Doing Laziness Right
The Oxford English dictionary, defines laziness as, “Unwilling to work or to be active;
doing as little as possible.” this single definition… has single handedly
been used by a myriad of parents throughout the years to attack their lazy sons and daughters
and I’m sure you have heard a couple of these… “Lazy people don’t become successful”,
“Work hard and become a leader; be lazy and never succeed”,
“A lazy person, with all the talents, will never succeed a hard working person”,
“Be more like your sister, she’s a hard worker”
“Offer the lazy an egg, and they’ll want you to peel it for them…” just to mention
a few. You probably get the gist of the whole construct
of laziness from the quotes above; essentially, anyone who practices laziness has condemned
themselves to a life of mediocrity and as a result, they will never be successful. And of course, they cannot do anything for
themselves and inherently leech on everyone else around them. You know, like the guy in high school who
for some reason never did his homework and would always copy someone else’s work. However, in today’s video, we would like
to look at both sides of the coin that is laziness; how is laziness bad? Is there an acceptable, even necessary, type
of laziness? What exactly is creative/strategic laziness? Why Laziness is frowned upon
Let’s start off here; why is there a negative connotation attached to the word laziness? Why is laziness viewed as a bad thing? Why do most people believe that laziness is
on the opposite end of success? The story of Tony, the lazy mechanic could
explain this. Tony inherited his father’s car repairs
shop, where he works as a mechanic. His customers, family and friends have labeled
him Tony the Lazy Mechanic because of how often and how lengthy his bouts of laziness
are. He prefers to play video games and watch TV
instead of repairing his customers’ cars. This is not to say that he doesn’t do the
repairs; he just does it in his own pace and time, which means he puts in as minimal effort
as possible in order to get the job done… Tony’s habits have placed him solidly in
the list of the stereotypical lazy; he does the bare minimum to stay alive; he spends
most of his days stuck in front of the TV, which could have been a good thing if he was
an acclaimed movie critic or a professional gamer, but he is not. He is a procrastinator, he doesn’t keep
his word and the label he carries around doesn’t necessarily help matters. Here’s why being as lazy as Tony is not
a good thing; First, laziness leads to procrastination. Every moment that Tony picks up his game pad
to beat one more levels at a game he is obsessing over is time that could have been used to
perform his duties. When you postpone a task because you are unwilling
to work and want to do as little as possible at the moment, you aren’t really taking
it out of the picture. You are just simply pushing it forward and
the end result will be either the poor performance of the task you were supposed to do or a complete
non-performance. This procrastination leads to a lack of reliance
on you as a person and on the duties that you are tasked to perform. Seeing as he was raised in a mechanic shop
and apprenticed under his dad, Tony does have the skills to perform his duties. However, his lazy habits have made him unreliable
as a friend, family member and a mechanic. Customers cannot be assured that they will
get their repaired cars in time; and even if they do, the repairs may have been done
in a shoddy manner. His friends cannot be assured that he will
pick them over his video games, should they need help from him. Similarly, his family cannot be assured that
he will provide for them because the business, which is their primary source of income, is
not doing very well due to his laziness. Third, is the fact that laziness has a negative
impact on your health. Sitting on the couch and lying in bed for
long times is unhealthy for you, and can lead to cardiovascular conditions such as coronary
heart disease. Heart problems are usually as a result of
the weight one gains when they do not expend any physical effort. Depression, back pains and diabetes are other
health risk factors associated with laziness. Just ask Tony about his back. It has been said that practice makes perfect,
and the truth of this statement can be found in the fact laziness begets laziness. Therefore, on top of the health risks, unreliability
and procrastination that are borne of laziness, there is the risk of being really good at
it that it becomes difficult to pull yourself out of it, should you be inspired to do so. You probably don’t think much of Tony the
Mechanic at this point. It is only fair then that I mention that he
doesn’t like the ‘Lazy Mechanic label much. Sometimes, he genuinely does want to pull
himself up by his bootstraps and ditch all his lazy habits for good ones. Instead, he finds himself pulled back to the
lazy habits as he has practiced over the years and is now a pro at. This is not to say that it is impossible for
Tony to stop being lazy; it just would take a lot of conscious, deliberate effort and
time in order for him to manage to free himself of this vice. Finally, and even more concerning, is the
effect that laziness has on your mind. When you are constantly lazy, your mind becomes
weak as it is used to making the easy choice to just sit back and do nothing. Therefore, after a long period of practicing
laziness, you will find that your motivation to do things is short-lived, even when the
potential benefits are great. You will find it easier to remain in the same
stagnant position than to do anything to change the status quo. If you think that you fall into the same category
of laziness as Tony here, check out the next video in this series where we will be talking
about How to Stop Being Lazy. For now, let us look at the other side of
the coin that is laziness. What exactly is Strategic Laziness? Watching TV like Tony the mechanic is not
a bad thing, neither is playing video games. In fact, spending a whole day switching through
distractions like the TV, your mobile phone and video games can be a healthy thing. But this is only possible if you are creative
and strategic with this laziness. Laziness is a lost art. Long hours of hard and perfect work seem to
be the current standard for success. If you spend your weekend bingeing a TV show
instead of carrying your work home, it is strange. If you don’t aim for perfection in the office,
you are not performing optimally. As such, any type of laziness practiced by
a person is frowned upon and viewed as a negative thing. Have you heard of the Pareto’s Principle? No? Yes? Essentially, this principle it states that
80% of the effect in a situation usually comes from 20% of the effort expended. Strategic laziness demands that you identify
the tasks that are of high importance to you, expend all the necessary effort you need to
effectively complete the said tasks and then spend the rest of the day doing whatever you
like. The trick here is in separating the tasks
that drain us of energy without helping us achieve the results we want and the tasks
that could demand a lot of our attention and energy but would give us the most results. Catherine is a master pro at to-do lists. She may not be a minimalist in her life; in
fact, she does a little hoarding on the side, but her to-do lists are usually as minimal
as it gets. The question she asks before putting down
a word on her to-do list is whether the task is needed. Most of us are bombarded by never-ending daily
to-do lists that contain tasks you might not really need to do. This usually results in either burning out
after a day of doing everything and anything, or in absolute laziness, because we are afraid
of confronting the tasks. Be like Catherine; make your to-do list as
short as possible. “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning
and nothing worse will happen to you all day.” Mark Twain probably said this in jest, but
behind the funny words is a golden rule for those looking to be strategically lazy. Brian Tracy, in his book ‘Eat the Frog!’,
talks about how you should confront your hardest and most time-consuming task first thing in
the morning, and the rest will be pretty easy. When you eat that frog in the morning, you
are also less likely to procrastinate and be lazy as a result. However, when you start with your simplest
and least-effort tasks, the frog seems scarier to eat as you think about it. Strategic laziness also calls for you to have
breaks as you go through your day in order to recharge and to maintain your productivity
at optimal level. When she is working, Catherine takes a 30-minute
break every two hours to look at her Twitter and to play a game on her phone. To an observer outside, 30 minutes every two
hours is a waste of time and, possibly, lazy. However, these guilt-free breaks that Catherine
takes enable her to slow her active brain down and let her subconscious do the crunching
for a bit while she gets distracted. Furthermore, since it is scheduled in, the
guilt that she would have experienced if she was looking at her phone as a distraction
is absent. Finally, and this is an important aspect of
strategic laziness, one should schedule in some free time in a week to just bask in the
glow that is laziness. For Steve, weekends are sacred. He has a pretty tight schedule during the
week, but when the weekend rolls through, he only allows himself to socialize with his
loved ones, kick back and watch some football, and sometimes, just sleep. His boss sometimes feels that Steve is too
strict with his weekends and could maybe pick up calls from the person that pays him, even
during the weekend. To that, Steve simply responds, “I could
pick your calls and do some heavily-distracted probably substandard work during the weekend,
then not perform optimally during the week. Or, alternatively, I could do an excellent
job during the week – which I am doing – and then not have you bother me when I am bingeing
on Netflix.” The rule of enjoying laziness in your free
time is being productive when you don’t have the free time. Unwinding can only happen when someone is
wound; not when they have spent their entire week on the couch, unproductive, and are now
scheduling another week or three of free time. That’s just being Tony-lazy. In conclusion;
Laziness is not about its negatives alone; even though there is a bad type of laziness. Planned, or rather, earned laziness is beneficial
to you as it allows you to rest, plan and be creative while your mind is wound down. However, at Practical Wisdom we also appreciate
that strategic laziness is not exactly something you can start out of nowhere, especially if
you are Tony-lazy. In the next video in this series, we talk
about getting out of the laziness muddle you are in and making the best of your time.
