uncomfortable because for many of us, I will not speak for you in this. My success, my, I was validator an of my high school class.

I was voted most dependable by my high school of my senior class. Like this has been. My, I was in second grade.

Teachers were like a starting then I was always the room monitor when the teacher left the room like I do things well, I can be depended on and i'm going to be excEllent at them. If that has been your trajectory for a long time, it's really hard to separate that from your value as a person. You it's really scary and this doesn't have to become like a know a theri session or whatever.

But I think that's why it's hard because when you're rewarded for being great and you're great at being great, why would you want to let that go? But is also exhAusting on the inside. And you think if you don't like, if I didn't make the neuro times for this book, i've written three books.

The first two make all four less. And this one i'm like, well, if I don't make this, when everybody in the industries is going to think i'm an add and I don't know, i'm talking about even though I the book came out a really competitive month like greatness becomes this. It's like the core of your identity, yes, in a way that takes you out of your own life.

And I it's it's kind of give to choose. I had to choose. I would rather be a person who is okay with the disappointment of not being greater a thing and being with myself in that than being great and feeling a husk of a person ah it's a very soul level choice.

Well let's take with IT then you mentioned from practical prospect if you mention the pyramid, so it's prepare, notice, suggest and they're supposed to be embarrass, right? So it's it's not like a equator al triangle for can .

be noted about IT yeah a tetter header. And I think that the real word is plan tech rhedern doesn't sound as good as a plane pyramid ID. So we had to go to plan pyramid.

Now you're speaking in my language. So let's kit into the right polygon references. Let's talk about there's not if there's no trick anomaly in your time management, what do you doing? What are you doing? What do you want to do that? okay. So prepare. Just notice trying to keep these three things imbaLance and then you have live of her to both described as the foundation and also as the it's the point.

Yeah, I would say the foundation of the of the pyramid itself is what matters to you in the season that you're in. Okay, we're going to do this. Yeah, yeah, we're going to make so so the planet, so that was throw triangle on the ground. Okay, that's the foundation of our pym's here.

The triangle in the ground is what matters to do you in the season in urine? What matters to you right now? If you think back call to when you were twenty three, what matter to you at the age of twenty three? Probably does not matter now.

And IT, shouldn't I think a lot of times what what matters to us is going to change as we grow and we evolve this people and we are families change in all that. So it's wise. IT is so wise to not lock in on something that matters to you fifteen years ago.

You're allowed to change your mind. You're allowed to change your mind. So name what matters to you right now in the season you're .

in and then you happen same, by the way, that that scale of season can also be very valuable, right? This could change through out the year as well as change without your life. That could change over the decade. But I also could change within the month that you have these different scales, which I think is an important concept.

Yet like my um we are recording this um the week after thanksgiving. My daughter has had no monier for the last ten days. We have been in that's been the season and we're in what matters right now with the kids say at home and we're moving into like family coming in and I have to cook a big meal and all the things your priorities have to change based on what matters right now.

This is a deeply, deeply wise thing to do. And the reason that IT feels strange to do that just to, you know, go down a rebatable rely quickly, is because most of the traditional productivity books historically have been like make a plan. You figure out your ideal life thirty years down the road, reverse engineer IT and stick with a plan.

And if you don't, you're an undisciplined person like that sort of the vibe yeah that's not sustainable or realistic for anyone really. So yeah, name what matters in your season. Your season can be whatever boundary you needed to be. And then the three sides of the pyramid are prepared, adjust and notice.

And just for like the sake of under, I want to go through all of them but just to kind of get a vive, there were principles for each one of these letters um to help you sort of know like how am I where where am I in this um just reminders for us. So like prepare some of the mindsets for prepare or not everything can matter as you're preparing. You have to believe that not every single thing in your life can matter in an equal way.

Um a plan that you make a plan is an intention IT is not a past fail if you prepare something and IT doesn't go to plan IT doesn't mean IT failed or that you failed IT just means the intention didn't happen its life as the way as um for adjust match your expectations to the energy that you're willing and able to give if you have so often if we are decide that we're going to do something, we have expectations for something and IT doesn't happen, we try to hack our energy rather than adjust our expectations, right? So as that's a way that we just for notice, staying grounded is Better than staying on task. That's a weird one for people to get behind.

They're like with a minute the task is all the things like I think you need to start by being with yourself and in that moment, going what matters most right now. Like if for me, the times that take me out of that the quickest or my children and so if I if a kid is, like, still lighting on the couch and his ride is picking him up for school in five minutes and he is not persist and he is not his shoes on his fifteen years old and I start to go, he can legally drive a colony yard year, and he still forgets to british teeth, what are we doing? And I will come, I will turn into a rage mother hook monster.

But if I go, okay, hold on, notice. What matters right now actually is that I stay connected with my kid, not that I forced him to be this compliant person that I wanted to be for me. That's my goal.

So i'm going to go what matters right now. I'm going to stay grounded rather than getting him on task. I'm gona be kind so that I can go to him and stay kind and preserve this relationship and then also be like get off the couching a eth.

You know it's like we're not it's really important when I talk about this. It's really important to make sure that people understand. I'm not saying don't do your stuff, don't be good at your stuff, don't try to even be great.

But if you begin with this far out future view, with this lens, i've got to do all of IT perfectly well. And I cannot deviate, of course. Yes, rather than this fluid ID, very human wise responsiveness to your life, you will burn out so fast.

But you can, i'd believe you still, you get your things done Better. And in a way, that brings you more fulfilment when you are try by the water, you know, when those roots could keep going deep and and then back to the pyramid, the l is the point. It's the top.

It's pulling up the calling .

IT all the two into the three. Yes, which is to live our lives, to be where we are, to enjoy our people, to go outside and do the fun things we like to do, like it's we just I don't want to live only when i'm seventy years old, you know and i've done all of these things to get me to this future ideal place. I wanted live today. I want to live my life right now.

Well, I mean, first i'll say to my audience why I why this is important is we don't cover this well, like I don't do a ton of time management advice of known for IT. But what I do talk about tends to be very narrow ly focused. I think this is another issue very nearly focused on the modern knowledge or digital office.

And it's like a survival game. It's this, oh my god, i'm getting one hundred fifty emails a day. I'm feeling murti st. Towards the invention of resume. And it's this, we got to fix this.

But but how do I like survive that eight hours in the office without you? Like going insane and actually like getting things done? But what i've learned that I have to argue my audience a lot is like the mindset that you would use for, like how do I manage? Like we are terrible busy period at the beginning of COVID where everything's moving online in a particular job.

And i've ten bosses yelling at me IT doesn't translate to other things. IT doesn't translate all the other parts of your life. It's not a good way to go about. Almost anything else have happened in your life. IT is very artificial.

I had this, this actually agreed in the end, this I this conversion was all over berkman about IT where I was basically he was talking about his ideal way to sort of plan. And I think there's a lot of similarities with your book and I was like that that that is right. And the stuff i'm talking about is the like some unfortunate reality of like particular jobs and you want to get away from me as ickle as you can without your day. So I want to first give that as a claimer to my audience like this is great because I don't cover well, how do you deal with all of your life and not just how do you deal on email in box, which is a much more boring.

how do you deal with all of your life? But guess what, how do you do with your inbox is essential to how you deal with your life. I mean, IT is like it's all, it's all connected.

It's a lot harder to talk about how to deal with your whole life because it's so big. Know, like the email problem is something that feels okay. Well, this is manageable.

I can figure this that I can focus my energy on this and solve this problem, that this is a huge problem. And my working for a lot of people that is so it's it's deeply valuable. But you're right like trying to most of those approaches, yeah, they don't you're right. They're not translate as well to to the rest of life very easily, very seamlessly.

And I like something interesting about the book is in the prepare lake of that base of the the edge of that triangle that builds up into the you have advice for systems, right? Like when you're preparing trying to figure out like what makes sense to do you talk about like what's a good way to think about a to do list, for example? And you have like a nice model there for something that's less strict than specific days.

You talk about like a planning rythm. Like I know you are planning that what you want to get done at different time scales, but the five is these systems aren't hard part. Like, yes, like you want to you need to write down what you need to do so much.

You don't have to keep a track of IT in your head. Yeah, you need to think ahead, someone's coming and you want to know that like I need to start preparing and we can advance or whatever. But it's decended in your book.

It's actually the psychology is what's more important. The the systems are kind of the easy part like yeah be be organized and like make some reasonable decisions, but you have to adjust any have to notice and you can't follow away. The adjustment is a fantastic point. I mean, I often talk about very tail planning.

It's like when we're sitting down and trying to plan, are there are a week we write like a fairy tale about we do in theory, if you were taking felix philately is, or whatever the potion is from Harry potter and the half friends I definite have three boys you read that book is in the perfect day, like we often plan. Like, that wouldn't IT be great, yes, if I was able to get like three hours arriving in, plus this, plus this work out. But during the workout, i'm going to do my conference scheduling for my kids on the paton bike.

And then like, as I moved for you play out this day and then you fall in love with what a great fairy tail oc. I'm really comforted by the idea of a world in which all of this works out like this, and you feel great about that very hell world you built. And then, like, twelve minutes into that day, of course, the pillow on bike is on fire and you know, you you miss your kid, dc, come home sicker, whatever.

And you like, oh, this was an a realistic plan. IT was a very tail plan. So that ability, that like adjustments the whole game, it's the rough intention and then you start the error with IT. It's like, I think of mission control in a police thirteen, you're rolling with the oxygen tanks exploded. Like that's your skill is like rolling with the making reasonable decisions, not making a very tale to come true.

S yeah, room that room was full of problems of IT wasn't full of planners who was full of problems of us. Um I say I say this in my work a lot. Learning to pip IT is more important than learning to plan.

I think we are Better served as people and cultivating the skill or maybe just the comfort. Maybe it's not even a skill maybe for some of us. It's just like I am not gonna freak out because this very top plane and works even just a basic technical group topline, i'm going to be OK that not everything is okay.

Yes, like that i'm going to be here. That's what IT is, that the psychology of IT is because we are required our lives required us to hive IT far more they requires to plan on. But we don't recognize that really because so much of what we have been taught, especially in the early two thousands, was IT was all about preparation. That was the whole thing.

So IT makes sense that people of, you know this generation, so to speak, are like, well, what what am I if I don't have my list ready to go like, if I don't know what my days going to look like, if I don't have theme work days, if I don't, if everything doesn't fit into this category, or bucket or whatever. And IT makes me think of, recently, I did an interview on another show that hosted by two women. And one of them, she's like, I have SHE held up her SHE held up her planner.

And like he had posted, note, SHE had list everywhere, right? And then the other host, SHE said, i've never made a list of my life and and they said, what do we do? Like, how do we? How do we meet these? Like, what do we need to do to get to the middle? And I said, well, you don't have to make a middle.

Like, do what works for you. You don't have to fall into this Normative way of planning that we've been taught because IT really only works well for a small sliver of people who are naturally wired to do that. And so there's this we have to give ourselves permission to be OK that the things fall apart.

Twelve minutes in that that's expected that we really that us expecting our plan to net work is not fatalistic. It's not even um IT doesn't keep us from getting our stuffed. I just think it's realistic. Yeah and we go it's probably it's probably not going to work if IT does that so red, but at least to have a baseline to work from rather than nothing or that is so rigid that it's not flexible, right?

Because most of our lives are deeply flexible, especially a woman's life if she's at home taking care of kids and she's like I I have spoken to so many people over the last couple of years about this book, and the number of women especially, who are like, I feel so seen because like, ninety three percent of the time management books are written by men, and seventy to ninety percent of them are read by women. And and so we need a broader definition of what that means to not necessarily just plan or organized, but to really live in these ideas of contentment and pivoting, that these things are valued at a very high level above greatness, that we value those things more than we value the greatness. IT doesn't mean we dismiss the greatness, but you're right.

It's like their decentest red. The greatness and the task fulfilment is d centered. The humanity is in the center where I think that needs to be.

Well, I I want to talk about the the audience point that this is also a faster point about the genre general. So I mean, this book, though, as a broad audience, you're very specific in the book that you have women in mind in particular. Yes, as an underserved, as you said, ninety three percent of. Five minds of productivity books are ruined by men. I probably brought twenty five percent of those himself.

and they're all very good. I've read every to go.

What if I can? But there are. But the leadership is not only split halfway, but even he said seventy percent yeah.

And i've come to realized this later, my career that the people write in these books. We don't necessarily think how specific our voices because it's really only been two major. There has been two dominant voices as far as I can tell.

And imagine productivity. We have the corporate voice, which was like the dominant voice from like Stephen covey through the nineties, which was very much to like. This comes out of helping people in like a large company like manage and be a manager.

This goes all the way back, right? And then we got the kind of the wave that I was a part of which I think of is like, I don't know the the blogging bro voices was like the more entrepreneurial coming out of like new media online spaces is coming out of like the blog revolution in the two thousands. And there's like tim ferris and there's me.

Ea, whatever. Those are two very, those are perfectly fine voices like they're speaking the particular audiences, but they are very specific. And I learned this one because some of my books have sold enough copy. Knows I hear from a lot of people and man, I learned quick the way I think and talk about things is not universal.

And IT took me a wild understand this because, like, I don't understand these complaints, like very engineering and logical, I guess this not, I am delivering information that is like an optimal way of thinking about how the brain functions. And so now i've really come to to appreciate this idea that there needs to be many different flavors of talking about these issues. So talk about, so with women audiences in particular, this has been very ill served. So in what way is like what is IT, what is IT that your noticing was missing that you're able to fill in?

Yeah, I think an important word here is that what we have been given is just incomplete. None of it's wrong, you I mean, there are definitely things that I don't a line with that I like I really want to live my life that way. But it's not that it's like fundamentally wrong.

It's just we want to choose right. But the the advice has been incomplete, especially for women. And this is this is a pretty broad, this is a pretty broad thing. But we we live in a picture of society. IT was built four men by men.

And women have not had a whole at a time where their voice has been loud enough for the the changes and adjustments that they are that we are wanting on a on a cultural level, on a systemic level. They're just not been a lot of time where those things are now. So part of the culture that we can feel IT like, I still feel, I still feel like more is expected of me, then, is expected of my husband.

Like women are not allowed to be mediocre. We can't be media mother, media spouses or partners. We can be media to our jobs. Like we have to be excEllent at everything. Dudes can be mediocre in places, and they don't really get a lot of flag for IT.

And so when you are in a position where you are holding almost, it's a generality here, but it's a generality for a reason. It's something that is very true for a lot of women. Women are expected to hold more than their male counterparts are in the home and in work.

And we are the ones probably getting the the Christmas gifts and figuring out like the logistics of getting the kid they're thing for this you know, fiel trips that they're doing and they're just all of these invisible pieces that are floating around all the time. My husband doesn't know the names of my kid's friend's parents. He doesn't have their numbers.

I do no bright because i'm the one who's home I work from home. He doesn't. And so that makes sense that I would have them. But also it's too accepted that women are holding so much more, but women are also not given as much support to do those things. And one of the ways that that shows up is in the books that are available to women that they are written not with their own life experience in mind.

Um and we're also not paying attention to like you can read the plan to be a dude I don't come up for you like it's I don't come after you hard because I think that this is actually a way of viewing our lives that is attractive to a lot of people, men and women because we a lot of us feel like me and trying to be graded. Everything really is exhAusting. Let's find a let's find a new paradise.

So it's not it's not exclusively for women, but there is also there's a chapter in the book about periods because listen, if you're a lady in your energy is changing. If you're in your forties and you're going through permanent impose right now and you have a part time job, if I have to protein now, it's a whole thing that do just don't understand and they're okay that they don't. But we need wider resources for the lived experience and the cultural pressures and the relational expectations and all of these things that women hold.

And so if you say, yeah, you need to priority has getting eight to ten hours to sleep every night and i'm like, are you kid? My kid wakes me up in the middle. What are you talk king about? That's not a thing like they are just IT IT feels unrealistic.

But what this is the last thing i'll say about this because I can get a little um heated because I care so much about women having their their lives honored in this way. But what what I think happens is that if all of the resources say here's how it's done and a woman cannot do IT SHE thinks she's the problem. It's not the system.

It's not that that book's not for me or this part of this part might work and the whole thing, like IT, becomes an identity thing. It's like the problem is me. And so the the very beginning of the plan is to show us all the problem is not you.

The problem is not you. The problem is that this industry of time ageing productivity is built on a lens and and a centering of greatness and optimization and level up. IT has been historically IT is starting to shift, which I am so glad we're part of that.

But if you are, all your hearing is, be great, do great. It's possible. See, everyone else is doing IT and you're just over her struggling day to day and you're like, I can even take a nap like what are you talking about? IT feels really devastating on like a sole level. And because we think the problem is us and the problem is not you, is not you.

well, I think it's much needed. I think my my impressions of male centric imagine productivity is that it's sort of a psychological vacuum. So like there's there's very little psychological reality in IT because it's minor, more simplified IT.

It's all kind of optional. One of the big cool IT would be cool to get in really good shape. But like I don't i'm also if that's not me and i've got the the belly in the bit, that's fine.

Like very high five, like you do, like you don't feel IT all feels option IT might be really cool to get super organized and make my my web business like take over whatever IT would be cool to pursue that. But like I don't clarify them and like no one is going to judge me if I don't. And so there's a lack of a lack of psychological language, I would say.

So I mean, I can imagine there's multiple groups that we need specialization in this topic yeah because I mean, everyone has to deal with the issue of just life organizing, life figuring out what to do or what not to do, how to make sure the electric bill gets paid or figure out and there's so many different relevant ways are receiving that. So I really love this idea. And this is the obvious big missing one, because it's alf, the population.

So like, let's start with women. This is half the population and the majority of actually the readers of these books. Yeah, but you can imagine other age stratified is something I ve been thinking about recently.

Absolutely.

if you're twenty four, maybe more of like this, more like online, you know I don't know get after IT like whatever like actually maybe that's like keeping you have a trouble and maybe that's good when you're in you're twenty as you have all this time and you you're laying a base of whatever that will be succeed than you can like because you have kids and you have no time, you can you'll be off. So I know maybe that's Better.

I hear a lot from people who are near retirement as another group. And like, well, wait, i'm taking about things completely differently. Like how do I so I love this movement and and I love what you're doing with the most and you say say the response has been strong. I'm not .

surprised that you're IT has yeah yeah IT has been it's definite been stronger from women than for men um if most of the rooms I speak to are majority women. But I spoke at a conference few weeks ago and I was half half and IT IT was really interesting that I had to I had to kind of get the get the guys on board a little bit because IT was a room full of entrepreneurs that were very successful people. Again, their greatness is honor.

And that's not bad like that's morally neutral, right? It's a great thing. But yeah the life experience, this this psychological language, you're right. It's not something that we're hearing enough across the board. Women are hearing IT.

They're resonating with IT very quickly because they are like, oh, I know that my life, I see that, but we I want it's why i'm so grateful that you even asked me to be on your show because this is not a message for a women. This is a message for all people like IT makes. I told them in in this room, I said, you might not.

You might not alive with this. You might not. This might not be how you want to see your own life, but I guarantee that there are people on your team and is how they would want to see theirs.

And so IT makes you a Better leader for you to understand and widen the perspectives of the people that you work with, that not everybody wants to be accessible twenty four hours a day. They don't want that kind of job. They don't want that kind of um the the hustle and the and the greatness that they may that you think that they aspire to, they actually don't.

And so let's honor people's humanity. More than you, you know, prize that productivity. Let's start there and see them in that. And so it's it's a really important message for all of us to just be exposed to its exposure therapy right now.

Like I just want I just want more people and men to hear that women, we feel like we're winning that were like it's just so hard to take care of the kids to do and because it's not your lived experience is very easy to say, well, maybe they just need to figure out a different system. You know, we are all under the umbrella of thinking or maybe you just need a different system yeah, rather than recognizing that the system could be broken, in some ways we need to do. We're in a different system ah, we're swim in a different water. Yeah.

yeah. Well, look, I found a man in at two different ways that I found that really useful. So one was, as you just talking about, being of the Better, understand other people, especially women's experience.

And two, just a straight up advice. I found really useful because there is not a lot of advice out there in that space. IT says. Okay, when you're when you're not just for focusing exclusively on a greatness on a particular goal is like everything, how do you structure your life? Like what do you do that is a huge void.

I mean, just speaking more like, you know across all audiences, is that a big void that they're now is starting to be more of these different humanistic productivity books that are that are coming at IT. But it's IT is a new thing and IT is a huge void for when you're step in away from i'm just all in on like crush my two next business, what you step into. And and I think for a lot of people, lot of men when they step is not that they even step out of IT, they just it's not going well for them.

It's too easy to fall into various addictions, for example, to just get loss, be at in substances or be IT in digital distraction or just anger. And like it's it's difficult to how you structure and integrated life. And in that space, I think, is a critical space. And so I love IT, yet the period chapter was a little less relevant to me.

But if you are if you are a around or live with a woman who has a intra cycle, it's actually IT makes you compassionate like my I call my whole thing compassionate time management. I want us to be more compassionate towards ourselves and towards other people. Yeah however, they choose to run their lives and spend their time.

We all get to choose. But we just haven't had tools that a line with this very different choice of contentment and integration verses the future and greatness. And all of that. We needed new lens, and that lens is being expanded by a lot of people right now. And I really is a beautiful thing.

I give our generation credit, that credit for this, right? Can we can we move eels take, take credit for I think I don't feel .

like we are the generation .

to figures these things that I had the whole glass before that like we are the generation that was raised on, follow your passion, yep. And then went through the financial crisis is nine live in these various things and realized, like, way to second your jobs is not going to be the source of all your meaning in life.

And then we were the ones you've got really interested in, the two thousands and lifestyle design and live hack in and trying to figure out like, how do how do we like rebuild things. And we're very self to in that way. So I think that makes sense that our generation is starting to free time managment productivity, I guess, from the Stephen covey generation.

I know I think so we're like curious problems servers. Yeah, I gone on a very soulful human level like, okay, let's I want to I think IT has there has to be something to that of not growing up with technology at your fingertips either you know like being skeptical of IT like I was thought to like don't trust wikipedia ah anybody things like that I agree with you. I think there's a we can make jokes about IT, but IT is really fulfilling to see this wave happening where people feel lighter yeah about their own lives in a way they haven't before. I really special .

our generation having kids change things like I say, this is like that. My big revelation was when my three boys all got to basically elementary school age. There is a huge shift where IT was, oh, we need every minute of that time possible, which felt very different than before. There is more sort of a your survival mode all hands on deck. Is this kid like physically and safely being taken from here here and has like food or whatever?

It's logistics for a while?

It's like just it's logistics s and then that very much I like three boys once as much time with that, well and IT completely changed the way. Think about, for example, work you like. okay.

Well, I also like, how does work serve to help set up a lifestyle that has like as much time as possible for this because there's like an eight year window or something like that. But that's really important. I mean, I think a lot of this, at least for me as a parent hood, has has been a big driver of these these evolutions yeah, these evolution of productivity thinking. And we hit various limits as we know, as we get to certain ages. We get into our forties is like, okay, I kind of miss far as i'm going to be able to go in this pursuit or that pursuit and IT turns out i'm not to play professional al baseball OK i'm finally able to say, like that ship is sale like this is how successful of a person i'm gonna in my job and i'm it's good but I don't see they're being a big jump after this there. There's a big sort of shift like, okay, so how do we organize life IT just seems like the right conversation to be having right now.

I agree.

Yeah and your book is beautiful.

Thank you. Thank you. IT means that means the world that you read IT and are he had talking about IT and and just i'm excited um I sometimes call myself polyana with a clipboard i'm so idealistic like everything you guys, we can make this world so beautiful and here's the list of how to do IT I just feel really excited about this message getting getting spread out there that people start to feel like themselves in their own lives rather than machines in something of their own manufacturing with the way any of this one to live. So thanks for giving in .

to a platform because we a minute left here, you have A A sort of well known extensive platform online. Maybe can you help explain for my listener's how to get all things kinder?

Yeah, all things kindra is at the lazy genius collective dotcom. Have a podcast. The later genus podcast comes out every monday.

We're coming up on four hundred epo des, so that we'd doing this a long time. And yeah, the plan is my third book, the first two. The lacy genius way and the lacy genius kitchen are kind of foundational books. I reference a lot in the episodes, but everything is meant to help you name what matters to you, and filled permission to live your life in a way that makes you feel .

like a person OK. So good website, have a great newsletter. The instagram presence as well yeah or so I hear.

It's like it's big issue. I'm not there very often to make IT bigger because I just choose to be lazy about instagram and that's okay.

I like IT yeah yeah that that I can misery with. Kid, always a pledge to talk with you, think things for join us, think we have to show the word the book is the plan. Check out the latest genes collective as well to find out more.

And uh, thanks. You're coming on. Thanks to all right.

So that was my interview with kindle, a adobe brought you by defender, a vehicle design for those seeking adventure in a distracted world to thank you, defender, for sponsoring today's interview. Well, I really like that discussion. We covered a lot of ground. There's one point in particular that I want to underscore here. I really like early on in the interview where kinder set up this dichotomy, which he says very common in the communities in spaces where SHE often exists.

And he says there's often this economy, especially among women and productivity discourse, where you have two choices you can be, uh, the super achiever you're eating here, whatever they asked you to do now, four hundred grams of protein an hour while working out, two hours a day at the gym and, you know, crushing IT with your instagram photos and working fifty hours a day and all the sort of crazy is all you have to be. And I believe a term with something like have the wild hair energy, the messy hair energy, which is you have to lean into your only other options, to lean into, oh my god, look how messy my life is and like, my act isn't together and you know, this is this is just how IT is is like i'm everything is completely chaotic and he said, IT doesn't have to be either of those things. neither.

Those are very good options that there is an option in the middle. I think we often forget this option because that first option, the sort of super achievement option for all of us when IT becomes unattainable, we know we need to do something different, but if our only other option is just let everything go to chaos, that's just as bad. So I think of compassionate time management as one way of describing an approached that space between, right? It's it's a way of saying, yeah, you got to care about things you need to planning to do list.

You need to look ahead what's coming up. You need to make decisions and vivid when something doesn't work, and make priority decisions about what should I do instead and how are we we going to pull this off. And if these kids can be home sick for school, there's a complicated logistical chain that makes the rescue.

The Apollo thirteen capture seems somewhat simplicity s by comparison. And I got to get on the ball. I got to make this happen. You need to do those things, but also have compassion for yourself, not try to do too many of those things.

Recognized that some seasons of life, this is what's going on is is trying to keep up with details and other seasons of life. You have some freedom to actually push on something or the pushed harder on an optional project that can shift over time. And that's okay.

And the things can go slower. I talk about this, somebody books slow productivity work at a natural pace. We don't know looking back historically, when we see people who did great things, we don't know how long I talk as they talked twice as long as half as long, we won't know the difference.

We would just say there was a cool booky wrote as a cool impact you had will be able to let things take more time um to be lazy about more things you can be a genius on other but not have to be the very best at X, Y, Z. But that would be good at something that matters on your own terms. And that's good enough that middle space between the messy hair energy and the super achiever is a space that we don't explore enough.

I'm trying to explore that more of my deeply philosophy by saying the goal is a lifestyle, not a grand accomplishment, not a specific thing you can point to an impress other people buy not a particular number in your big account at a holistic view of your lifestyle opens up a lot of freedom for how you get there and in particular, for particular paths you're taking is not working well. It's stressing you out unsustainably. You can switch to something else.

You can give yourself that great. So I really love this type of thinking. I have been using the term humanistic or humane productivity in some of my recent conversations. Um kindra has this idea of compassionate time management. We have all of our birkin en is in on the space to he's kind of approaching the space from a related direction.

I guess all of her is saying something sort of similar to kindle a at least in the part of, like be organized enough to make progress on the thing that matters and not the two. Things fall through the cracks and in OK with with that now having to optimize everything else enough, you've got enough time told something, you have your arms around enough things. I think all of her, I think kindle a think me we're all kindness surrounding similar topics since a great one.

So it's kind to added a great voice to this conversation and so I was glad to have her on the show. I think of that kinda roa. Well, have another one of these episodes on up pretty soon.

You know, again, some my regular, I do these as I have interesting people to talk to and there's a person i've wanted to talk to who agreed to talk me recently. No spoilers. Try to get that up.

You know, maybe a couple weeks or so and will continue. You have any feedback about the show? Best, best to send that the producer justice, a justice of import 点 com。 He make sure I see what I need to see be back on monday, of course, with our Normal episode, the show, until then, state deep.