Laziness Drives All Progress

Laziness is the impulse to avoid work and this admirable attribute drives all progress in civilization. However, instead of being celebrated as it should be, laziness is reviled. Tragically, throughout one’s schooling and continuing through one’s professional career, a person who happens to be blessed with the glorious God-given asset of laziness is brow-beaten and insulted by parents, teachers, and employers to forsake it.

Teachers et al fail to appreciate that laziness is responsible for most of humanity’s advances. Let’s face it: the guy who invented the sail was fed up with rowing. The first soul to hop on the back of a horse was too lazy to walk any more. Every major progressive step in society was driven by someone trying to get out of doing any work. Each knew, deep down, that there is always an easier, faster, cheaper, safer, better way of accomplishing a task and that hard work is completely and utterly unnecessary, besides being a monumental waste of life.

So instead of culturing a population of creative, inventive, artistic, peaceful souls who are blissfully basking in their laziness, guiltlessly avoiding all work, and reaping enormous financial, emotional, spiritual, and healthful fruits as a result, our collective mindset has produced a society of superficial, stress-out, unfulfilled hard workers, who achieve little more than a pittance in their lifetimes and then die young.

You do not achieve breathtatking results by working long and hard. The true secret of success lies in leveraging/multiplying power and effectiveness. When that happens, it takes less effort to accomplish more.

Here’s the good news. There are easy ways to multiply the power of all your resources – your energy, your time, your skills, your brain power, your passion, your money, etc. You just need to know where and how to look for them. And, of course, you need to take the time to look.

Unfortunately people have bought into the concept of hard work so completely, they are blinded by it and they have sold their souls for skimpy paychecks instead of looking for better, easier, lazier ways that are many times more lucrative. It’s sad because it is so preventable.

Hard work is a superficial approach. And superficial approaches are always weak and ineffectual.

Hard work is just not necessary. There is ALWAYS an easier, more effective way of accomplishing the same thing. If you are working hard, it means you aren’t using your intelligence or creativity to find the “lever” that takes the work out of a task. Those who are motivated by laziness take the time to find that lever and therefore avoid the short-term and long-term misery of hard work. As a bonus, as if avoiding work was not reward enough, they also get rich.

www.lazyway.net

Comments

[Koorosh Vahabi]

Dear Fred...

Its wierd how signs and symbols come into your life just when you need them.

They come through unlikely places (like your blog), we need only open our eyes...and see.

I am currently running for Student Council in my university.

All the other candidates are losing sleep and trying really hard to get votes.

I on the other hand, am a lot more relaxed.

My attitude is, "I want it, but I dont need it."

This laid back attitude is getting me more votes than all the other candidates who are spending huge sums of money on over-sized banners and posters.

People are actually approaching me, instead of me "going out there and campaigning."

The other candidates are not only doing doing unnecessary hard work but also selling their souls by some of their "Kill or be killed" tactics.

What a difference our attitude makes.

I present this as proof that the "LAZY WAY" works.

Peace

[Spoonman]

How so very true. I personally got into the IT gig simply because I'm lazy and don't want to work very hard. I view my job as being all about not only reducing my workload, but that of everyone in the company. My mantra is, "Show me an IT guy who's consistently working more than 40 hours/week and I'll show you a guy who needs to be replaced with a small script."

One big drawback to your theory, though. In order to cultivate the right type of lazy people, they also need to have some intelligence to help come up with real solutions. Most people are barely intelligent enough to get their shoes tied in the morning, let alone be trusted to come up with efficient solutions. They end up just slacking off and producing no results at all.

[steve]

Hi Fred,

I enjoyed your post on laziness drives all progress and was particularly interested in the phrase "there are easy ways to multiply the power of all your resources." Can you provide an example?

[Alexander Kjerulf]

Spoonman: Your "replace him with a small script" mantra just made my morning. Thank you!

Fred: Having a past in IT myself, I can attest to the fact that creative laziness has been my key to success in that business.

When coding a solution, I found time and again, that if it felt like work, I hadn't yet found the right solution. Once the right solution came, the process became:
a) Much more fun
b) Much faster
c) Much more efficient

[Avi Solomon]

Bill Gates has gotten many a company-saving idea on his regular "thinkweeks"!:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1556075,00.asp

[MikeS]

"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."
Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love -- US science fiction author (1907 - 1988)

[LazyLeader]

I agree 100%.

I started thinking seriously this way about 2 or 3 years ago -- after all something had to drive my own success, and it's certainly not a philosophy of working hard (other than when I had to because impending deadlines and doom would otherwise get in the way of my naturally lazy self).

I tried writing about it. Too boring, I started blogging on it, did it all wrong (the hard way) and recently started afresh blogging on it again at http://lazyleaders.blogspot.com. I've certainly enjoyed reading your site so much I'm going to link back from mine. Of course given my three subscribers so far I won't exactly be pushing you out on the super highway, but hey, let's get the message out there -- laziness matters.

This is equally as relevant for managers and leaders in business with Gen-Y as it is with politicians.

[Thomas Tunstall]

The new economy increasingly automates not only manufacturing, but also the provision of services. The machines do more of the routine work for us. This has huge implications for management styles. The decisions by managers and executives now propogate far and wide - mistakes or bad judgment can be costly. Serious enough lapses can even take down an entire organization. Pausing long enough to make prudent, smart decisions counts for more than a simple-minded bias toward action. If being reflective and thoughtful means being lazy, then I'm for being lazy.

[Todd]

It’s amazing how much can be attributed to being lazy, but on the other hand so much is because of being determined. It certainly wasn’t lazy men who made the rocket to the moon. That wouldn’t allow them to really be any lazier when they were finished.

I don’t think the Wright brothers dreamed of these huge airplanes that we have today, even if they did the groundbreaking work that makes them possible and can be a ‘cause’ of laziness. (Tired of walking/driving/riding a donkey/whatever)

So while laziness does a lot of good, many inventions are sprung from more than simply just that. It could be the thirst for discovery or adventure or perhaps an unending curiosity driving some inventions.

That’s my two cents, kind of a bit for a discussion on lazyness.

[marc]

I disagree completely. Laziness does not drive progress. The sense of discovery, determination, and the challenge of reaching your goals drive progress. The light bulb was not invented because someone is lazy, otherwise Edison would have simply give up after thousands of tries. DNA resequencing is not the product of laziness. Its the product of challenging yourself, and reaching a limit and threshould, and breaking that limit and threshold. Laziness does not equate to progress. It only produces people who think in short terms, and the "I want it know" attitude", when most progress requires determination and looking into the long-term.

[Ivar Anshirk]

Hi,

I am referring to the blog piece titled "Laziness drives all progress". Interesting article. Though I am inclined to agree, I think you are missing one important point in that, it perhaps took a lot of hardwork to accomplish the development of a sail and the motor and so on...I suspect the driving force has more to do with the removal of drudgery and the quest for more wealth (faster, higher and more..). I used to have a signature that might summarize this view - "We work harder to make our lives easier" - which is what most professionals in science and business are doing these days.
I am one of those perenially lazy persons and I hope that there is an utopic view of laziness - please let me know if there is.
Thanks
Regards
Ivar

Bunch of Crap. Anyone who succeeds with laziness either is a trust fund kid or has been very lucky. And anyone who is reading this is lazy for reading this blog anyways, probably typed in LAZY in google to look for a way to validate their laziness, like myself. Laziness causes no results, its all about creative, intelligent hard work.

[Keith]

Fred, I finished your book this weekend. I plowed through it over the course of two days (or so). For years, I've been proclaiming to people that laziness is one of my primary motivations. They laugh at that as if to say, "You can't be serious." I'm continually searching for ways to build things to take care of mundane tasks at the push of a button, even if button pushing is work in and of itself. For me, the punchline of "Lazy Way" came at the end, when I realized I was reading TM commercial. Alas... I live in a small house with my wife and two young children. Even if I could afford the $2,500 for the personal training, finding 20 minutes in a quiet place alone even once a day is, for me, wishful thinking for the moment. If I hang a hammock at the office where I (ahem) work, that's bound to raise some eyebrows. I might have to go ahead and start there.

[Fred Gratzon]

In my opinion, it is not exactly correct to say that my book is a TM commercial. In the appendix, I discuss my personal experience with TM but I definitely don't push it on anyone. It is buried in the appendix after all. The principles of my book stand on their own without involving TM. I just think TM is way cool and I wanted to show how the practice of it was consistent with the principles of my book.

To answer your issues, over the years I have become quite creative in making the time and finding places to meditate. There is always the parked car, library, church, etc. Personally, I love it and heartily recommend it. Whatever investment in money you make to learn it or investment in time to do it pays off many many fold in terms of finance, health, happiness, and insight. It certainly has for me.

In any case, all the best to you. Thanks for writing.

[AJ]

I have to say that I agree with Ivar and marc. Fred is once again misusing the word laziness. Working smarter is not laziness. Laziness true sense of the word means doing nothing productive because well um your just too lazy.

I suffer from laziness and have not made any real money in the last 10 years because of it.

[Keith]

Fred, I did neglect to mention that I love your book and agree completely with your point of view. Perhaps the fact that the TM reference is buried in the appendix influenced my interpretation. Perhaps I'm just envious because you're obviously far more self-actualized than I am. Laziness and envy: what a formidable combination. Incidentally, I've been hearing TM being mentioned for a while now from a variety of sources, including Howard Stern, who often speaks about it on his show. I have no doubt we could all benefit from the undertaking, but for most, $2,500 is a stiff price, particularly for those caught up in the paycheck-to-paycheck grind. Maybe a little community outreach...

[Fred Gratzon]

Compared to the extraordinary benefits that TM delivered me for all aspects of my life -- health, mental, emotional, financial, social, and spiritual, the course fee is negligible. Even just on the financial level, the return on investment has been mind-bogglingly enormous. I would not trade my TM practice for anything. It has without a doubt added more years to my life and more life to my years.

[prince]

how to remove my leziness in my life please guide me.

[prince]

how to remove my laziness in my life.

[Mayo]

Fred,
I think you should use more the term Creative Intelligence than just simply Laziness.
What you are basically talking about is the Creative process of making things simpler. Like the people who Design (the Creators, Ideators, Hackers) software we use on the daily basis.
All others, let's say for example software Programmers who work FOR Creators are basically there FOR THE MONEY (well not happily everyone, but most of them)!
The average programmer working for the money is so miserable that he is nothing else but a DRONE (like drones in Star Trek), a mindless being like Spoonman posted ( all you need is a script)! :)

Oh, Prince, you can't remove laziness, you can only focus it on something you like and can live from (if you can live from watching TV, if you could live from that you would be my IDOL :)

Ciaos

[David]

Hello.
I think it could be viewed in a "creative thinking approach to life". I'll explain myself.
In every problem solving issue there is a creative phase (brainstorming) where we try to find more and more solutions, and a restrictive phase in wich we try to find the better of these solutions and refine it, should it be a management issue or a new product. Intelligent hard-work is in this phase: to refine a good idea so that our work as a whole will take less time and will give more gains.
So, creativity can be viewed as a financial investment, and no one can say that capitalists and entrepreneurs are slave hard-workers... they are intelligent people wich doesn't work for work or for duty, but for theyr own fulfillment or for passion.
They seek less work and more money in the long run, so by a strict "work ethics" point of view they are lazy men... :-)
Talking seriously, I've always made a distinction between "My work" and "My job". My job is everyday stress to gain money for food and life, My work is the road to My personal fulfillment, wich takes also stress to be accomplished, but not as a main component. The main component is creativity and thinking for My (or society) good, (wich is also having more rest time), not for the good of the "Work-God" worshiped in many corporations and workplaces.

[Eileen]

Laziness not only drives but is also the eward for progress. You want to get rid of an onerous task, so what do you do? Write a script that does it for you, and you should do less in the future. However, you still need to be industrious enough to make that script, or device, or whatever will make your life lazier. That's why I often decide to just be purely lazy and do nothing at all.

[Jack's Customized Fat Loss]

well in some ways it may drive progress but not for those people who are too lazy to move

- Jack Leak

[Kevi Naleo Mor]

Well, I thought I was the only one....Nothing excites me anymore and here I met you yipee