The Maximized Lifestyle Podcast: Recent Episodes
Jake Russo, Jessi Russo
The Maximized Lifestyle challenges and teaches you to introduce small changes that make a big impact with your time, energy, money, and space.
When we turn our hobbies into businesses, it can take away the fun or the enjoyment of the hobby. And that's ok if you're ok with that, but find a new hobby to replace what you're turning into a business.
Hobbies build resiliency. It's good for us to not be great at something right away. We can learn lots of new skills through hobbies.
Books:
Resilient by John Eldredge
Resilient Kids by Dr. Kathy Koch
See Episode 8 about seasonal living
We create our margin, and it's ok to remove things that take up space.
Rest is good; laziness is not. When we try to get back into our routines, it might feel difficult, but we start small to get going again.
We found some things that helped us rest, slow down, and breathe. We can take inventory of the things in our life so that we can remove them if needed, and then add them back later—like we did with this podcast!
see Episode 4: Everything Has a Home
Tips on eliminating potential stress stacks:
- be mindful of your season, your stage, and your stress tendencies
- consider implementing a nightly reset (or a reset that maximizes the best time of day for your current season and stage)
- take care of the little things while they are still little
- identify what things are not a big deal until they become a big deal / identify optimal times to take care of these tasks
The Bomber Mafia, by Malcolm Gladwell
Hoopla, Libby, Cloud Library via your local library
At Your Best, by Carey Nieuwhof
Find your zones! Where are you most productive?
If you're a leader, you are responsible for knowing your most productive times but also the most productive times of those on your team.
Like anything with personal development, this should not be used as a crutch. We don't say "well, I'm not productive at this time so I'm never going to do anything in this space." We can have high, average, and low levels of production times throughout our day, but these will flex and change with the seasons we are in.
Good to Great, The Flywheel (see Chapter 8)
Habits of the Household
- Get up at the same time each day | this is a great way to keep your body in generally the same cycles and sync each day. Your natural sleep pattern and rhythm will appreciate the consistency!
- Make your bed | this is the easiest win! It's such a super simple and quick task, and you start your day with an immediate accomplishment. It also makes our whole room feel nicer and it's much easier to keep our room tidy when the bed is made.
- Get up before your kids | we never feel more rushed or out of our routine than the few times we have been woken up by our kids!
Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World, by Admiral William H. McRaven
See also, Episode 9 for more tips on how to read more this year!
Jake:
- Surprise the World, by Michael Frost
- Culture Wins, by William Vanderbloemen
- At Your Best, by Carey Nieuwhof
- Bonus: Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
Jess:
- Soundtracks, by Jon Acuff
- The Common Rule, by Justin Whitmel Earley
- Essentialism, by Greg McKeown
- Shoe Dog, by Phil Knight
- Delivering Happiness, by Tony Hsieh
2022 Goals
Jake: 36 (read 32 in 2021)
Jess: 40 (read 37 in 2021)
Looking forward to reading this year:
Do It For a Day, by Mark Batterson
The Storyteller, by Dave Grohl
Habits of the Household, by Justin Whitmel Earley
The High Five Habit, by Mel Robbins
The Genius of Jesus, by Erwin McManus
Every Body Matters, by Gary Thomas
Backin' Up News Interview & Song
See also: Episode 10, What Gets Scheduled Gets Done & Episode 18, How to Know if You're Too Busy
Carey Nieuwhof, At Your Best
Apps: Evernote, Goodreads
"Gratitude turns what we have into enough."
Things to try:
- Ask your spouse/kids/friends/colleagues what made them happy today
- Keep a specific gratitude journal (try 10 things to make sure you get specific!)
- Celebrate small wins along the way to your big goals / don't forget to be grateful for all the little pieces that will make up the big piece!
Ben Rector - The Thanksgiving Song
- Don't compare your 'busyness' to someone else's.
- Everyone's busy is relative (think capacity, stage of life, work environment, family responsibilities, etc.)
- Replace 'busy' with 'full' / full allows you to take back the control; busy feels like a victim mindset in the sense of things happening to us. Fullness flips the script, and we allow degrees of fullness. You choose.
- Something's gotta give. Usually, it's the stuff that is most important to us (family, health, quality of productivity, etc.). Again, think seasonally, and if you say yes, you probably need to say no to something else.
Essentialism, by Greg McKeown
Quick bio recap on our sweet sister-in-law: Kendal was born and raised in Midland; she and Josh (Jake's brother) have been married for 10 years and have four children: Elli (8), Mila (6), Sofia (5), and Michael (3). She taught for several years prior to having children and has just recently entered the classroom part-time at the classical academy where their three girls attend school.
To know Kendal is to be encouraged by her! We love getting to be in the same family!
Episode 4: Everything Has a Home
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, by John Mark Comer
Live No Lies, by John Mark Comer
Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work - Piyush Patel
Soundtracks - Jon Acuff
Everybody, Always - Bob Goff
The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
The Alice Network - Kate Quinn
Our mornings are really determined by our evenings. Nightly reset includes prep for the morning (win the morning, win the day).
Everything has a home | Episode 4
Our three main resets:
- Clean surfaces and put things back in their homes
- Dishes
- Laundry
Keeping things neutral means you have:
- Time for guilt-free spontaneity
- The ability to locate items quickly
- Space/Margin for unexpected occurrences
If we don't take 15–30 minutes daily to reset, we will have to take a larger lump of time to do those tasks another day (like on a weekend or a day off from work).
Budget
- Christmas fund | put some money aside into a separate account each month, or even start this in the summer for the holiday season (we start in July)
- Start shopping early | there are some great deals throughout the year and having money set aside makes it so easy to make that purchase because the money is for that; for us, waiting until November or December to shop adds more stress to an already busy season
- Decide who you're buying for
- Set a budget per person
- Don't forget holiday birthdays!
Be Intentional
Use a notes app (Jess likes Evernote) to keep track of ideas; you can also use this to track what you've already purchased; talk to people about what is helpful and would be a well-loved gift (especially for kids!)
Decide | Who are you buying for?
Have conversations with family and friends; no hard feelings! Get creative with game nights, movie nights, and dinners instead of feeling pressured to buy gifts.
Decide | What is off-limits?
Everything has a home here, so bringing in lots of cheap trinkets or things that will go in the trash quickly is not something we want to contribute to. We are quality over quantity fans when it comes to this season. We also don't want to give or receive unnecessary duplicates, so keep that in mind as you're talking through gift ideas.
Want / Need / Wear / Read
This is what we have done since we have had kids and it works so well for our family. Choose what works well for you, but if you have trouble with too much stuff, this is a fabulous place to start. We don't want our kids (and us!) to lose sight of the focus and be overrun by consumption and ungratefulness.
Even good plans can go out the window on bad days. Discipline helps keep our hours, days, and weeks running smoothly even when things may not be optimal.
Certain habits and discipline fuel motivation because you cannot rely on motivation itself.
Consistency is where it's at! You will not always be motivated so you have to be disciplined.
The Defined Dish Cookbook
Pestie Pest Control
Target Red Card
Midland Run Crew
Evernote
Prayerminder
Sacred Pace - Terry Looper
7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey
7 Habits of Highly Effective People Workbook
Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets - Andy Stanley
Calendar Systems:
Paper
Jesse Itzler's giant paper calendar
Brendon Burchard's High Performance Planner
Michael Hyatt's Full Focus Planner
Digital
We literally use our iPhones and share a calendar for our family. We keep our individual calendars as well, but anything that affects our family goes on the shared calendar.
Hybrid
Use both if you want to! Get the best features from both worlds; we utilize paper a lot during our day (post-its, notepads for Top 3, brain dump lists, etc.) but we know people who successfully utilize both a paper planner/calendar alongside their digital version. Also, this can be seasonal adjustments.
The best calendar for you is the one that actually gets used.
Schedule meetings with yourself! This can be at work, exercise, reading, working on a hobby/goal, alone time, etc.
Rock, pebble, sand analogy | you need to determine what your rocks, pebbles, and sand are. Then you put them in your jar in that order. If you go backwards, your rocks won't fit. If you need to see a visual, check out this video.
We schedule:
- Working out/exercise
- If we don't plan for this, we won't do it. We will add in some spontaneous exercise (maybe a bike ride with our kids or a family walk), but we add our gym time to our shared calendar.
- Date night
- If you're in a relationship, schedule a date night. If you've got kids, you'll also need to plan for a sitter if your kids aren't old enough to be at home alone yet. Take those things into consideration, take your budget into account, and be creative
- Hobbies/leisure
- Learn a new sport, pick up a new hobby, practice, work toward a dream/bucket list item; when you schedule time on your calendar, keep your commitment and follow through.
- Vacations
- 55% of people don't use their vacation time! Please take your vacation time, and take all of it. Plan ahead if you get a large amount, so that you can scheduled shorter time periods off without having to take weeks at a time to use it up.
- The Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, May 3 episode
9 Ways to Read More
- Eliminate distractions
- Start small (15 minutes)
- Keep a book nearby
- Read on your lunch break/natural break in your day
- Use social media/tv/vice of choice as a reward
- Utilize e-readers (don't forget about Prime Books via Kindle if you have an Amazon Prime account!)
- Utilize audiobooks
- Use the library (and accompanying apps like Libby, Hoopla, and Overdrive)
- Ask for books as gifts (use Goodreads to track things you want to read)
Read Aloud Revival with Sarah Mackenzie
see also Episode 5, Fringe Time
Finish by Jon Acuff
We keep 3 books going at once: an audiobook, an e-book, and a paper book. You always have accessibility to one of these options.
In regards to reading: "Keep a balanced diet." —our friend, Andy
Jess's Instagram (check out the highlights for fiction cast picks!): @jessirusso
FYI—Trace Adkins does in fact sing "You're Gonna Miss This".
We choose certain seasons and we others we do not choose. And within those seasons, we can make choices to embrace some things or maybe thin some areas out, and we also choose how we react to all of the things going on. If you’re aware up front, you can prepare how to respond instead of reacting in the moment.
It’s ok to have seasons that are not your favorite and you don’t have to discount the feeling.
The Nesting Place, by Myquillyn Smith
The Lazy Genius Way, by Kendra Adachi
Remember, not all seasons are self-imposed; some just show up (like COVID). Even though we can't control them all we can control how we respond and how we move forward.
Shopping your home is easy, free, and gives a refreshed feel to your spaces. You don't have to go buy new stuff all the time. Sometimes, your stuff just needs to move around.
We most likely have lots of things already in our homes. By shopping our own stuff, we might find things we forgot about or tend to overlook because they have been in the same place for so long.
There is nothing wrong with purchasing or updating, but we always want to be aware, we want it to be budgeted for, and we want to be intentional with our purchases.
- Spaces do not need a complete overhaul to feel new or refreshed (we don't go into debt for decor)
- Clear out clutter/unwanted/no longer used items while you shop your home or rearrange
- Sell items to purchase new items
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Parenting, by Paul David Tripp
Loving Our Kids on Purpose, by Danny Silk
Some things to remember when dealing with kids:
- Kids are people, too (they also might get grumpy when they are tired or hungry, or sometimes they just have bad days)
- Kids can ask these questions to adults, just like we ask to them
- Kids need help to process their big emotions
- Can your kid understand it? (use the Michael Scott rule: "Why don't you explain this to me like I'm five?")
Practicing gratitude helps us to remember. Things that we would tend to overlook have now become a piece of our day that doesn't get lost in the noise.
Practical Application:
- Ask someone to name 3 things that they are grateful for today (specific things).
- Keep a gratitude journal for yourself. List 3 items or 10. It's nice to look back on those items later.
- Use the Happy Heart Check for your kids or yourself. Maybe try implementing a place to let your kids go to, like our friend Bailey's "happy heart bench".
Fringe time is all the little pieces of time floating around the edges of our days. We tend to think in default blocks of time, like 30 or 60 minutes (think about the default when you add an event to your calendar). We have been trained to think that all tasks need larger amounts of time, and that if we don't have an hour to do something, we can't do fill-in-the-blank.
Time—even when not in large, consecutive blocks—can and should be utilized.
Practical ways to use fringe time:
- hobbies
- paying a bill that's been sitting on your counter
- unloading the dishwasher
- loading the dishwasher
- putting away a load of laundry
- taking a nap
- reading
- listening to a podcast
- working on a project
- playing a board or card game
- call or text someone that's been on your mind
Easy ways to waste fringe time:
it's ok to use time for these things. What we don't want (personally, this is our opinion) is to waste lots of fringe time on things that are not life-giving or productive, especially when there are other things we want to accomplish. We should never be saying, "I wish I had more time for _____." if we are spending consistent time in the following areas:
- social media scrolling (see Episode 2 for more on this)
- TV
- apps
- online gaming/video games
Practical locations to utilize fringe time:
- in the car (audiobooks, podcasts, phone calls, conversation with kids)
- in a line (grocery store, HomeGoods—that line is always crazy long, carpool line)
- a waiting room (dentist, doctor, etc.)
- home before you have to leave to go somewhere, before going to bed
If possible, split your task into chunks. If you don't have a consecutive hour, but the task can be done in pieces, split it into four 15-minute sections instead.
Our goal is not minimalism. Minimalism might be your goal, but it's not ours. We do want to be aware of consumerism, and everything having a home allows us to stay aware. We do not need more stuff just for the sake of having more stuff. We want to create margin in our life, and if everything has a home, we save:
- TIME by not having to dig through our house looking for it
- ENERGY by knowing where to go to find the item
- MONEY by not spending extra cash on things we already own but are just unable to locate
- SPACE by consolidating items and putting things in places where they fit best
Rather than get stuck in a vicious cycle of: overwhelmed by clutter --> angry purge --> repeat, giving something a designated place allows us to constantly take inventory of the things we have and the things we no longer need (and maybe something we do need or want).
When shopping for an item, we want it to be in our budget (see Episode 3), and we want to decide where it will go before we even purchase it to bring it back to our house.
Practical Tips:
- Always start small and finish an area
- Put things away immediately (even if they have a home, putting them away when you're done with them speeds up the process)
- Unpack within 24 hours of returning home from travel
- Utilize things you already have around your house (take an inventory and move things around before purchasing anything else!)
Free Budget Worksheet!
Practical steps to get on a budget:
- Write everything down (use a paper budget like ours, or find a good app if you'd prefer electronic)
- Sit down with your bank statement for the past few months to get an idea of how much you're spending in certain areas (groceries, eating out, clothing, toiletries, gifts, etc.)
- Keep track of all unique expenses (extras for you and your family that may not be common) in addition to traditional ones (like rent/mortgage, utilities, gas, phone bill, etc.)
- Do your budget before you get paid and for every time you get paid (we do ours twice a month before each pay day)
- Keep track of quarterly/yearly expenses so you don't get hit with those things that you tend to forget about!
Practical tips and extras:
- Share logins for royalty and rewards apps with your spouse/kids, if applicable
- Start small (always a tip from us!); what do you spend $15 or less on? Small purchases add up!
- Give yourself an allowance
- Use our free budget worksheet to get started!
Don't be discouraged if it takes you a couple of weeks or months to really get into the groove of a budget.
https://thriveglobal.com/stories/survey-money-financial-well-being-stress-impact-health-relationships-sleep-microsteps-white-paper/
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Avoid Triggers
-Use the snooze/mute features or unfollow (for a season or permanently)
-Stay out of the comments
Trick Your Brain
-Keep social apps on the second (or further) page of your home screen
-Put apps in folders (and even in folders that don't make sense)
Stop the Endless Scroll
-Implement screen time limits
-Implement screen time limits with a passcode
Eliminate Distractions
-Turn off notifications
-Put your phone in wind down, downtime, do-not-disturb, and even a good old fashioned physical time out
Start Well, End Well
-Avoid early morning and late night social scrolling (this is relative to your wake up and bedtime; just don't allow it to be the first or last thing you do each day)
-Physically place your phone somewhere else (get an alarm clock if you need to)
Take a break
-Social media fast
-Delete the app for a season or permanently
-Delete the accounts
Reading Recommendations:
Make Time, by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
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The Maximized Lifestyle centers around four core values: time, energy, money, and space.
Traditional Resolutions vs. Finding Solutions
Traditional resolutions don't work well because:
- We stack too many things and create too much pressure. We overwhelm ourselves before we even start.
- We don't have a plan to help us follow through. Even simple goals needs plans.
Look for solutions! Change your approach. Small habits produce big results. Take small steps to implement a system until it's part of your routine. When you get really good at that one, add another one. Rank your goals and prioritize. Focus on one at a time to ensure that you can complete them.
Consistency is key!
Reading Recommendations:
Atomic Habits, by James Clear
The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg
Finish, by Jon Acuff (also check out the Finish course through Right Now Media or directly from Jon!)
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facebook.com/themaximizedlifestyle
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