Kendra Adachi > Quotes

“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.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“Use the Same Ingredients My biggest stressor is seemingly limitless options. I want every ingredient, every new cookbook, and the time to make every new recipe I can get my hands on. Oh, and I want kids who will eat every bite without complaint. Fat chance.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“IS A CAPSULE WARDROBE WORTH THE HASSLE? A capsule wardrobe is not for everyone, but here’s where the concept is helpful to us all: every item you own is a fixed decision. When you buy something, you’re deciding it’s worth choosing over and over again. You’re deciding to give it space—in your closet and your mind. If your closet is full of items that aren’t worth choosing, they’re taking space away from the items that matter and make you feel like yourself. Keep in your closet only fixed decisions you’re happy making, no matter how many items you have or how well they go together.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“That’s the irony of perfection: the walls that prevent your vulnerability from being seen also keep you from being known.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“efficient systems fail to deliver if they’re implemented without kindness.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“I'm all for letting go of perfection, but we've somehow conflated order with being fake. I want to stop applauding chaos as the only indicator of vulnerability. You can be real when life is in order and falling apart. Life is beautifully both.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“We create unnecessary stress by remaking decisions about how we shop every time we need food, so find a way to decide once and lower the stress.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“Our culture is obsessed with being real, but we've been using the wrong measuring stick.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“power comes when you decide once for yourself. Here’s a surprise: every item you own is a fixed decision. When you buy a shirt, a new set of pens, or a gallon of olive oil from Costco, your choice to buy it is also a choice to use, store, and take care of it. Every item you own is a fixed decision.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“Living in your season means letting your frustrations breathe but not be in charge.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“Streamline your products by choosing the bare minimum for your most necessary jobs. Don’t force yourself to choose among five different cleaners like you’re scrolling a Netflix queue of disinfectants. Pick up a bottle and go clean. You don’t need to waste time choosing”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“as a self-righteous perfectionist, I was obsessed with keeping score, avoiding failure, and being impressive.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“DECIDE HOW YOU CLEAN ONCE I loathe cleaning, and regardless of whether you share my hatred, deciding once can help the entire process feel manageable. Streamline Your Products When you buy a cleaner that’s on sale, a fancy microfiber cloth, or a magic mop you saw on Shark Tank, you’re making a fixed decision to use that item. If you use it and it adds value to your life, high five. If you don’t use it, it becomes clutter. Stuff is the enemy of clean, and the more stuff you have, the harder it is to clean your house. Ironically, when I’m discontented with my home, I buy things to make it prettier or cleaner, which only makes the problem worse by adding to the noise.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“You can desire things that someone else doesn’t. You can struggle with something that gives someone else joy. You can care about what matters to you even if it doesn’t matter to someone else, and we can all lovingly and compassionately exist together in that tension.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“TO RECAP Limit your decisions by making certain choices once and then never again. Deciding once doesn’t make you a robot but leaves more time for you to be human. You can decide once in any area, including giving gifts, getting dressed, making meals, cleaning the house, and creating traditions.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“Self-care should be a regular practice of doing what makes you feel like yourself. It’s a practice of remembering who you are.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“you’re tired not because of your schedule but because you’re trying so hard to be a perfectly optimized human.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“I eventually signed up for breakfast duty not out of kindness but because I wanted my breakfast to be the gold standard. Yes, I cringe with humiliation as I publicly share such hubris, but as a self-righteous perfectionist, I was obsessed with keeping score, avoiding failure, and being impressive. Comparison and judgment were par for the course.*”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“Create a Meal Matrix A meal matrix is a way to decide once what you’ll eat on certain days of the week. Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday, and Instant Pot Wednesday are all forms of deciding once. At my house, we always have Pasta Monday, Pizza Friday, and Leftovers Saturday. My choices within those categories are open, but I’ve already made a helpful choice. The nice thing about a meal matrix is that it’s completely customizable. You don’t need me to tell you what to decide once; you can make your own choices and plug them in where they make sense. You don’t have to be overly specific with any day or even have every day filled. Three days are enough for me; fewer or more might work better for you. Regardless, deciding your meal matrix once creates an easy, actionable meal planning system that’s the perfect combination of lazy and genius.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“True fulfillment comes from subtraction, from removing everything that distracts you from what matters and leaving only what’s essential.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“If cleaning your house is tending to your home and making space for what matters, think about that for a minute. Breathe.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“We need a filter that allows us to craft a life focusing only on what matters to us, not on what everyone else says should 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.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“Sometimes things feel upside down because we’re not letting our season teach us what we need to know.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Kitchen: Have What You Need, Use What You Have, and Enjoy It Like Never Before

“Essential doesn’t have to mean minimal; it simply means eliminating distraction from what matters.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“The mental energy needed to get dressed each morning is nonexistent. This one decision even spills over into how he does laundry, how and where he stores his clothes, how he packs for a trip, and how he adjusts his clothes based on the weather.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“That’s the irony of perfection: the walls that prevent your vulnerability from being seen also keep you from being known. I also tried to be the perfect friend. I didn’t rock the boat, I kept my problems to myself, and I was a chameleon in each relationship. No one knew that I was ashamed of having divorced parents, that I desperately wanted to be pretty, or that I was one mistake from falling apart. I assumed letting people see the imperfect, broken parts of me would put the friendship in jeopardy, and that simply wasn’t an option. That’s the irony of perfection: the walls that prevent your vulnerability from being seen also keep you from being known. I was always trying to hide behind perfection because I didn’t think my full self was enough.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“When you fill your life with things that are not essential to what matters to you, you unintentionally add noise to your life.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Kitchen: Have What You Need, Use What You Have, and Enjoy It Like Never Before

“if you habitually look behind and beyond where you are, discontentment will be an eager companion”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“When you care about everything, you do nothing well, which then compels you to try even harder. Welcome to being tired.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

“TO RECAP Ask, What can I do now to make life easier later? Tend to what’s necessary before it becomes urgent. Get specific with the Magic Question, and Lazy Genius literally anything.”
― Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done