Truth is, things are pretty easy and straightforward — until you make them hard and complicated. –Jason Fried
I love this quote by Jason Fried, co-founder of 37signals. In an article called Driven to Distraction, Jason says that many people invent problems that don’t actually exist, and then spend all their time working hard trying to solve them. He goes on to suggest that the path to success is to focus only on the issues that are right in front of you, and ignore everything else–the future, your competition, and anything else that will distract you from the here and now.
Jason also points out that unappetizing laziness is how he came to this realization. Simply put, it is less work to ignore everything that isn’t right in front of your face, and in this case, taking the easier path is the right thing to do.
I think there is a lot to be learned from this. Too often, especially in the corporate world, we make things much more complicated than they need to be, and make terrible sacrifices in productivity and effectiveness as a result.
That said, sometimes it is necessary to do longer-term planning, to be prepared for what’s coming down the pipe. To avoid such planning complicating your day and causing you to lose focus on the here and now, try compartmentalizing the planning time, such as reserving it for the last Friday of each month.
Seeing laziness as a positive trait is not a unique concept; programmers will be familiar with how being lazy can lead to tighter, less bloated code. But laziness is not usually seen as a positive in the corporate world, to say the least. And of course, when it comes to actually getting the truly important work done, laziness won’t help you. But there is something to be said for laziness, in the sense of not expending energy where it is not required, as a means to boosting productivity.
Rather than look at this as laziness, I prefer to see it as one aspect of balance. Balance is important in almost every part of your corporate life, and this is no exception. The balance you are striving for here is between laser focus on current issues and challenges, and future thinking and planning. Strike the right balance, and it becomes much easier to remain productive. Because it is so easy to focus too much on the future rather than the present, you may need to over compensate, and be deliberate about planning your time, to avoid swinging too far off centre.
