4 Ways to Leverage Your Laziness

So, you’re an entrepreneur. You wake up late each day, head to Starbucks then off to the gym to work out for a bit. Off to the office by around 11 am  to check the mail and see how many checks came in. Head to the bank to deposit your fortune. A little lunch followed by an afternoon on the golf course or cocktails on your boat with some friends, laughing at people who work for someone else. Sounds like you, right?

Okay, if you’re really an entrepreneur you’re now laughing your head off and saying, “No, that’s not what my life looks like at all.” You know that as a small business owner you probably wear many hats and almost never have enough time to do all the things you need to do each day. From business development and production to the million and one other things that need to get accomplished if your business is going to prosper, it’s up to you to do them. You’re at the office early and work until well after the sun goes down. It’s not that you want to, you have to. If you don’t do the “stuff” that needs to get done, no one will. That is, unless you’ve figured out how to leverage your laziness. There is a better way. Walter Chrysler said, “Whenever there is hard work to be done, I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.”

Do I want you to be “lazy?” Of course not. It almost always takes hard work and lots of effort to be successful. I want you to invest your time and energy on the things you’re good at, and enjoy doing, and stop spending (or spend less) time on doing the things you stink at or hate doing. By leveraging your laziness you typically wind up being more successful, happier, have more free time and feel more fulfilled. You’ll begin to remember why it was you went into business for yourself in the first place.

So, how do you leverage your laziness?

Reverse-Engineer.

 Pay attention to what makes you feel good when you do it. Do more and more of that every single day. Most of us are so busy getting “the job” done that we don’t take the time to figure out what “works” for us. Here’s the challenge: you and you alone can reverse-engineer yourself. If you don’t take the time to self-assess you’ll keep on grinding it out, day after day, wondering why you decided to go into business for yourself. Fill in these blanks:

1. When I’m working, I feel best when I’m _____________.
2. When I’m working, I hate it when I’m ______________.

Get used to living in the “genius” zone.

 Your goal should be to spend more time each day doing what you enjoy. Let’s call that the genius zone. You’ll want to remove the “off switch” from your genius zone. Perhaps you currently invest almost no time each day doing what you enjoy. What if, starting tomorrow, you choose to make absolutely certain that for at least 30 minutes you’ll be “in the zone?” Geniuses tend to let go of labels like “wrong,” “should,” “late,” “bad” and so on. I’m suggesting you stop “making mistakes” and start seeing things as “interesting detours.” I’m suggesting that no matter what, you invest at least 30 minutes each day (for starters) doing what you love. Once you do 30 minutes, move up to an hour. Then two hours. Eventually you’ll find that you get to do what you love almost all the time.

First things first.

Yes, I know you have a million and one things to do each day, but nothing will change about the way you work, or how much you enjoy it until you promise yourself it will change. And then keep your promise to yourself. To do that, you’ll need to change the way you think about time management. Consider time management as being like a room in a tiny apartment with a floor that’s covered with books, furniture, newspapers, and other objects. Everything that you hate doing on your daily to-do list is like an object on that floor. If you were to bring a sleeping bag into that room you’d have to push some stuff out of the way in order to lie down. You’ll need to do that here too. Condense, reorganize and maybe even throw some stuff out to create a “lazy space” for yourself. Promise yourself the time to focus on what you enjoy and are good at and keep that promise. You might need to reduce the number of promises you make to others and begin making more promises that serve you and your laziness.

Outsource it/Find Ginger.

You’ll need to find others to do the stuff you hate to do and that compliment what you love doing. Fred Astaire found Ginger Rogers. She danced as beautifully as he did, backwards and in high heels! If you’re an attorney and are spending time making and collating copies, and are billing out at $300 per hour, every thirty minutes you spend making copies costs you about $280. You could easily find someone to make copies for you for $20 per hour (Maybe less). Figure out what you hate doing, or what takes you away from doing what puts money in your pocket and pay them, or partner with them, to do that. Good with business development but hate numbers? Find a partner who enjoys bookkeeping but dislikes selling. Find the Lennon to your McCartney. They were both great alone but as part of the Beatles they made magic! You don’t have to do it all alone.

Want to enjoy your work, and life, more? Make a commitment to begin leveraging your laziness and get started being lazy!