I’ve been following @thelazygenius on Instagram for a fair while now, and so was familiar with her way of thinking. I was very keen to try her book which goes through the thirteen Lazy Genius principles, all revolving around the idea of being genius about the things that matter, and lazy about the things that don’t.
She talked through each one, gave examples, case studies, and emphasised that the most important element is that YOU decide what matters, and that’s going to be different to what matters to others, it’s about what matters to you. This is not a cult!
To give you an idea of what some of these mean:
- Decide Once
- If you’re struggling with decision fatigue, reduce the number of decisions you have to make by making a decision once for something that happens repeatedly, so you don’t have to keep on deciding. This can be as simple as “on Friday we’ll always have pizza for dinner”, or “We’ll always give the teacher a box of chocolates at the end of the year”, so you don’t have to stress about what you’re going to do each time these things come around. I grew up with us having the same thing for dinner each day of the week, my mum was already doing this! But because it’s about what matters for you, and that can change, you might find that you need to change that decision later on, and that’s ok!
- Start Small
- Don’t be overwhelmed by something massive when you can just focus on something small to begin with so you’re not facing a whole mountain in one go. Maybe you want to spring clean the house, that’s a big job, even a room might seem like a lot, so just start with one set of shelves, once that’s done, you can build on it. It’s like the phrase “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
- Ask the Magic Question
- My friend Steph taught me this under different terminology a few years back, and it’s brilliant. The Magic Question is simply “What can I do now to make life easier later?”. For me this is sometimes just doing some jobs on a Friday evening so that I don’t have to do them on a Saturday morning, or writing all my birthday cards at the start of the month so they’re all written, addressed and by the door when needed (that also sort of falls under the principle of “Batch It”!). Steph would sometimes find something she’d put in her bag the night before and say “Oh thanks yesterday-Steph!”, or would do something saying she was doing it for tomorrow-Steph, which are phrases that initially tickled me, but really did stick!
The author, real name Kendra, is a Christian, but for the most part this isn’t a Christian book. On her Instagram she recently said:
“I love Jesus for what it’s worth, but that’s not worth much for a lot of people these days and I get that. Christians for sure need a new PR plan. I don’t talk about my faith online much (because you can strategize about laundry without believing in God), but it also feels weird to do a “this is me!” post without mentioning the most important thing to me. So there it is. I love and follow Jesus, and also every single person is welcome here.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj1XgR7uBmZ/
Most of the book is secular, but she occasionally drops in Christian anecdotes/thoughts, particularly towards the end, in ways which I found really helpful. One of the things I found the most special was her take on the Footprints poem (which was hugely popular on Christian bookmarks in the 1990s) – I won’t type the whole thing out, but happy to share if you’re interested!
I easily gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads, and it’s not the sort of book I’ll read just once. She’s also recently published a book about Lazy Genius-ing your kitchen, which I look forward to trying out!
If it’s not immediately clear – I’m a big fan of this book!!!
ineke.co.uk 