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Today's podcast is so

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amazing. One of my favorite authors,

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Kendra Adashi, is joining us. And

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honestly, her book, The Lazy Genius

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Way, it changed

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my life. And I say this a

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lot, but it really did because it

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gave me permission to embrace all

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the good stuff about being lazy.

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And it really reinforced my philosophy

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that doing things crappy and allowing

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yourself to not be perfect and

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to take shortcuts is the secret

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to not only getting more done,

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but being happier and feeling really

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proud of yourself in the end.

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So excited to be joined by

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Kendra today. She is the creator

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of The Lazy Genius brand and

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the author of multiple popular books.

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She's also known for her down-to-earth

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approach to managing life. And she

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has a podcast called The Lazy

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Genius Podcast. You're going to love

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her just as much as I

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do. Are you ready to meet

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Kendra? Welcome,

1:04

Kendra. I'm so excited to have

1:06

you here. Welcome to the Clutterbug

1:08

podcast. Huge fan of your

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book. Also, I keep forgetting I'm buying

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it and then I rebuy it. I officially have

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three copies. Listen.

1:17

Because. That's so kind.

1:19

Thank you. And you're holding up, you're

1:22

holding up the Lazy Genius way, which

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that's that she's she's like my

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she's my first born. You

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know what? I for a really long time, I'm

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a lazy person. Listen, I'm just going to say

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it. And for a really long time, my lack

1:35

of effort in a lot of areas of my

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life, I saw as a really negative thing and

1:40

I vowed to remove the word lazy from my

1:42

vocabulary because of it being seen as

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like this negative, toxic thing. You you

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made it cool, man. I did. I

1:49

did. I I really

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appreciate that. You're so welcome. But

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also listen, where did this

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come from? I know you probably answered this question a

1:59

million times. But this is such a

2:03

unique outlook. I'm all like, I

2:05

was just impressed. It's probably one of my

2:08

favorite books I've ever written. And where did

2:10

this inspiration come from? That's really kind. Were

2:12

you always a lazy genius? No, no, no,

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I was always a genius. I was, I

2:17

was, I was a situation. I

2:19

was, um, I was the person that you wanted

2:22

to be in charge of your group project,

2:24

but the rest of you would talk about

2:26

me behind my back because

2:28

of like, how intense I was. So

2:31

yeah, I, I thought that I needed

2:33

to do, um, everything

2:35

well. And so if I

2:38

didn't think that I could do something perfectly or be

2:40

the best at it, I just didn't try. So

2:43

it was a hardcore genius energy. And,

2:45

um, and so that continued

2:48

through like my twenties. I had my first kid when I was 27,

2:51

seven, seven, I think that's right. I

2:53

had my first kid when I was 27 and I

2:56

was like, I'm going to be the best mom. Um,

2:58

I'm going to make all the food and I'm going

3:00

to do, he's going to sleep so well. And I'm

3:03

like, I'm, I was just going to be this like

3:05

Zen mother who had, her house

3:08

was always clean. Like I just knew what I just was like, I'm

3:10

going to know what I'm doing. It's going to be fine. Well,

3:13

that was hilarious. Um, cause that's just not how life

3:16

or parenting tends to work. And,

3:19

um, and so when I had my

3:21

second kid, two years later, I swung

3:24

the other direction where I was

3:26

like, well, I'm not going to care

3:28

about anything. Caring seems to not work very well

3:30

because all I'm doing is failing at

3:32

what I'm trying to be the best at. So let's just

3:35

not care. Let's give up. And

3:37

both of those postures to

3:39

me were quite unsustainable because

3:42

I actually do care. There

3:45

are things in my life that I genuinely

3:47

care about and I want to put

3:49

energy into them and I want to put time and effort

3:51

into them, money into them. And whatever the case may be.

3:54

And, but I was sort of stuck

3:56

in this, this or that mentality. It

3:58

was like all or nothing. It's like,

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there's no third way here. So

4:04

with the help of years of

4:06

therapy and really healing relationships

4:08

and just kind of like

4:10

learning that I would not

4:12

explode if my to-do list did

4:14

not get checked off, you know, like things like that,

4:16

like, oh, we're all okay here. Like

4:19

we're still surviving and

4:21

you did not put away the dishes yet. Like

4:24

what a concept. Let's

4:27

sit in this space and see what happens. So

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I just lived in this third wide

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middle way for years,

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had another kid and then

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went, man, a lot of people

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are holding onto this

4:43

all or nothing energy big time and

4:46

there is another way. And

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so that's when I started my podcast, The

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Lazy Genius Podcast. And about

4:52

three years after that wrote the

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book, The Lazy Genius Way that

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you have three copies of. Can

5:00

I for a second talk

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about my listeners who are listening. Here's something

5:04

I've noticed and I love that you say

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you used to be a genius and you

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equate like being a genius with doing everything

5:11

perfectly. Most

5:13

people who really struggle

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with clutter are perfectionists,

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which is really

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surprising to me. And when

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I'm going into clients homes and helping them

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declutter, this is something I notice a lot.

5:27

Maybe you could relate as your former self

5:29

or anyone listening. It will be

5:32

destroyed. Their house will be, it'll

5:34

be a wreck. And here

5:36

they are neatly, tightly

5:39

folding their underpants into

5:41

little triangles. They're

5:43

worried about all the details

5:46

and they're not seeing the forest for the trees.

5:50

And I think this is why I

5:52

love your book so much because it's

5:54

giving people permission to say broski. That

5:57

doesn't matter. Yeah.

12:00

some really fantastic realizations

12:02

about naming what matters as I have written

12:04

the plan and talked about it. And

12:06

that is, we live in, if

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you're a perfectionist listening, which it sounds like there's a lot

12:13

of those, chances are

12:15

you have read a good number of

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time management books, productivity books. You're always

12:20

trying to find the hack, the system,

12:22

the thing that the magic pill that's

12:24

gonna work. And

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I'm here to tell you that those aren't

12:29

real. That's

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the first thing, is that they're just not real. Part

12:34

of it is, we live

12:36

in a culture where

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productivity is seen through a

12:42

very narrow lens of greatness,

12:45

that everything is about optimizing and

12:47

leveling up and being the most

12:49

efficient and creating a life that

12:52

falls within certain boundary lines and

12:55

you kind of reverse engineer this ideal future

12:58

that you see for yourself. Like, I'm gonna

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have this house, my family's gonna look like

13:02

this, I'm gonna have this much money, I'm

13:04

gonna, there's a lot about

13:07

our bodies sometimes. We look in the future

13:09

at this life that we wanna have and

13:11

then we are instructed to reverse engineer that

13:13

ideal future. And so

13:15

every day is essentially checkboxing

13:18

our way to this person that

13:20

we think that we're supposed to be. But

13:23

the majority, I couldn't think of the word, the

13:28

majority of the people, and it's a high

13:31

majority, it's 93%, the

13:33

majority of the people who are teaching us the

13:37

steps and the systems to

13:39

achieve that are men. 93%

13:44

of time management books are written by men. 70

13:47

to 90% of the people who buy time management books

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are women. So

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I'm just here to say everyone, that

13:54

the systems that have been presented to

13:56

you are incomplete because of

13:58

who is writing them. is

24:00

good moms have sticky floors. That's

24:02

right. I was like, oh. You can buy

24:04

a pillow that says that. I don't want

24:06

to be like A type. Only

24:09

neurotic clean freaks have those spotless

24:11

homes. They're no fun. This

24:13

is the narrative I told myself to kind of

24:16

make it feel okay, but the truth was

24:18

I hated my house and I hated myself

24:20

for not being able to keep it. I

24:24

finally got mad at the stuff

24:26

instead of myself. I

24:28

didn't change until I thought, well, none of

24:31

this crap even matters. I'm sick of moving

24:33

it. I'm sick of managing it. I

24:35

just went insane with a trash bag, like

24:37

some sort of psychopath. Big black trash bag

24:40

energy. There it is. I

24:42

have a name for it. I

24:44

was just throwing everything in the

24:46

garbage. When I share this

24:48

story with people, I get a lot

24:50

of like, well, you should recycle and

24:53

you should donate. You have blankets, you

24:55

should go to the Humane Society and

24:57

blah, blah, blah. And again, there's these

24:59

rules and expectations, even how we save

25:01

ourselves when we're drowning. It's

25:04

like you're drowning. You're trying to get out

25:06

of the lake and someone's like, your swimming

25:08

technique is not proper. And you're like, what?

25:11

What are you talking about, man? I'm

25:14

just trying to get out. I'm just trying to

25:16

like get my head above

25:18

the water. And for me, I had

25:20

to get mad and I had to

25:23

say, you all suck. All this stuff

25:25

sucks. It doesn't even matter. The only

25:27

thing that matters is my peace of

25:29

mind. And I can't manage this

25:31

much. And I'm throwing it in trash bags.

25:34

And that was the single greatest thing

25:37

that ever happened to me because when

25:40

all of that excess was gone, I

25:42

now had space in my life

25:45

and in my mind and in my, like

25:47

it was amazing. But the only thing

25:49

that changed was how

25:52

I talked to myself. Instead

25:54

of blaming myself for the mess, I blame the

25:56

stuff for the mess and I can't put myself

25:58

in a trash bag. And

30:01

so even things like this

30:03

magic question, the

30:05

goal here is not to like be

30:07

awesome at it or to use it

30:09

every day or it is simply a

30:11

neutral tool that you can use when

30:13

it's helpful for you. And sometimes

30:16

it might not be as helpful as you hoped

30:18

and that's also okay. Again, it's

30:20

all very neutral. We

30:23

just need to take the

30:25

like, like

30:27

the mastery off

30:30

of everything. Again, unless you are

30:32

a brain surgeon or building bridges. Like

30:35

you don't have to master

30:37

your life and your time and because

30:39

when you're focused on mastering everything, mastering

30:42

your stuff, mastering your body,

30:44

mastering your calendar, you're not

30:46

really living. You're

30:50

distracted by honestly

30:53

this moving finish line that you're not gonna be

30:55

able to cross. Like,

30:58

cause that's

31:00

how the industry is built. Honestly, it's

31:02

75% of self

31:04

improvement people are repeat customers.

31:07

The industry dies. The industry

31:09

dies if we're like, you know what? I

31:11

don't need any more tools. I feel good

31:14

with what I've got. Let's just keep rolling.

31:16

This is fine. The industry dies. So

31:19

that- If we actually got our life together and

31:21

didn't need the self help books, the industry would

31:23

die because it's the same group of people. It's

31:26

the same group of people. And so that's

31:28

why they're telling you you're

31:30

still trying to get your life together. There

31:33

are different ways that it's sort

31:36

of structured and positioned and marketed

31:38

to say, you

31:41

need to get your life together. And

31:45

it's that idea of like, yeah, when you clean out your house,

31:49

when you put everything in your butt, you've got to recycle, you've

31:52

got to donate the things that donate. You need

31:54

to make sure that you're, like you're being irresponsible

31:56

if you're not A, B and C. And

31:59

that's not-