Suppose you want to reorganize your pantry. You might research organizational systems, pull everything out, dust shelves and canned goods, check expiration dates, sweep, buy cute containers, make labels, and spend the better part of a day, if not days, placing items in just the right order. And then you get frustrated when that order is not maintained.

Or you might go the opposite extreme and decide nobody has the time and energy for that.

Kendra Adachi calls these the “genius” and “lazy” approaches. She proposes a happy medium: that we be geniuses about what matters and lazy about what doesn’t. She shares thirteen principles for implementing this in her book, The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn’t, and Get Stuff Done.

For those of us who tend to make any small need into a major project, Kendra says, “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” (p. 11. Kindle version).

On the other hand, “Little did I know you can be just as exhausted from not trying as you can from trying too hard. Managing apathy and survival mode takes as much energy as managing rules and perfection” (p. 15).

One of her premises is that there is no one right method or tool that will appeal to and work for everyone. If we’re to be geniuses about what matters, that will differ from person to person.

She mentioned that she likes to make bread. She cares about it and puts a lot of effort into it. But it’s fine if others have no desire to make bread and buy the bargain brand.

She likes comfortable clothes in neutral colors and doesn’t like top spend a lot of time on clothing decisions. But she acknowledges that others like to pill out five different outfits before they decide what to wear, and that’s fine.

That’s why she comes back again and again to acknowledging what’s important to you, not Instagram or the neighbors or whoever.

Some quotes that stood out to me:

I want to stop judging women who have it all together, assuming they have something to hide. I want to stop applauding chaos as the only indicator of vulnerability (p. 16).

You might think a routine is nothing more than doing the same things in the same order every day, but that’s not the whole story. Routines are meant to lead you into something else (p. 74).

It’s easier to clean up a cup of spilled milk than it is to mend a second-grader’s hurt feelings (p. 89).

House rules are about connection, not protection. They keep the first domino from tipping and knocking over a lot more (p. 99).

The goal isn’t to maintain control but to be in a better headspace to engage with what matters—namely, your people (p. 99).

You can celebrate where you are without being distracted by where you’re not yet (p. 210).

You’re tired because you’re trying to overcome the world. but we can take heart because the God of the universe has already done that (p. 211).

Though this book is not advertised as a Christian book, and the author doesn’t base her principles on the Bible, a few sentences like that last one are sprinkled through the book.

One thing I loved about the book is the recap statements at the end of each chapter. I get frustrated wishing I could retain everything I read from nonfiction. Having the key points collected at intervals helps me pull things together at the end of each chapter plus provides a quick place to review.

Kendra writes in an easily understandable and relatable way. Don’t miss her footnotes—many of them are funny asides.

My only minor criticism is that the explanations and examples seemed perhaps a little overdone in places. But I suppose a wide variety of examples makes the book applicable to more people.

Kendra also has a Lazy Genius Podcast, but I have not listened to it yet.

This book was all the rage a few years ago. I kept seeing it mentioned everywhere. I was intrigued, but didn’t get around to it. I’m glad I finally did.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

My husband has no idea how much he owes Sandra Felton.

I did not come to marriage very organized in either my time or my stuff. In college, I wasn’t lazy, but I was always running behind. Many of my grades suffered from late deductions. And I can’t tell you how many times I got frustrated over not being able to find an item or paper I needed.

Sometime during early marriage, I came across Sandra Felton’s book, The Messies Manual. Then I subscribed to her newsletter for years until I knew by heart what each one was going to say.

I put a lot of Sandra’s principles into practice. I can’t say I became a paragon of organizational virtue, but I definitely improved from where I was.

But I learned something else about organization on my own. We can’t make up a workable schedule and put everything in its rightful place and then be done organizing. We have to maintain our systems and adapt them to new demands on our time and new items in our home.

So I have decided organization is not a destination. It’s a journey. And, therefore, I continue to occasionally reads books or articles about organization.

When I saw that Sandra had coauthored a fairly new book with Marsha Sims, and it was on sale for the Kindle app, I got it. That book is titled Ten Time Management Choices that Can Change Your Life.

The authors state that “One of the goals of this book is to help you accomplish easily and quickly those necessary but uninspiring activities that comprise much of our daily lives so you can turn your attention to the significant things you want to do” (p. 9).

They point out how the advent of modern technology eased life in some ways but created a lot more things to do, some necessary and some distracting.

They say some authors “downplay organizing systems and indicate that if you have enough focus and self-control, you’ll be okay. Not so. You need good skills as well” (p 21.) So they point out overarching principles but also offer practical tips.

They remind us often that “time management is not the art of getting everything done. It is the art of getting the most important things done. To put it another way, it is priority management.” (p. 63).

The authors offer a variety of ways to determine priorities, make schedules, etc. I love that. Some time management books promote a very rigid system. I don’t usually like everything about other people’s systems, so I appreciate the variety of methods to experiment with to find one that works best.

They also tackle multitasking, interruptions, procrastinating, delegation, time wasters, schedules, developing good habits.

They apply principles to home and business.

Each chapter has several vignettes of people with organizing problems and the solutions they found.

The end of each chapter and the end of the book contain questions and activities to help implement the principles. The sessions at the end of the book could be done alone or with a group.

Here are a few more quotes that stood out to me:

Creative people have more ideas and interests than any one person can do in a lifetime, and we accumulate the paraphernalia to prove it. (p. 54.)

A word of explanation is necessary to those who fear setting up a schedule because it feels rigid and stifling. Scheduling is not an inflexible list that is written in stone. It is a statement of what regular tasks are important to accomplish each day and when you plan to do them during the day. As you become experienced in using and tweaking your schedule, you will find it meets your needs more and more successfully and will become your friend. (pp. 163-164).

When you create a schedule for routine tasks, you open a tap through which good time management can flow. A schedule is absolutely necessary because 1. It keeps you from forgetting what needs to be done. 2. It protects you from the unsuccessful “What do I feel like doing today?” approach (p. 164).

Although I would not classify this as a Christian book overall, the authors do employ some biblical principles.

There was only one place I strongly disagreed with the authors.

Organized people work dispassionately. That frees them from a lot of stress. Disorganized people wear themselves out by investing emotion in the things they have to do. They work while saying, “I hate making the bed every day” or “Unloading the dishwasher is such a drag.” The way to take the emotion out of doing what you need to do regularly is to make the activity into a habit (p. 196).

I can’t say that making activities into habits takes the emotion out of them. I still chafe at a lot of things that have to be done. However, making them a habit gets them over with rather than pushing them to the background. And I look forward to the satisfaction of getting them done.

I don’t think I learned much that was totally new to me from the book. But many of the principles I had formerly learned were applied in new ways, and all of the book was a much-needed reminder.

If you need to organize your time better or need to brush up on organizing principles, this book would benefit you.

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