The lazy guide to good habits

Welcome back to how to twenty-something where today’s topic is learning how to use your laziness to your advantage

I don’t consider myself a lazy person but I do have some lazy tendencies even if it doesn’t appear that way on the surface level of having my shit together

But trust me I do have my lazy moments

And therefore I implement certain systems in my life where I do feel lazy and want to make accomplishing something as easy as possible

Because laziness is actually a good quality to have it requires you to ask ‘what’s the easiest way to get this task done and still get the same or similar result’

Lazy gets a bad rap because of the negative, avoidant side where you continue to put things off, procrastinate what needs to get done

When we hear “lazy,” we think couch potato, unmotivated, someone with no direction or drive.

But  a little laziness is what helps you figure out how to make life easier.

That’s being efficiently lazy

It’s your brains way of thinking outside of the box to get a job done in a better way

Some of the best inventions we use today came about because someone had a lazy mindset and wanted to find an easier method to accomplishing the same task

So laziness is not striving to do more but rather be more efficient that can then be built into good habits or your next invention 

Which is what this episode is to highlight, this is your lazy guide to good habits

It’s things that work when you’re tired, when you’re done thinking for the day, feel unmotivated, have no energy, and just want to plop on the couch and doom scroll

Which is actually so important to develop because if you can only implement your good habits when you’re in your most productive mindset, then you’re setting yourself up for failure

productivity is temporary, and searching for motivation is unreliable

I want you to think of creating systems that help you to decrease the amount of decisions you need to make on a daily basis and the amount of barriers between you and accomplishing this good habit

I talk to my clients a lot about this when it comes to their routine, we discuss thinking with your future self in mind, but we also discuss the decision fatigue every human battles at the end of every day

Which is why the question of what to make for dinner seems like the most daunting, most tiring task of your life

And you end up doordashing for the fourth night in a row.. Which I’ll get into in a second that doordashing is actually making your decision fatigue worse

But first let’s break down decision fatigue.. Everyone experiences this throughout their day because you’re now in charge of all of your own decisions

From the moment you decide what time wake up to the moment you decide what time to go to sleep

Every piece of your life requires a decision to be made.. Some are definitely bigger than others, but the bottomline is you reach your max and are tired of having to decide on one more thing

This is where the good habit of meal prepping or laying your clothes out ahead of time helps you decrease the amount of decisions you need to make in that moment or for that particular day

I made an instagram post a few months ago that said I meal prep because I’m lazy

Which sounds backwards because when you think of people who consistently meal prep or watch a tiktok on someone spending an entire day in the kitchen prepping all of their meals for the entire week you think they’re productive, disciplined human beings

And you’re not

Or as my boyfriend would say ‘you just don’t have that dog in ya’

And sure some of those people probably are exceptionally productive and motivated and disciplined humans

But for me? The reality is I don’t want to have to think about what to eat, how long it’s going to take to make, or cleaning multiple pots and pans every single day

I’m lazy in that regard because the last thing I want to do with my time is clean the freaking kitchen 

So i meal prep to eliminate all of that

The meal is ready to go I just have to sit down and eat it and then clean one tupperware container

The added benefit is I have a healthy meal ready to go where I’m fueling my body so I feel great and then I also look great

I’m also able to save more money and time because it’s so much more cost effective to prep meals instead of eat out – if you do it right and reuse ingredients from week to week

Not necessarily the same exact recipes but the same bases of your meal

And timewise is i’m not cooking every single day for every single meal

Circling back to why doordash is actually making your life harder is because you have to think about everything.. And therefore you’re making yourself more tired 

You have to decide where you want to order from, what to get on the menu, how long you’re willing to wait for your food, or if you’re picking it up then it’s making the detour to go drive to another destination walk in and grab your food

Plus it’s more expensive and it’s more unhealthy since you aren’t in full control of your own portions and ingredients

So when it comes to this lazy guide to good habits you need to think in terms of what your laziest self would be able to muster up in the moment or rather what can you implement ahead of time so you don’t have to rely on discipline

Because discipline will fail you time and time again until your habits are fully ingrained in your life, but even then that’s no longer discipline that’s your lifestyle

I want to get you to a point where you rely on design, when the system is full proof it requires no extra thought

Essentially, it’s building a routine for yourself that limits the barriers of entry

So i already talked about meal prep eliminating the thought and effort required of you at the end of the day when it comes to your meals

So let’s shift into the next hard habit to keep up with: exercise 

If you want to become a morning gym goer, then you need to have your gym clothes laid out the night before so it’s one less thing you have to think about that moring

You should know ahead of time what day you’re doing what and keep it written down, again so you don’t have to think about it when the time comes

If you are someone who struggles to get to the gym before work because you’re not a morning person, then going after work is going to be your answer

However, you are going to be more mentally tired after your work day so the extra effort to get yourself to the gym becomes an additional barrier of entry

To help with this, you need to bring your workout clothes with you to work, change while you’re at the office and then make it a stop on the way home

Which also means you need to have some kind of snack prepped for either before and/or after your workout so you aren’t ravenous when you get home and are waiting for dinner to be ready

This is an example I give in my newest free offering how to maximize your 5-9 after your 9-5 so if you’re curious as to what else you do to not feel like work is consuming your entire life, then check out the link in the show notes

But in regards to this episode, there’s two goals that come with implementing habits in the easiest way possible: eliminate the number of decisions that need to be made to accomplish said task and similarly, eliminate as many extra steps between you and the task as you can

We’re done trying to rely on willpower, it’s creating systems that can be repeated time and time again with no extra thought

You also need to build this into your schedule, it’s an appointment with yourself, just like you schedule your dentist appointments, therapy appointments, coaching appointments, etc

Designate what hour of time you will dedicate to moving your body

When I was in college everyone asked me all the time how I have time to workout every day and outside of my poor body image and fear of gaining the freshmen 15, I said I plug it into my schedule like it’s another class to go to

It’s on my calendar everyday depending on the day so I don’t need to think about where to carve out the time in the moment.. It’s done ahead of my day

And if an hour is too much then fit it to your schedule and needs, heck even break up your workout where maybe you move your body for 30 minutes in the morning and 30 in the evening or 10 minute chunks throughout the day

It’s about knowing ahead of time what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it

Similarly if you’re wanting to have a side hustle, a passion project, a new degree or certification outside of your full time job, you need to plug it into your calendar so you know ahead of time when you’re going to work on those things

If you want to read more but are constantly drawn to your phone or tv then leaving your book out and open is one way to increase the likelihood of you reading at least 1% more than if the book stayed closed and on a shelf

If you want to journal more, then same thing.. Leave it out and open with your favorite pen ready to go

Decreasing the number of steps it takes to shift from your bad habit to your good habit is decreasing the barriers of entry to you actually doing it

When you start this guide to good habits you’ll quickly realize that it’s not about doing more or adding more to your schedule or list of to dos, it’s about doing things in the easiest, frictionless way possible

And yes there are going to be days where you don’t want to do anything, you don’t want to implement even the laziest and easiest of habits

To which i want to tell you that that is totally normal.. You’re new to this habit thing so it’s going to take time before it’s fully sustainable where you’re thinking doing anything else makes no sense

It will become a natural part of your existence

Where you want to eat good food that doesn’t hurt your stomach and leaves you feeling content and unphased

Or where you’re itching to move your body because it’s been sitting at a desk all day

Or where you want to go to bed at a decent time because it sucks to wake up groggy 

Or where you want to spend your friday night playing board games instead of at a bar because you want your entire weekend to do whatever you want and not spend it hungover on the couch 

Some of this comes with maturing and growing up, but most of this comes with waking up and realizing that the bad habits you have right now are actually making your life harder, not easier 

What you think is the easy way out is really the harder way forward

The third part of being lazy in an efficient way is to automate systems

That’s your calendar reminders, your bills, recurring orders or subscriptions.. Again giving you at least one less thing to think about

I know for me, I am really dialed in on my finances and keep my fixed expenses automated and my variable ones I know to pay because I like to see what it’s changed to and if there are any discrepancies 

If you’re someone who wants to be dialed in on their finances, or at least more dialed than you currently are then I would say start with writing down every time you charge something to your credit card

Or designate one day a month to review your expenses and slowly start to categorize them so you can see where you’re spending your money and if that’s how you want to be spending your money

There are also resources to help make this easier for you like Mint, using excel which is what I like to do, working with a financial adviser

Because a large part of building new habits is knowing where to delegate the things you’re not very good at with the goal to get better

But at first it’s going to be very overwhelming so when you find a resource to help bridge this gap you’re going to have less resistance to getting started

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel here, you need to simplify your decisions, your barriers, and your systems in a way that’s going to work for you

And as a result you become the laziest (which really translates to the smartest) person in the room

Just make sure the lazy identity you’re claiming is working for your future self and not trapping your present self

The goal is optimize your time, energy, and possibly even money

Who wouldn’t want that?

Being an adult is already exhausting between balancing all of these new schedules, people, demands, and responsibilities with trying to live it up in your twenties without regrets

And you can be both responsible and free willed as long as you implement this guide to good habits now that you’ve listened to me talk about them

I think finding different ways to optimize my time and tasks is fun.. It’s like oooh how can I do this better with less output

And that’s what I want for you too

So if you need help with implementing your own version of good habits… the lazy way.. Then let’s hop on a call because I think coaching with me is just what you need

And lucky for you my calendar is in the show notes for you to access

Otherwise this does conclude another episode of how to twenty-something. So if you liked what you heard, learned something new, are ready to try one of the habits I talked about then please let me know!

Tell me via email, share this episode to your story on instagram and tag me when you do, send it to a friend who needs help with their habits

Just please help me expand this podcast to reach new twenty-somethings across the world 

And as always I can’t wait to be in your headphones again next week with another episode of how to twenty-something