Laziness to me means doing more of this and less of this.
I don't think laziness is necessarily a bad thing;
in some ways and small amounts, it could be kind of an act of self-love,
but sometimes you do need to actually get stuff done, and in those cases,
I find that three habits specifically enable me to be lazier in the future
and not put forward too much of a time and effort investment at the very beginning.
Of course, these three things and building habits in general does
require a bit of self-discipline to get it to become a habit,
but the nature of habits is that eventually they become automatic -
you don't have to think about them anymore -
and little to no effort is then required.
In the long run, this investment will enable you to be even more lazy,
and it will make you look like you're not lazy.
And it might be able to get you to do some things that
you've wanted to do for a while but just haven't
because you've been too lazy to do those things.
All right, you ready for this? Number one:
Number one is "consider cleanup to be part of the act."
This is probably the the biggest concept and the one that requires the most upfront effort,
but stick with me here - I swear to you, it's gonna be beneficial in the long run.
Let's say you've decided to make yourself a meal -
most likely, you're gonna take out the dishes, you're gonna cook something,
you're gonna eat, and then you might put the dishes in the dishwasher or in the sink,
and probably you'll clean them later, cuz you're lazy.
I beg to differ!
If you were to clean those now and make it all part of one continuous process,
like eating and making yourself food INCLUDES the cleanup,
it's actually gonna save you time in the long run,
and you're gonna be able to do more of this because eventually, if you want to cook again,
and all of your dishes are in the sink, it's gonna require more effort for you to
cook the next time, because there's gonna be an extra step added to the beginning.
You're gonna have to wash the dishes before you can even start to cook and eat.
Plus, you're gonna have to deal with any kind of stress
or self-consciousness of not having a clean kitchen at the same time,
and if the dishes stay dirty long enough, it's gonna take even longer for you to clean them,
because they're gonna be all crusty and gross.
So the small time investment up-front to create an entire
action of all of these five steps in the process -
that's gonna save you time in the long run.
Another example of this is putting your clothes in a hamper.
I know a lot of people who have messy rooms, messy apartments,
because they just put their clothes all over the place,
but literally it takes the same amount of effort to do this as it does to do this.
And when it comes time to do your laundry, if your clothes are already in the hamper,
you don't have to spend five minutes every week collecting all of your clothes,
putting them in the hamper, and then doing your laundry.
Five minutes every week - that's 52 weeks a year.
Four hours? More than four hours... four hours 20 minutes...
If you leave your clothes all over the place,
you are spending 4 hours and 20 minutes a year extra of doing this,
while I spend that 4 hours and 20 minutes doing this.
You tell me who's lazier.
Who spent 4 hours and 20 minutes MORE cleaning?
You.
So that little bit of effort upfront is just until you make it into a habit,
and then once it becomes a habit, it requires no effort,
and you can just think of things as a continual process from the beginning to the end,
including the cleanup.
The second habit is very similar to the first -
I like to call it "pairing."
It could also be considered multitasking.
And essentially, you have this thing that you
really love to do and you have this thing that you wish you did more of.
The thing that you wish you did more of doesn't have to be like, "I wish I ran 5 miles a day."
It doesn't have to have a number on it or a definitive unit of measurement on it -
it can just be "I wish I did more of that."
You also wish you did more of the thing that you love, I'd bet -
but why not pair those things together or find two things that could work together?
You will end up enjoying yourself, because you're doing more of thing that you enjoy, but
also you're gonna end up doing more of that thing that you feel like you should be doing more of.
If I'm really into an audiobook,
I will make sure that I don't listen to that audiobook unless I'm at the gym.
Or let's say you've always wanted to try meditation,
but you really are just too lazy to come up with a time.
Man, twice a day meditation, like 20 minutes twice a day?
I cannot. It's just...
But I do really like going to the sauna, so I can go to the sauna for 15 minutes
a day and try to meditate or at least clear my mind there,
because I don't have any electronics with me while I'm in the sauna.
So try to pair activities that you like to do, that you're going to do anyways,
or that you feel like you should be doing together,
and see if that works for you.
That's something that I've just started doing with myself lately.
The third and final habit that I would recommend
you picking up as a lazy person is learning to say "no" from the start.
Lots of times, I find myself saying "yes" to things,
or I find myself (even worse) saying "I don't know, maybe, we'll see,"
and I know that I'm not gonna want to do that thing.
I know that I'm signing up for something, or kind of signing up for something, that I - in the end -
I'm probably not interested in doing.
Do not over-book yourself. Do not say "yes" to things that you don't want to do.
Make sure that you have some free time for yourself to be lazy.
You know that that's something you'd like to do,
and then you won't need to spend all the time in between - saying, "yeah, maybe"
to saying, "ah, I actually can't"
- you don't need to spend that being stressed out.
You could just say "no" right from the start.
"No, sorry, can't do it." And then go about your day not feeling bad about it.
It's worse to be flaky than to just say "no" upfront.
And yeah, it might be a little uncomfortable to be like,
"I'm not really into that, no, I don't - I'm not gonna do that"
than to say, "well, maybe..."
but just rip the band-aid off, man!
Just say no!
And that's all I've got for you.
From one lazy person to another, I hope you find more time to do absolutely nothing with your life.
'til next time!
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