I am a lazy person. I do not say that seeking pity, or compassion, I say that because I have to acknowledge that fact, and I also need to acknowledge the fact I like being a lazy person and I strive to be lazier. It isn't hard to see the connotations associated with lazy people.
Lazywise.com has an article describing the seven negative impacts of laziness. Link for interested, my summary for the lazy:
Laziness is caused by a lack of interest in things or questioning our ability to be effective. It has caused us to become slow and lose motivation. this has multiple negative health effects. The seven long-term effects they include are:
Crushed dreams
Potential health problems
Potential health problems
Ruined relationships
Lack of career advancement
Loss of 'great' opportunities
Decreased self-confidence
Suffocation of ambition
Continued or progressive laziness, will result in the worsening of all these.
I 100% believe my laziness stems from a lack of interest or lack of knowledge on how to proceed. However, it is not very helpful in my opinion as a self-proclaimed lazy person, who has accomplished many dreams, to generalize laziness in this manner and thus I find this list to be very limited in their perspective of laziness or these results to be isolated to certain areas of laziness.
Further explanation: potential health problems of being lazy were associated with physical inactivity-- meaning obesity, diabetes, and depression. I have found in my profession that some of the most physically active people I know still struggle with these health issues. Some of that stems from inefficiency, and of lack of honesty with themselves about what they are doing. but to place a label: you are sick because you are lazy does not inspire improvement. As a society we've been there we've tried that, and we've hurt people with it.
Another, slightly more forgiving perspective on the effects of laziness, can be found on reference.com. Once again, link to the article or for the lazy my summary:
Laziness limits important tasks from being completed. This can have detrimental effects on people. Intermittent laziness is actually a needed thing to help recover and revive to keep going. The risk is when laziness becomes a lifestyle. And they offer links to other websites that can help combat this lazy lifestyle.
This article hones in on the value of needed rests, of making sure you actually have enough energy to accomplish goals, maintain your ambition, and find new opportunities. Thus Laziness can be an asset. Nesslabs.com shares its take on the positive impacts of laziness. As before: Link to the article or my summary for the lazy
Noting that laziness or slothfulness is a sin as old as the bible, with multiple demeaning titles, we can see in nature there are various types of laziness. And it is
valuable to remember that the more effective predators are at a task the more perceived free time or 'laziness' they also have. therefore lazy ness may be the
result of being effective and efficient. A shared quote:
“Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”
— Robert A. Heinlein, aeronautical engineer, Naval officer, and science-fiction author
Nesslabs also urges us to remember that there are two sides to a coin. so they highlight 10 good things that have come from laziness:
New solutions
Enhanced active procrastination
Improved focus on meaningful activities
Stress management
Decreased burn out
Diffuse thinking
Recharging
Loss of wasted work
Change from the status quo
These are the things I would like to improve--- the ability to decrease or take on meaningless or ineffective tasks so I can highlight the ones that mean something to me so I can keep working totowardy goals and make my dreams a reality.
I know that everyone's path to being lazy isn't the same, and choosing where and when you will be lazy is essential.
1- Delegate mechanical recurrent tasks-- or automate them.
The caveat however is set up can take some time, and deciding which ones are appropriate. An excellent example for me is vacuuming-- or sweeping depends on the floor type. It may be frivolous in my house that I have robot vacuums on every level, and they are programmed to vacuum daily at 11:00 am. But having to move the vacuum from floor to floor was what caused me to avoid vacuuming, followed by having to move all the chairs, ETC.
So vacuums on each floor only answered one of the roadblocks. Robot vacuums are smaller and go under furniture. It has taken time to learn how to position my dining room chairs to allow the vacuum to navigate through.
and this isn't a perfect system, I still come home and find my vacuums stuck on random cords, socks, or balls, and they run out of battery before they finish-- that is why I have them run daily-- there is no way I would ever vacuum daily but I would likely try to vacuum some consistently. These robots provide that. In a future post I'll tell about the pros and cons to the vacuums I have tried. I am not a product tester, but I do have real-life exposure to them.
2- Trust experts and Use experts
Can I create my own exercises aerobic and resistance training? Yes
Will I properly track it? No
Will I talk myself out of certain lifts and resistance increases? Yes
Should I expect to see the results I want if I am not properly increasing my resistance, and measuring my heart rate? No, therefore to allow myself the time to exercise, I allow someone else to create and track my efforts. Are my results as fast as I would like? No, but I still have that record to help me see what I have accomplished and serve as a motivation to continue, and that is more positive than the guilt I would feel of otherwise wasting money on a service I don't use.
What I will say is when using an expert, you get what you pay for. so this can be hard, and may be hard to afford so it may be a once-a-month check-in. the other side is even if I pay for this service if I don't trust them enough to do as they direct-- if I don't trust them it doesn't benefit me. So research, and decide what you can and can't afford to allow you to make your gains.
3- Prioritize the parts of the activity that are the most meaningful to you.
Or the parts that you feel are the most valuable to teach others. I love to cook. However my goal of feeding my family well-balanced and affordable meals was overtaking my time and energy so I wasn't cooking, I was shopping, throwing food away, and still not eating healthy foods.
So, for me, by removing the planning and shopping part I could focus on the prepping and cooking part, the part I love, the part I ask my kids to help. Yes, we still plan an elaborate meal at least annually for thanksgiving. I use a meal planning app in combination with grocery delivery. I do not use a meal prep service because I was losing what I perceived to be a valuable and meaningful part of healthy eating for my kids-- to see what real food looks like in its natural state and to learn how to prep it and not be afraid of it. this allows me to spend more time directly with my children, and help teach them life skills while still allowing me time to rest and enjoy dinner.
4- Consistency
This mostly focuses on work, With documentation, with my physical assessment, my communication. It has taken time to find a pattern of questions that will get the information I need, allow patients to feel heard, remember everything we did and talked about, and then document it. Templates help, but having a daily pattern in place so that every day I'm not making a new plan for approach decreases my thinking time, and saves brain effort so I can ask and focus on the hard questions.
5- Memory offloading
I think I coined that term, but if not I'll still explain my meaning. Quite frankly I can't tell you what I have planned for this weekend. I know my husband and I made plans, and I put them in my calendar and have forgotten them but if someone asks me 'do ya wanna or can you....." I pull out my calendar and I know what is happening. one trick I have found is I put annual events in my calendar the minute I know about them-- I have events for years out, when my license expires, when my roof may need to be repaired what trips I have wither planned or penciled in. on the flip side I keep another app what needs to be done, when it was last done and when it should be done again-- this is cleaning what was cleaned, what needs to be cleaned so I know where should be the most effective to use my efforts.
And there you have it: my 5-step approach to being lazy. or rather tricks that you can play with to help keep your life on focus, pick tasks or skills to offload, prioritize, and get experts, it takes time to establish these and I am still looking for more. as I find them I'll reevaluate my current state of laziness and see how I can become more lazy. until then....
Why not try the LAY WAY
Referenced Websites:
What Are the Effects of Laziness? By staff writer on March 2020
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