How To Mix Laziness With Productivity To 10X Your Results.
Some days I’m freaking lazy. I’m supposed to be an expert on productivity according to the internet.
There’s this new-age obsession with squeezing every ounce out of your day. I’ve tried both hyper-productivity and being incredibly lazy. What I’ve found that works is a mixture of both.
It’s counter-intuitive because we’re led to believe that being lazy is bad.
You need laziness if you want to be productive.
If you’re never lazy, your mind will be pissed at you.
Productivity can overload the mind.
This is why you get headaches, brain fog and feel tired. Continually trying to get the most out of your day with no moments of laziness can do more harm than good.
Your mind is not going to give you periods of ‘flow’ and a clear head if you don’t let it be lazy once in a while.
“What society deems as laziness is actually food for your mind”
Laziness allows your mind to switch off or turn on auto-pilot mode for a bit.
Procrastination sparks creativity.
I rely on my mind to be creative and produce lots of content.
I experience writer’s block every now and then and I’ve found that it’s during moments where I haven’t allowed myself to be lazy.
Jumping on Facebook and procrastinating is how I come up with new ideas. My favorite activity to procrastinate with is watching talent show videos on Youtube. Many of these videos are quite emotional, and I then take what I feel, and unload it into my blogging.
If I didn’t procrastinate and sit on the couch for a while, I wouldn’t have the empty space I need to think of new ideas.
When my mind is loaded with habits and tasks I need to complete to meet society’s standard of productivity, I have no time to think.
Deep thinking is where I reflect on my life and the output of this time is more life lessons to share with all of you.
During times of laziness, my mind is mapping together all the experiences and information I’ve put inside of it and connecting the dots so to speak.
Don’t let the internet tell you being lazy is bad. In my case, laziness has led to creativity.
Productivity has gotten out of control.
I read a lot of self-improvement content.
By the end of each article, I feel myself suffering FOMO. I start to think about why I can’t have all the amazing, wonderful habits like cold showers.
Thoughts cross my mind like “You could reach more people if you had more energy. Maybe you should spend 30 mins a day making that green smoothie and eating organic blueberries.”
Productivity has gotten out of control.
Productivity and laziness don’t matter — what matters is your WHY
We’re now so wired to be more productive but what we’re missing is WHY?
You got more stuff done today but so what. What does that mean?
If you don’t know why you’re trying to be productive, then you’ll get left feeling empty. You’ll find yourself dropping ‘success habits’ because there will be no reason to keep them going.
Instead of ‘Keeping up with the Jones’s’ we now have ‘Keeping up with the Jones’s habits.’
There are now endless lists of habits that exist on websites like Quora and the vast majority of them won’t make you more productive.
What has helped me be more productive is ignoring laziness and productivity and focusing on my WHY.
I spend time trying to add more meaning to my life instead of trying to make more money, be more productive and avoid laziness.
The way I 10X my results is by doing tasks that make me feel like they mean something.
Meaning has increased my results not productivity.
Lazy times lead to hyper-productivity.
I had a period in my career where I was smashing my KPI’s and had spare time. Without deadlines, I took it easy. In that moment I felt lazy and I was.
Strangely enough, though, I was more productive during this period than ever before. I wrote more blog posts, did more housework and said yes to meeting more new people.
The time spent being lazy allowed me to reflect on my career and realize that I’d stopped growing. It was a hard conclusion to end up at and took a lot of downtime to come to terms with.
Once I did figure out the problem, I used productivity to try and change my circumstances.
I sent out 10+ resumes a day; cold-called recruiters; messaged hiring managers on LinkedIn — I did everything I could to begin growing again. The challenge with growth is that it usually leads to more rejection.
In my case, rejection became a daily thing and that’s why I needed time to be lazy. Being lazy during certain times of the week allowed me to recover from all the rejection which was sapping my energy and in some cases making me lazy.
“I committed the ultimate sin according to the productivity gods during this time: I watched a tv show called Master Chef. You’d think being lazy and watching tv would not be the answer, but it was”
It took my mind into a strange world I know nothing about called cooking. Learning about cooking not only helped me recover from all the rejection but it also helped me spend time with my girlfriend.
Life is about balance.
Some days you’ll feel lazy and other days you’ll be productive.
The trick is not to eliminate laziness but to take advantage of it. Allow yourself to be a fat ass once in a while and watch tv while eating brown rice crackers dipped in hummus.
You can’t always be on. Sometimes you have to be off.
Balance is how you win.
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