How to be lazy

​How to be lazy

Why being lazy is good and benefits of laziness.

Whenever in my workshop, counseling or coaching session I ask the participants to list their top strengths and qualities, hardworking is always there.

How many of you reading this article have at least one of the following

1.Have stressors and stresses in life
2.Are pressed for time
3.Busy in firefighting while ignoring those areas that may later prove very expensive
4.Are not able to utilize your full potentials
5.Not getting the outcomes you are capable of in spite of working your tails-off
6.Not getting the recognition, the promotion, the growth, the success, the happiness, the quality of relationships
7.Feeling burnout, lethargic, foggy
8.Sick of rat-race
9.Not able to enjoy life

The causes could be your own definition of productivity, success and work imbibed from the societal and parental conditioning.

The solutions to most of these lies in choosing to be lazy several times every day, as a schedule.

When you practice proactive laziness, it can turn-out to be a real game-changer for you in creating a success story.

Multiple Studies have shown [you can also identify many examples of the people in your day to day life, as well] that the people who are by nature lazy but are capable/fit/skilled/aspiring for the role they are playing, actually are happier and seemingly having an easier life.

It has been proven through numerous big breakthrough incidents that, If capable and lazy people are given complex tasks/challenges, they always manage to find a path-breaking ingenious solutions, those are highly effective and uses minimum of resources.

But on the other hand, if someone is unwilling & not having any desire to grow in life, this type of passively lazy people are actually the big demotivators for others.

Laziness as a trait is different from laziness as an attitude.

The laziness as Attitude is a very bad thing and can create very negative and dangerous outcomes for the people having along with their families.

Some of the signs of Attitudinal Laziness[Most damaging] could be

1.You have No desire to work
2.You do not want to help others & neither care about others, even your near and dear ones
3.You Takes shortcuts to survive (instead of finding efficient ways with which to accomplish a task
4.You are not averse to bending situations, rules etc to gain what you want
5.Only pays attention to self-gratification
6.Wants to get rich quick without working for it

7. Letting go of opportunities, in spite of knowing that it would be beneficial for your life in many ways

8. Ignoring Health, not going for exercises, relaxations

9. You avoid learning and self development

10. Do not actively manage your finances, saving

11. Putting effort in making important relationships better

12. Sitting and hoping that situation would improve and blaming all and sundry, not taking action

Many times, there are physical, physiological, emotional, mental and psychological reasons for sudden onset of laziness. In teenager's cases, it can be because of rebellion to assert themselves.

Some of these causes of laziness, can be temporary and goes away, if and when these reasons are removed.

And yet in many cases people may need expert help to get over emotional and psychological issues.

Question is should we really feel bad about laziness.

The wrong notions and beliefs about Our obsession with being busy or lazy has created whole generation of people who wants everything fast and are bored very easily, they look for external ways to suppress or avoid experiencing the boredom, frustrations, pains etc.

Our society frowns upon laziness. We are a culture of go-getters, To-Do lists and managing time effectively.

How many times have you heard someone say, upon returning from a vacation, I am too tired after vacations.

This generation is suffering tremendously because of false mindset about happiness, success and life.

This life mantra for the millennial is YOLO [you only live once] and as a result thereof they get into FOMO [fear of missing out]*, which has been recognized as a psychological issue, see our article on this.

Many Multibillion-dollar industries have emerged to cripple and promote the attitudinal laziness like

A.Lose weight without exercise
B.Quick rich schemes
C.The apps that get you everything without you moving from your bed [in many instances literarily
D.Profession of Swami's, Gurus and Godmen, who dispense quick-fixes
E.List the ones you have experienced, heard or read about

It is proven that, for people to perform to their peak ability they need to experience a certain amount of arousal or anxiety.

Too little and they are bored and get careless, and too much means that stress impairs their performance.

Boredom and laziness should be used as a means to regain control over one's own body and one's own time.

Then most of are tired mentally as well as emotionally if not physically. As a society, we are chronically exhausted.

In our high-speed high-stress lives, we are constantly inundated with demands, obligations and commitments that we have forgotten what it means to relax and rest.

Benefits of Pro-Active Laziness

1.Many of the greatest inventions and discoveries from Archimedes to Newton to Einstein were done when they were either lazing around or dreaming in an so call mundane routine activities
2.Introspection would make you understand and know yourself better
3.Unless you get adrenaline flowing on by your days full of activities, Being Lazy Allows Your Body, Mind and soul To Relax And Rest
4.When you are lazy you can see the importance your most important goals and why you need to do them
5.By deliberately choosing to do nothing, you're creating space in your life for new possibilities
6.When you are lazy you can say no to activities and demand that for you are not worthwhile
7.It also provides you with opportunities to choose how you want to allocate and spend your time
8.Being Lazy Allows New Possibilities to Emerge
9.You can think over, sleep over and take better decisions
10.You can explore more options and create better and effective solutions to problems and challenges
11.You start understanding people & situations better
12.Your productivity increases as you only focus on doing the work that is absolutely essential on pareto principle
13.You are able to identify your real priorities
14.You generally avoid politics and gossips so your relationship with people are better
15.You normally are focused on continuous improvement and increasing the effectiveness
16.Because you left the job for the last moment, when you sit down to do it, you do it with great intensity and concentration
17.You avoid the perils of multi-tasking
18.By being lazy many of the stressors are not there in your life
19.Being lazy actually makes you think about deeper issues of life
20.You end up completing small yet imperative jobs because you put off a big one by being lazy
21.You get master in the art of simplifying tasks and life* read my article on simplifying
22.Sometimes problems solve themselves while you laze over them
23.You avoid reacting, you become adept in responding
24.It Helps You Eat and Sleep Better
25.It makes you more innovative
26.It Helps You Delegate Tasks, you become better leader
27.You live life as per your terms and not as per others

How to achieve the mindset for being an effective plus proactive lazy to create the life you want and live that life

1.Give full permission to yourself to be lazy, without guilt

2.Recognizing when you need to be lazy and when you need to fire on all your rocket engines
3.Reflect on how your lazy self can bring you to achieve more by doing less using the 80-20 Pareto principal
4.Understand that A rested person is actually more productive and happy one
5.Forget about the urge to be seen busy
6.Focus on being productive
7.Redefine productivity – create your own parameters of KPIs of excellence in every areas
8.Know to stop when you're no longer being productive
9.Know that it's okay to just spend quality time with people
10.Don't feel disappointed in yourself for having some fun
11.Stop obsessively planning for perfection
12.Take actions towards achieving more than repeatedly correcting
13.Choose to be smart worker rather than a hard worker
14.Enjoy nature, Allow yourself weekend lie-ins Take a long, slow walk outside
15.Simplify your life
16.Own less things, avoid anything that needs additional maintenance, efforts and time – distracting you away from your life goals
17.Let someone else do it, learn to delegate
18.Do things when they need doing – be in quadrant 2 and do those things that are important but not urgent, but if ignored for long can create crises

19.Unplug from technology, time to time

20.Use technology for increasing effectiveness

21.Learn to Take power nap

22.Avoid shopping, and shopping malls, and people who are shopping

How to Overcome Attitudinal Laziness

1.Get organized remove clutter
2.Become aware of that negative self-beating inner-talk
3.Jump out of bed in the morning
4.Set some achievable goals
5.Make a checklist of the desires, goals and motivations you want to move towards
6.Regularly revisit the importance and value of the problem or
7.Exercise
8.Pay attention to your wardrobe
9.Take action, Just begin
10.Break down your goal into small action steps that do not sound dreadful
11.Create your own internal pep talks and inspirational visualization*
12.Ask for help when you need it, get a mentor*
13.Enjoy the journey towards better attitude, Compliment yourself every step of the way
14.Learn to reward yourself for the very small things you complete or try
15.Realize that life is about trading costs and benefits
16.Don't give up22.Do a small part of what matters most first thing in your day
23.Ask yourself these motivating questions all the time you start blaming yourself

17. Bottom of Form

18. Your Desire to Do Nothing Is a Powerful Weapon

19. Know When to Cut Corners and when to full length

20. Never accept sloppiness from yourself

21. Do what is worthwhile by giving your 100%

A.How will my life look in 5 years if I just continue to stay on the same path as now?

B.How will life likely become worse for me and maybe even for the people around me?

24.Then ask yourself:

A.How will my life look in 1 year if I get started, stick with it and keep going with this change?

B.How will life improve not only for me but for the people that I love if I stick with it?

C.What would I work on if I only had 2 hours for work today?

D.If I had just 1 hour of free time today then how would I spend it?

25.Be OK with failing from time to time
26.Surround yourself with naturally enthusiastic, energetic and motivated people
27.Always Look for a quicker, more effective way of doing things

28.Focus on only the bare necessities – those 20% that gives you 80% results

29. Don't pretend to be busy

30. Learn to see the important details

31. Identify and internalize What do you lose if you don't respect the deadline

32. Accept that There's always going to be people smarter than you and people dumber than you

33.Believe If you want to accomplish uncommon things in your life, you need to live everyday of your life uncommonly. If you spend your day like everyone else, you will end up like everyone else. It's that simple.

34. Starting early allows you to stay competitive and become successful the easy way

35. KNOW where you want to be, not where you are

36. Understand the metrics required to get there

37. Pursue the success metrics that matter in the long run and go easy on the insignificant ones