Mice, Antelopes and the To Do List

Posted on September 20, 2007 by LJ Earnest
Categories: Productivity

This week is Laziness Week at SimpleProductivityBlog. I am off being lazy, and taking advantage of the post-ahead features of this blog.

Eating Antelopes or Lots of Mice?

An article over at Lifehack caught my imagination. The article describes how, as a wolf, if we were to spend our days chasing mice, we would expend a huge amount of energy, and still starve to death. But if we pursue one antelope, we will eat like kings.

How much of our days are spent chasing after the mice in our lives? Crossing a bunch of little stuff off our list that is unimportant in the big picture doesn’t get us anywhere. Spending the time and energy to bring down the big project pays off in the long run.

Why catching antelopes is actually more lazy than catching mice

Taken from a laziness perspective, I only want to expend as much energy as necessary to accomplish the task. In this case, let’s say that it takes 5% of the energy to catch a mouse as it does an antelope. But at the same time, let’s say that in order to survive, I must capture 100 mice. I would end up spending a lot more energy in the long run to get those mice rather than an antelope. Being lazy, I would put in the effort to chase down the one antelope, and leave the mice alone.

Is It Laziness? Or Effectiveness?

The secret lies in knowing what to tackle, and what to leave alone. It’s easy to see on paper that the task with the highest payoff is the one to accomplish, but still we fritter away our time on the unimportant little tasks because they don’t require much initial energy or thought. But in the end we are no further along.

Do you want to spend your life on the unimportant busy work? Or the important stuff?