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The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done Kindle Edition
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“I could not be more excited about this book.”—Jenna Fischer, actor and cohost of the Office Ladies podcast
The chorus of “shoulds” is loud. You should enjoy the moment, dream big, have it all, get up before the sun, track your water consumption, go on date nights, and be the best. Or maybe you should ignore what people think, live on dry shampoo, be a negligent PTA mom, have a dirty house, and claim your hot mess like a badge of honor.
It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed by the mixed messages of what it means to live well.
Kendra Adachi, the creator of the Lazy Genius movement, invites you to live well by your own definition and equips you to be a genius about what matters and lazy about what doesn’t. Everything from your morning routine to napping without guilt falls into place with Kendra’s thirteen Lazy Genius principles, including:
• Decide once
• Start small
• Ask the Magic Question
• Go in the right order
• Schedule rest
Discover a better way to approach your relationships, work, and piles of mail. Be who you are without the complication of everyone else’s “shoulds.” Do what matters, skip the rest, and be a person again.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherWaterBrook
- Publication dateAugust 11, 2020
- File size2113 KB
- The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff DoneKindle Edition$8.99$8.99
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Get to know this book
What's it about?
This book is about how to live well by your own definition and equips you to be a genius about what matters and lazy about what doesn’t.Popular highlight
When you care about something, you try to do it well. When you care about everything, you do nothing well, which then compels you to try even harder. Welcome to being tired.2,549 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
Living in your season means letting your frustrations breathe but not be in charge.2,240 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
Small steps are easy. Easy steps are sustainable. Sustainable steps keep moving. Movement, not necessarily a finish line, is the new goal.2,092 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
The Magic Question, put simply, is this: What can I do now to make life easier later?1,925 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
You can be real when life is in order and when it’s falling apart. Life is beautifully both.1,733 Kindle readers highlighted this
From the Publisher
“As a longtime fan of The Lazy Genius Podcast, I could not be more excited about this book. Kendra has a gift for asking questions that helps you prioritize the parts of your life that really matter and let go of the parts that don’t.” —Jenna Fischer, actor, author of The Actor’s Life, and cohost of the Office Ladies podcast.
“When you need a friend to boss you around in only the best way possible, pick up this book and let Kendra do it. Her wisdom about a range of topics, from making friends to cleaning the kitchen, will light a fire under you so you can do what matters and chill about the rest.” —Tsh Oxenreider, author of At Home in the World and Shadow & Light
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Kendra has a heart for infusing the mundane and practical with a profound sacredness. Frankly, it’s infuriating how she manages to be effortlessly instructional, inspirational, and hilarious all at the same time, but the world is such a better place for it. I’ve never been more thankful for someone’s voice.”—Knox McCoy, author of All Things Reconsidered
“If you’ve been taught that nothing good comes from being lazy, get ready to let Kendra change your mind and life forever. Spoiler: laziness is the powerful tool that frees you to be a genius where it really matters. I wish I had this eye-opening book twenty years ago.”—Myquillyn Smith, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Cozy Minimalist Home
“The Lazy Genius Way is a recipe for creating a generous, less stressed domestic life. Kendra’s suggestions for thoughtful routines in place of rigid rules will leave the reader feeling settled and prepared for the changing rhythms of both family life and personal growth. Also, she is what experts refer to as a hoot.”—Gina Smith and S. D. Smith, author of The Green Ember series
“I always followed the lazy path when it came to my home. The results of that approach were not surprising—trash bins stuffed with take-out boxes, moldy laundry in the washer, and so much chaos. But Kendra Adachi offers a better way. The Lazy Genius Way doesn’t mean you have to become a gourmet chef or start cleaning the baseboards with a toothbrush. Kendra will meet you in the middle. She offers easy steps that will have you marking off your list in record time without sacrificing every free moment you have. Kendra helps us make space for tasks and television. She finds time for us to solve problems and scroll Instagram. The Lazy Genius Way is the perfect way.”—Jamie Golden, cohost of The Popcast with Knox and Jamie
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
An Introduction I’m Afraid to Call an Introduction
(Because I Don’t Want You to Skip It)
I’m not a mom who plays. I mean, I will, but I personally don’t like knocking down a stack of blocks twenty thousand times in a row, no matter how much joy it brings my kids.
Thankfully, my husband is a dad who plays. A few summers ago, he came up big while we were vacationing at the beach. He dug an impressive hole in the sand, a hole so deep you had to lean over the edge to see the bottom. Then, with the enthusiasm of a carnival showman, he got all three kids to race back and forth from the ocean, carrying buckets of water to fill the hole as quickly as they could.
Over and over again, they hauled and poured, hauled and poured.
But that hole would not fill up.
Every single drop soaked back into the sand, taunting them in their efforts. Because my kids are adorable little weirdos, they thought it was fun and played the game for a long while—that is, until a flock of aggressive seagulls became more interesting.
As they ran off to chase birds, I saw the discarded buckets surrounding an empty hole and realized I was looking at a metaphor of my life. Maybe it’s one for yours too.
Here’s what we do as women. We pick our spot in the sand to dig a hole, checking to see if the women around us are choosing similar (or, gulp, better) spots, trying not to be distracted by their motherly patience and bikini bodies. We start digging, hoping the hole is deep enough and headed in the right direction. Where is it going? No idea, but who cares. Everyone else is digging, so we dig too.
Eventually it’s time to start hauling buckets to fill the hole. We carry load after load of “water”—color-coded calendars, room-mom responsibilities, meal plans, and work-life balance. We haul. We try. We sweat. And we watch that hole stay empty.
Now we’re confused.
Does everyone else have this figured out? Is my hole too deep? And where is all the water going?
We pause to catch our breath, wondering if everyone else feels like an epic failure too. One person can’t possibly keep up with a clean house, a fulfilling job, a well-adjusted family, an active social life, and a running regimen of fifteen miles a week, right?
With silence our only answer, we decide, No, it’s just me. I need to get it together. What follows is a flurry of habit trackers, calendar overhauls, and internet rabbit holes to figure out how to be better, until we pass out from emotional exhaustion or actual adrenal fatigue or we give up completely and head back to the beach house for a shame-filled margarita.
Cheers?
The Real Reason You’re Tired
You’re not tired because laundry takes up more space on your couch than humans do, no one in your house seems to care about your work deadline, or your kid’s school lunch rule is “grapes must be quartered.” The tasks are plentiful, but you know your to-do list isn’t solely to blame.
You’re “on” all the time, trying to be present with your people, managing the emotions of everyone around you, carrying the invisible needs of strangers in line at the post office, and figuring out how to meet your own needs with whatever you have left over—assuming you know what your needs are in the first place.
It’s too much. Or maybe it feels like too much because you haven’t read the right book, listened to the right podcast, or found the right system.
I know that feeling. I’ve spent an embarrassing number of hours searching for the right tools to make my life feel under control, and I have the abandoned stack of planners and highlighted self-help books to prove it. Unnecessary spoiler alert: they didn’t help.
On one side, I felt like I had to create a carbon copy of the author’s life, even though I dislike going to bed early and don’t travel to twenty cities a year speaking at events.
On the other side? Follow your dreams, girl. Apparently, my to-do list isn’t the problem; my small-time thinking is.
Still, I highlighted dozens of passages, trying to MacGyver together some kind of plan that made sense for me. Maybe the right combination of life hacks and inspirational quotes would keep me from lying awake in the middle of the night with worry. Yet despite book after book, quote after quote, and plan after plan, I stayed tired. Maybe you’re reading this book because you feel it too.
I have good news. You don’t need a new list of things to do; you need a new way to see.
Why Simplifying Doesn’t Work
It’s the most common solution to feeling overwhelmed: simplify. Do less, have less, get on Instagram less. Cut down on commitments, outsource, and say no. But also give back to the community, join a book club, and grow heirloom tomatoes. Make your own baby food, run an impressive side hustle, and go on a regular date night with your spouse if you expect your marriage to survive. How is that simple? In my experience, marriage, entrepreneurship, and gardening are all super complicated.
For Christians, the concept of a simple life can feel even more muddled. Jesus was homeless, had twelve friends, and depended on the kindness of others for a meal and a bed. His life focused on a singular goal, and everything else was straightforward. But a little further back in the Bible, we find the (very misunderstood) Proverbs 31 woman who gets up before the sun, sews bed linens for her family, plants vineyards, and has strong arms.
Will someone please tell me what I’m supposed to care about so I can just live my life?
And that’s why simplification is anything but simple. No single voice can tell us how to live. Even within the biblical message of “love God and love people” lie a million possibilities of how that could look practically.
We need a filter that allows us to craft a life focusing only on what matters to us, not on what everyone else saysshould matter.
My friend, welcome to the Lazy Genius Way.
How to Read This Book
Here’s your new mantra: be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don’t…to you.
As life circumstances change, needs and priorities follow suit. This book is designed to be a helpful reference through all those transitions, giving you language and tools to make room for what matters.
Each chapter highlights a Lazy Genius principle, with ideas to implement it immediately. One principle on its own will have a tangible impact, but as you apply each to your daily life, you’ll see how the thirteen principles can harmoniously create personalized solutions to your problems and illuminate the ones that don’t matter so much.
You can quickly scan these pages for concrete steps and helpful lists and, when you have time, read more deeply as you create space to become your truest self. I encourage you to grab this book whenever you hit a wall in your routine, when a transition is looming, or when you feel the weight of busyness.
You’ll learn better ways to do laundry, finish projects, and get dinner on the table. Praise! But beyond the practical, you’ll learn to embrace a life that offers space for success and struggle, energy and exhaustion, clean houses and crappy meals. It all counts because it’s all yours.
Whether you’re home with tiny humans, pursuing the corner office, lonely, busy, or bored, this book will help you name what matters, ditch what doesn’t, and Lazy Genius a life full of both productivity and peace.
Let’s get started.
Product details
- ASIN : B081M6DLFZ
- Publisher : WaterBrook (August 11, 2020)
- Publication date : August 11, 2020
- Language : English
- File size : 2113 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 228 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #64,767 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #40 in Women's Christian Living (Kindle Store)
- #42 in Time Management in Business
- #95 in Personal Time Management
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Kendra Adachi is a two-time New York Times bestselling author of The Lazy Genius Way and The Lazy Genius Kitchen and host of nationally ranked The Lazy Genius Podcast. As an expert in compassionate time management, Kendra helps others stop doing it all for the sake of doing what matters. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and three kids.
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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This book has a lot of great practical, simple, and applicable, and achievable principles. I wish I had this book when I was a lot younger. I will be purchasing multiple copies to give as High school or college graduation gifts!
The mantra that holds true through the entire book is found on page 7, in the introduction:
"Here's your new mantra: be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't . . . to you."
There are 13 basic principles, each explained in depth in its own chapter. At the end of each chapter, there is a bullet point list to recap the contents and then one small step to take immediately. As I am an empty nester and have lived through the crazy times of raising children and trying to juggle way too may things, I can verify that what she says is helpful beyond measure. Even at this stage in my life, I found good information and gentle prods in the right direction to make my life less stressful and more serene. I read the book from front to back over the course of about three days. With the chapter summaries, it will be easy to pick up and use as a reference in the future.
The author is a woman of the Christian faith and it is apparent throughout the book. If you share her faith, you will likely find that an added bonus but if you don't I don't think it will be troublesome for you. It's there but presented in a way that's gentle, kind, and lightly referenced.
It helped me think through what is really important and what is not so important.
Kendra Adachi's tagline in her blog, podcast, and now book, is to be "a genius about the things that matter, and lazy about the things that don't," and this book helps you do exactly that. After you identify what matters to you, Kendra guides you to craft an approach to your life that supports what matters and doesn't waste time and effort focusing on what doesn't. Instead of telling you to do life the way she does, in this book Kendra gives you thirteen principles to help you create your own systems that reflect what matters to <i>you</i>. Some of these principles might seem fairly straightforward (like "start small"); others are going to change your life ("go in the right order" has made me feel so much more relaxed about my to-do list while still getting a lot more done).
Each principle is explained in Kendra's funny, insightful style, which listeners of her podcast (The Lazy Genius Podcast) have come to love. She gives plenty of specific examples of how one might apply the principles, but what makes this book so brilliant is that, ultimately, YOU are in the driver's seat. Once you understand the thirteen principles, you can apply them to your own challenges and circumstances and create an approach to life that supports what matters to you. Kendra never made me feel like I was doomed to fail if I didn't get up at 5 o'clock in the morning, follow a seven-step daily routine, and follow a strict, robotic schedule. Instead, she has kindly encouraged me to identify what matters and has given me a toolkit so I can create my own systems, routines, and strategies that work for my unique personality, situation, and priorities.
I genuinely believe this book will work for everyone. It's the only book I've ever read that gives strategies actionable enough to start using right away but flexible enough to handle changing life seasons, stressful circumstances, or even the energy fluctuations that interfere with so many of our attempts at productivity and intentionality (hello, 2020). So far, this book has encouraged me that I don't need to get up any earlier to have a successful morning routine, nor do I need to resign myself to chaos if I abandon perfectionism. Instead, Kendra has given me thirteen principles with which to craft a to-do list that focuses on what matters, pull myself out of slumps when 2020 wedding planning inevitably overwhelms me, and keep my home reasonably tidy without feeling like I'm spending all day doing something that, frankly, is low on my priority list during this season. This book is, without exaggeration, the one tool I need to get myself through the rest of 2020 intact, sane, and thriving. 100% recommend.
Top reviews from other countries
This book helped me accomplish a lot in my home, my personal life, my family, and work. This book will help you set goals, routines that matter to you, especially if you don't have time, this book will help you start to achieve all those goals in your life, achieve order and be kind to yourself. Don't stick to standard advice, get up at 5am, be successful at achieving the greatest goal, be the best at everything, no! But to do things that matter to you with the Ladyy Genius method. It felt like I was talking to a good friend while reading It, I highly recommend It ;)