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“but I do yoga, and every time I’m in a balance pose, I think about how much work balance is. It’s constant attention, and you have to keep shifting to find it.”
When a person procrastinates, it’s typically because they’re paralyzed in some way: by anxiety, by confusion about how to get started on a big, complicated project, or both.
Though these “lazy” behaviors have been demonized for centuries, there’s actually nothing evil or damaging about them. Slacking off is a normal part of life; people require idle time in order to remain clearheaded and healthy. Feelings of laziness are also a powerful internal alarm signaling to us that we need additional help, more breaks, or reduced demands. By listening to this laziness, we can better understand our needs and construct lives that are truly worth living.
Psychologists who study creativity are often very interested in these big “aha” moments and have put a lot of effort into studying what a person can do to promote them. It turns out that laziness is one of the most effective steps to getting there.
Moments of insight and creativity don’t come by trying to force them—they require a period of mental inactivity.29 Good ideas often come to us when we’ve stopped trying to come up with them, such as when we’re in the shower or on a leisurely walk. While it seems like these ideas have come out of nowhere, the truth is that our minds have been quietly and unconsciously developing them during our downtime. Psychologists call this productive downtime the “incubation period.” Like an egg that must be kept warm and safe in order to develop into a healthy chick, the creative parts of our minds
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Lin-Manuel Miranda, the writer and star of the musical Hamilton, famously came up with the concept for the show while reading a history book on vacation with his wife.32 He didn’t go on vacation hoping to come up with a concept for a new musical; he was just trying to find a way to relax after seven nonstop years of performing in his show In the Heights. Yet the moment he had time to truly recharge, he arrived at a creative breakthrough that changed his life forever.
When we give our lives space for slowness, relaxation, and doing “nothing,” we can begin to heal some of our greatest wounds and to create lives for ourselves that are nourishing rather than exhausting.
Meditation is the most important place to start because it’s not intended to solve any problems.
The typical workday is structured around the expectation that a person should be able to sit down and churn out results for eight hours or more, despite overwhelming evidence that this is unrealistic.
Thanks to the development of digital work tools, the pressure to be available and useful to an employer at any time of day has only grown, and our shared sense of exhaustion and burnout has gotten more and more intense.
“gig economy,” the pressure to fill even our spare moments with additional labor and “side hustles” has expanded our workloads even more.
What happens when we work more than forty hours per week? We get very stressed-out, but we don’t get a whole lot more done. The more a person works past that forty-hour limit, the less efficient and accurate they seem to be at their job. Past the fifty-hour point, a person’s productivity declines very sharply; past the fifty-five-hour point, and a person is so unproductive and tired that they might as well not be at work at all.
Attention fluctuates naturally because the human brain is constantly scanning the environment for new information, potential threats, opportunities for social contact, and
Even when we’re intently working on something, part of our attention is tracking our surroundings, ready to interrupt us if any distractions or threats happen to pop up.42 Our attention is less like a laser beam (which can be pointed at any single specific point we desire) and more like a rotating lighthouse lantern, temporarily bathing individual rocks
Burning out is like going from seeing the world in color to seeing it only in black and white.
When we burn out, we stop being able to feel our emotions as intensely, and may even experience pain and hunger less strongly, making it even harder to remember to be kind to ourselves. In addition, burned-out people also have a reduced ability to recognize emotions in other people, which means that they can’t connect as readily with their family and friends.59 This worsens their social isolation.
Even after a burned-out person leaves the situation that caused them to burn out, they may remain emotionally detached...
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When am I most in my element? What doesn’t bring me alive? What feels dreadful? What do I find inexhaustibly fascinating? When have I been most happy? Who are the people I want to work with? What do I need to be physically well?
The traditional workplace is fundamentally broken in many ways. In order to thrive, we have to detach from mainstream, moralistic expectations of how we should be spending our time.
Advocate for Your Autonomy Focus on Quality, Not Hours Spent at Work Break the Work-Life Interference Loop These pieces of advice are designed
“Isn’t writing your book more important to you, in terms of your long-term goals and where you want to be in your life?” he asked. “Would you rather have this book be the best thing it can be, or would you rather be caught up on every single random e-mail every day?”
Achievements are fleeting things. They can never bring us true satisfaction. As soon as you’ve crossed the finish line and collected the trophy, the joy of running the race is over.
There is no victory great enough to overcome the dictates of the Laziness Lie. In fact, the Lie tells us that we must never be satisfied; we must keep running after new opportunities again and again, no matter how many victories lie behind us. In this way, being achievement-obsessed actually makes life less rewarding and
We can do more than just be not depressed; we can study what makes a person truly happy, what makes a person feel like their life is beautiful, that it has meaning. We can maximize the good things, not just downplay the bad.”
In Fred’s work, finding joy and meaning all comes down to “savoring.” Savoring is the process of deeply and presently enjoying a positive experience.
It occurs at three time points: first, when anticipating an upcoming an event with excitement and optimism; then, when fully appreciating the positive moment as it’s happening; and finally, when looking back on the experience...
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Another way to curb an achievement obsession is to consciously find time to experience awe. Awe occurs when we encounter something completely new or deeply inspiring, such as a sparkling, blue sea, a rich, green forest, or an amazing vocal performance at a concert.20 Awe reminds us of the universe’s largeness and our own smallness, in a way that feels exhilarating and soothing rather than threatening.
Studies found that, generally, the more news a person watched or read, the more fearful they felt, and the more dangerous they perceived their surroundings to be, regardless of how safe or unsafe their actual communities were.
It’s sustaining and self-protective to know our limits. It helps us reorient toward our true priorities.
The absolute best way to combat the urge to overconsume information is to get comfortable with not knowing everything. In a world poisoned by the Laziness Lie, the pressure to constantly improve ourselves is immense.
“Comment culture” has taught us to speak more than we listen, to form an opinion based only on a headline, and to rush into conversations when we lack relevant expertise.
Riley spent years silently suffering through what researchers call the “second shift”: the hours of cleaning and tidying that women typically perform when they get home from work.2
The Laziness Lie loves to blame victims for their own oppression.
“Make a list of all the things you do on a regular basis, and see if some of them can be eliminated,”
Your values are the beliefs that define what is most important to you. They guide each of your choices in life. For example, someone who values family might try to spend extra time at home, while someone who values success in their career may do just the opposite.
Select your ten most important items from the following list. Rank them from 1 to 10 with “1” being the most important item.
From about 1920 until the middle of the twentieth century, psychologists such as John B. Watson warned parents not to cuddle or kiss their children and to limit physical contact to a handshake or a pat on the head.11 Watson claimed that too much affection could make a child weak-willed and soft.
According to developmental psychology, the good-enough parent provides their child with love, shelter, and adequate food; they make mistakes, but nothing that causes their children significant trauma.
The Laziness Lie has fundamentally warped our sense of boundaries, making many of us believe that other people’s problems are ours to solve.
How do you fight the urge to self-objectify once it’s already there? Well, you can focus on what your body can do, rather than what it looks like.
Exercise can become a process of celebrating what your body is capable of, or of enjoying the pleasure a good run or a tough weight lifting session can give, rather than a form of punishment.24 Being gentle
The people we compare ourselves to are hypervisible and permanent fixtures of advertisements, Instagram feeds, and YouTube channels, but we know very little about their actual lives. This allows us to project an image of perfection onto them. Their spotless homes, stylish outfits, and exciting vacations make our lives seem lackluster and leave us feeling as though we’re kind of pathetic and sloppy in comparison.
A study of Facebook users found that encountering glamorous or aspirational images was associated with a drop in users’ self-esteem.
Seek Inspiration, Not Shame
Set Goals Based on Compassion, Not Guilt or Fear
The Laziness Lie teaches us that people who do more are worth more.
The remedy for all of this is boundless compassion.
The Laziness Lie is rooted in capitalism and a particularly harsh breed of Christianity, and it preaches that salvation comes from hard work.
there is more virtue in doing something than there is in doing nothing, no matter what that “something” is.
Here are some indications that you may still be associating productivity with goodness:
