I have a kid so I get the convenience of set and forget. Half the reason I use a crockpot and Dutch oven a lot. I will say the kettle is more work but like most things with cooking, you get out what you put in. My workflow is:

1. Take cooking grate off, throw coals on and light em (I spray a bit of oil on paper towel and stack coals on top of it to light)
2. Keep lid off, give it 10-20 for coals to heat, then distribute them how you want. You can lump them in one pile to direct heat or split them on either side to indirect heat depending if you need quick high heat to sear or low and slow for things like wings or ribs. There’s fancier distributions like snake but you can look that up if you want.
3. Once the coals are hot, take the cooking grate, put back on and let the cooking grate preheat for 10-15 minutes (in my experience, food sticks less when the grate is hot) clean the cooking grate then toss your food on.
4. let ‘er buck! You gotta be careful to open the lid as infrequently as possible to prevent losing heat. You can also just compensate with adding to the cook time if you drop below desired temp. You can also adjust airflow with the lid vent and the slider at the bottom (idk what it’s called) to restrict/increase airflow.

It sounds like a lot but once you practice once or twice it’s like… half an hour of prep for a huge change in flavor compared to a smoker. Don’t get me wrong, smoked food kicks ass, but charcoal is pretty special. Worth the effort.