Practical in-depth guide for parents of school age children.
These 13 Key Principles help you to:
* Learn not only what needs a shortcut but also how create one
* Notice what matter and carve space in your day to nuture growth in those areas.
Become a genius in the things that matter to YOU and lazy about the things that do not.

I love Kendra and her wise, accessible, helpful, honestly life-changing lifestyle of the lazy genius way. I've listened to her podcast and loved her on instagram for years, and this book is the best compilation of all the goodness that she shares. it took me a while to read it because I actually wanted to implement what she was coaching me on, and I loved that. it's really refreshing, fun, non-judgmental, and brilliant. so grateful for this one.

I've been "internet friends" with Kendra for a few years now. I remember connecting with her in The Sugar Box days and thinking: "this is one of my people". We've tweeted at each other and swapped book recommendations since 2015, and she's been a guest on my own podcast a couple of times.

Kendra never fails to amaze me with her ability to look at life via systems. I love a good system (any other Enneagram Fives out there?), but Kendra BREATHES them. And that's what this book is: a system to create systems that work for your own life, not another how-to with steps that don't fit the situation you are in. She offers guiding principles to help you evaluate and rethink if what you are doing now works, why it might not, and how to make a change for the better. And she does it with heart, making sure to drill down to the WHY of things, not just the how.

If you're not sure if this book is for you or not, go check out Kendra's podcast, THE LAZY GENIUS PODCAST and listen to a few of the episodes (I especially love #132 Ten Steps to Creating Your Own Traditions and the whole series on routines). If you find yourself nodding along and says "yes!" a lot, definitely click "continue to check out" with this book in your cart.

The Lazy Genius Way gives you 13 Lazy Genius principles, some of the ones that stuck out to me were Put Everything in its Place, Schedule Rest and Be Kind to Yourself. The Recap's and One Small Step's at the end of the chapters was very helpful. I see this as a book to reference back to as there are so many great tips in it. Will be recommending this books to others as I believe there is something that can be learned by everyone who reads this book.

The Lazy Genius Way 4. 5 Stars

Books are made for all walks of life.
Did I pick this book up as a married middle aged mother of a chaotic house and family? No. But did I pick this up as a early twenties student with high expectations who is struggling? Yes.

I went into this book expecting a generic 'here's how to get your life together in 10 easy steps (that wont really change your life)'

But what I got was someone that understood the chaos of hating mess but having to live through it anyway. Of being too exhausted to clean, of thinking it's your fault you can't keep a house in continuous perfect order.

What I got was someone who understood and helped me understand that mess is going to happen and that is OK.
That doing everything the same way someone else does is just not going to work for you, and that is OK.
and that sometimes you need to ask for help and THAT is OK.

This book came into my walk of life at exactly the right moment and I will
be buying a copy to refer back to when I need to remind myself of the above points.

I would like to formally thank WaterBrook and Multnomah and Netgalley for gifting me this ARC copy for review.

This book is wonderful! I’ve been a big fan of Kendra for years. I wondered if I would gain anything from this book because I felt like I already had a pretty good idea of her principles. This book breaks everything down so clearly and applicably. I wanted to highlight the whole thing. It’s so helpful without giving you step by step directions for what should work for you because it worked for her. The principles help you make decisions based on YOUR life and what matters to YOU! Love it! Thanks Kendra! Can’t wait for her next book.

Lazy genius is the perfect description for the advice in this book. My favorite takeaway is to decide once and move on; I tend to waiver in my inconsequential choices - like what’s for dinner - and this advice just spoke right to my soul right now.

This is one I’ll definitely read again and share with friends.

The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi is a book that will prompt you to embrace what matters, ditch what doesn’t and get stuff done.
It’s a productivity book, packed with personal stories and anecdotes. The book feels more relevant and achievable than Thursday is the New Friday. It’s about mindset. Mindset is not my thing – but I did not find this book ‘woo’ or difficult to get behind.
Basically, it’s about prioritizing what is important to you and doing that. The book shows you how and I loved it. It’s also pretty funny. Her description of kitchen chaos after school is exactly like our home but the point of this book is not to be like anyone else but to create a way of getting things done that works for you.
Mostly it is a set of principles for the home, combined with a mantra for the stressed out working parent (and I felt it was aimed at the ‘moms’). It’s a set of guidelines to help you feel OK about reclaiming time: part mindset stuff, part practical guide, part critical friend telling you to get your s*** together and that the little things don’t matter – and she loves you anyway.
As you read through the experiences and stories shared as part of the 13 principles for being a lazy genius, you will find yourself nodding along.
I like how each chapter ends with one small step, but throughout the book there are many more examples of things you can do.
Unlike other productivity books that prescribe a particular method or a template to fill in so you can reach peak productivity, The Lazy Genius Way encourages you to create a method that works for you, using universal principles to shape what is actually going to be sustainable, useful change in your life.
It felt very accessible and a refreshing change, but as a lot of the examples are home-life based, you will have to extend the principles to your work life. It’s doable, but there aren’t a lot of work-related examples.
Just so you know, there are some references to Christianity which felt sometimes like they came out of the blue – I wasn’t expecting religion to pop in the book and you might not either.
And now excuse me why I go off to clear the kitchen counters.

We are all guilty of being "too busy". I take self care very seriously but some days it just escapes from me. This title reminded me to take time for myself because it's absolutely needed and how to not feel guilty for it. A great reminder about what should be taken more seriously. Everyone could benefit from a title like this!

The Lazy Genius Way is a guidebook for modern life- modern stressed out do too much life. I felt like this book was a coffee with a friend pep talk. Kendra has a way of pinpointing everyday “pain points” and offering a solution or not.... The book is based on the premise of deciding what is right for you once and doing that. If you are super “Type A” this might not be the book for you or it might be just what you need to give yourself a break. I would recommend this book to anyone coming out of a season of change or struggling with the season they are in. Kendra offers real life practical solutions in a nonjudgmental way.

I am rarely able to finish nonfiction books but since I heard so many good things about this one I gave it a shot. I finished it and loved all of the simple, applicable tips for changing our mindset in order to prioritize what actually matters to us. I also really appreciated that the author states multiple times that the reader is the only one who can decide what matters or what they need. It drives me crazy when a total stranger tells me what I “need”, so Adachi’s approach helped me feel open and willing to accept her methods.

A fabulous read. Very helpful for creating your own framework for problem solving or just helping you feel like a functioning human. Quite like a good life coach or a close friend sitting down to trouble shoot your problems.

Such an amazing book - helpful on all areas in life! I love how Kendra shares helpful and practical steps to better serve our families and ourselves. It’s not a self help in the way of making us feel less than but allowing us to choose what is most important to us and least important and focusing on those things that matter most to us in each season.

I encountered the author through her podcast and am glad that she has written this handbook on investing in what matters. The way she backs things up to get to underlying values and deciding those for oneself makes this a truly helpful self help book. And because I've listened to her so much on the podcast and Instagram live it's fun to hear her voice as I'm reading!

Kendra Adachi is a true genius! Her book shares ways of both simplifying and being smarter about the things that truly matter. I cannot recommend her book enough.

https://geekmom.com/2020/10/bookends-september-2020/
If you enjoyed the whole Marie Kondo thing, but at the same time were irritated by the whole Marie Kondo thing, then you will love GeekMom Sarah’s latest read. The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi does not offer a twelve-step program, or a new way to do things, it does not even laud simplicity. At one point Adachi even protests at society’s current obsession with downsizing and simplicity by saying that simplification is not actually simple, that one single voice cannot tell you how to live. This is where her approach is a breath of fresh air in a society of self-help and get simple quick inspirational voices.

Adachi encourages you to simply look at your actual life, decide what matters to you and not the person next to you. Once you have that pinned down her ethos is simple; be a genius at the things that matter, and lazy with the things that don’t. So maybe your house doesn’t have to be decluttered, but you need your bed to be made every day. Maybe you are okay with spaghetti for dinner every night but have to have a Starbucks in the morning. Adachi offers a series of simple routines that work for her as examples of how to do this, one of the key takeaways for GeekMom Sarah being that clutter does not mean you have too much stuff, it just means the stuff you have doesn’t have a place. So the collection of Disney mugs doesn’t have to go, it just needs its proper home. Also, it’s okay if her house looks like the before photos of a re-model show!

Adachi talks a lot about how essential and minimal are not the same thing, which is a breath of fresh air after the dumpster fire of 2020, in which we have been so often tempted to burn it all down! And if the book isn’t enough for you, there’s a terrific podcast to go along with it.

Kendra Adachi’s book has been a great read for me. I don’t often read organizational type books, but in this season of being very overwhelmed, I think I was hoping for a magic cure. 😂 I didn’t get that as far as organizing my life goes, but I did feel very affirmed reading the book. I don’t consider myself a super organized person, but reading this book made me realize that I have already implemented a LOT of her strategies into my life, which could very well be why I’m as functional as I am in the midst of homeschooling, mothering, and working from home. Her strategies for “deciding once,” batching, building the right routines, and putting things in their place are pretty well-established in our home. (I admittedly have my husband to thank for a lot of these things being established because he is VERY organized.) I do have less “structured” friends (let’s be honest, less uptight friends 😂) who found this book helpful in these ways. What was tremendously helpful for me were areas of emotional/mental practices, such as scheduling rest, “essentializing”—a word with way more positive connotations than minimalizing, and a really helpful discussion about acknowledging the season you’re in and embracing it rather than trying to force a narrative/lifestyle that just doesn’t work for you right now.

Also, and this was a biggie for me, I REALLY appreciated that Adachi mentioned more than once her place of privilege to focus on practically any of these issues—that essentializing is something we have time to worry about when we aren’t worrying about whether our kids will have enough food to eat this week. I really find so many Christian female writers to be super irksome because they seem incredibly unaware of their socioeconomic differences with MANY of the people reading their books and looking to them for guidance. I loved that Kendra openly addressed different stages of life and situation and didn’t imply any of her principles were one-size-fits-all solutions. Overall, I thought this book was great, and I look forward to following The Lazy Genius on social media.

Finally got around to picking this one up, only to be disappointed. The synopsis gives no indication that the author/publication leans towards Christian ideology and values. (I should have done more research on the actual publishing imprint itself before requesting.)

While I think many of the statements and practices could apply to anyone, it was a struggle to get through, as someone who is not a Christian. I wish the synopsis was more authentic to the book.

Kendra Adachi, author of the popular The Lazy Genius Collective and podcast of the same name, writes this insightful, funny, and innovative book, which helps the reader decide what really matters and what is less important. Priorities are considered, and kind and thoughtful advice and ideas are shared by this wry and insightful author, who decides once, and names what matters.

I have listened to That Lazy Genius podcast a few times and I like the concepts, but didn't fully grab ahold of what Kendra was talking to. Then I read this book and it was such a good read for me. I consider myself fairly organized, kind of a minimalist and can run a pretty decent house. But yet, I am in a busy season of life, especially in the summer, and this books equips you with principles to help maintain that well-oiled routine going.

There are 12 principles that lazy geniuses should follow and one mantra. The mantra is this: "Be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't." Basically, how I interpret this is to establish a routine, brain-free plan for dealing with those things you don't really care about, but still have to be done. This frees up time and brain space for those things you really do enjoy and want to put thought into.

For example, principle number one is "Decide Once." What this means is that if Monday morning you struggle to get going because you have to figure out what to wear and what to eat and what to grab for lunch, then what you need to do is make that decision one time and be done with it. Decide that you are going to always wear your blue outfit on Monday, you will always eat a muffin for breakfast and have a cheese stick and yogurt for lunch. You do this every Monday and you reduce the decisions that need to be made first thing in the morning.

But then principle number two is to "Start Small." So probably you would only make one of the above decisions at a time and gradually add in the other ones.

Other principles include building the right routines, having a place for everything, and so on. I'm not going to list them all because then why would you need to read the book? But you should read the book if you are wanting to simplify your life.

"When you fill your life with things that are not essential to what matters, you unintentionally add noise, and managing noise is part of why you're tired."

I really enjoyed this book. And while I received a copy from Waterbrook/Multnomah via NetGalley, I would like to add a paper copy to my own library for future reference.

All opinions are my own.