I Think I Need to Be Lazier

Welcome to Simple Productivity Blog! You may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. This will allow you to receive updates in your RSS reader every time new content is posted here. If you want to receive updates in your email, click on the envelope in the upper right corner, or use the "Subscribe" link below the blog title.

Please take some time to check out the content on the site. You may comment on any article by scrolling down and using the form at the bottom of all articles. Thanks for visiting!

My standard answer at work when people comment on my efficiency and output levels is that I am lazy. I don’t see this as a negative trait, because it means that I do a lot less churn work than others. I see laziness as a way to do things in the most efficient way possible, because I don’t want to waste my time in energy on something I don’t have to. It means I can use that time and energy (in theory, anyway) to do things I want to do.

It seems, however, that I haven’t been thorough about being lazy.

Over at Scott H Young » The Laziest Solution Possible, Scott talks about questions he asks himself.

1. Why am I doing this?
2. Why am I doing it this way?
3. What am I trying to get out of this?
4. Is this the best way to get this done?
5. What would happen if I didn’t do it at all?

I am pretty good at routinely asking myself #1, #3 and #4, but #2 has been tripping me up lately as deadlines got very tight, and I haven’t been asking myself #5 at all. These two missed questions are really holding me back, and I am conscious of doing a lot of busy work as a result.

Mark Forster, in Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management (aff), consistently asks, “Am I the one to do this?”. It’s not a question I ask often enough.

I think the upshot here is that I am not being lazy enough lately, and I really need to work at it.