Category Archives: “UN” Productivity / Time “MIS” Managment

How to be lazy.

by admin

10 Ways We Use Technology to Exert As Little Effort as Possible

Technology is great. You can pretty much do almost everything from within your own home, and in many cases don’t need to get up off the couch to do them. So in this article I’m going to explain some of the ways in which we use technology to exert as little effort as possible.

A long time ago they had to work for a living, and I mean work with a capital “W”. Everything was made by hand, clothes, food, furniture, you name it. Then the industrial revolution came along and changed all that. We now had machines that did a lot of work. Still we had to do manual labor. Then came the 70′s when the personal computer was born. At first wasn’t much more than glorified calculator. Now it can do a lot more. It can compose music, do art, and works of literature, balance your budget, etc. Now with the internet where you can do everything virtually; you almost don’t even need to leave your home.

Here are some ways we use technology to exert as little effort as possible. Keep in mind this isn’t a list of modern conveniences like indoor plumbing and heating. Maybe I can write a future article on ways technology has made us lazy?

  1. Key-less entry – we now no longer have to unlock our doors by turning a key, we can either use a keypad or we can press a button to unlock doors, and even start cars in some cases. Of course this assumes we’re still going to use a car. Now we can call or make reservations online for a bus, shuttle, or taxi to come pick us up.
  2. Fast Food – The drive-thru window is relatively new. Before the 70′s you had to go into a restaurant to buy food, now you can just drive up to a window and get your food on the go.
  3. Alarms or Timers – What about alarms that get us out of bed instead of having a rooster wake us up at the crack of dawn?
  4. Automatic Coffee Maker – Is not just a synonym for wife now, we have machines that once set will wake you up in the morning with that smell of fresh coffee.
  5. Automatic Dish Washer – See above. Now you don’t need to wash the dishes in dirty water and dry them with the same towel you wiped your face on, instead you just put them and some soap in a machine and it gets them cleaner than your wife ever could.
  6. Robot Vacuums – The next best thing to Robot Butlers. Just set it and forget it.
  7. Internet – The internet is a great way to order things and you don’t even need to leave your house. You can even get postal services to come and pick up stuff so all you have to do is take it to the front door. You can order food, furniture, clothes, everything.
  8. Video Games – Why play board games where you physically throw dice, why not have computers do the mental work, you just have to sit there pressing buttons.
  9. Video Rental – You now don’t need to go to a counter to rent movies, you can go to a kiosk press a few buttons and out pops your movie or game. In some cases you can just subscribe to a service that sends them out without late fees and allows you to keep them as long as you like.
  10. Robots that build cars – To make this a top ten list I had to add one more, and I decided to add robotic car manufacture. Back when Ford introduced his car for the masses, the assembly line was state of the art. Now cars can be built in a quarter the time as they used to by hand.

So there you have it, ten ways in which we use technology to exert as little effort as possible. Do you have anymore to add to this list? If so be sure to make a comment about it. Please keep in mind these should be technology items that enable us to work less or not-at-all.

Until ‘Monday’

by admin

20 ways to be a perfectionist.

We grow up with the phrase “Nobody’s perfect.” We also get told to do our ‘best’ and that’s all we can do. There’s no shame in trying, and success is a bunch of failures strung together, so we learn what not to do. What If I told you we *could* be perfect. What if I said your best isn’t good enough, that there is shame in trying and failing, and that success isn’t learning based on a bunch of failures. With the following tips I will show you how to be a perfectionist. Never settle for second best.

  1. Be highly critical of your own mistakes. You’re not perfect until you’re perfect. Keep trying if you don’t meet certain expectations.
  2. Never get any projects done because it’s ‘never good enough’. Trust me it isn’t even NEAR good enough.
  3. Obsess over minor details, the smaller the better.
  4. Fear failure; you can’t fail; you will not fail; not even once.
  5. Never think in shades of gray, it’s either perfect or it isn’t.
  6. Beat yourself up because you’re just not perfect like you should be.
  7. Take yourself very seriously.
  8. Don’t give yourself an inch.
  9. Constantly moan and complain to others about your mistakes.
  10. Remember everything you do is wrong.
  11. Start to revise or re-factor from the start, don’t wait until things are done, you are a perfectionist after all.
  12. You need to redo that project just one more time.
  13. Anything that is less than perfect is unacceptable; just get that in your mind right now!
  14. Having high standards is great, having impossible standards is even better.
  15. Just remember you are NEVER happy with what you have produced, and you never will.
  16. Don’t focus on the end result or the big picture, only focus on the details.
  17. Aim to be the best in everything you do, even if you don’t do it very well or don’t like it.
  18. Spend your time on the 80% that doesn’t matter rather than the 20 that does.
  19. Feature creep is the perfectionist’s friend. Feature creep is the phenomenon where you have more things you want to put in that keeps creeping up on you until you’re covered with it. It’s never going to be perfect unless it has tons and tons of features.
  20. It’s all or nothing.

Until ‘Monday’

by admin

Use a schedule to be lazier

Typically we impose schedules on ourselves because we want to be productive and so we know exactly what we’re doing. It gives our day structure and focus. It also tends to keep us on track. Here at ‘Monday’ we want to be lazy, and do as little work as possible. So to that end we want to invert a daily work schedule to make time for things that aren’t required, things that are easy and/or fun.

So one of the things is to assign larger blocks of time. Task switching takes mental energy and effort. We don’t want to take any effort to do anything, so the larger the better. Somewhere in the range of one to two hours.

Next you want breaks something to refresh you. This is contrary to the “Do less in more time” article however when we’re creating a schedule to be more lazy we pay attention to that. In this case the schedule is inverted. We take 5 – 10 minutes to do some work. Now contrary to the philosophy of ‘Monday’ is actually being productive, but in this case the amount of productivity is so small that being productive is not contrary to being lazy. Basically this recharges you for whatever else you’re not doing. Say watching TV. You spent two hours watching TV, and now you need a break because you grow a bit restless. When you do work this re-increases motivation to do nothing for two more hours.

Also you usually schedule in time for rest which is usually at least 30 minutes, but for us, we can schedule an hour. This I would advocate doing work like above only the work I suggest is busywork. Shuffling papers, rearranging emails, etc. Something that does no work but keeps you busy. This is just purely for relaxation where the 5-10 minutes in between tasks is to keep you recharged as you spend your day doing nothing. This would be a great way to put some pop tarts in the toaster, since you’re not going to be spending the effort to cook anyways.
I realize this is a short article, but there’s not much to making a schedule. Just realize that you will want to be flexible and make time for doing stuff like going to the bathroom or eating lunch and breakfast.

Here’s a typical lazy schedule for me:

  • 7 AM – wake up
  • 8 AM – Sit around
  • 9 AM – Get some breakfast preferably cold leftovers from last night so you don’t have to prepare anything
  • 10 AM – Watch some TV
  • 12 noon – snack on some chips because making lunch takes too long
  • 1 PM – Watch more TV
  • 3 PM – take a nap
  • 5 PM – Realize it’s too much work to fill the rest of this out and stop.

Until ‘Monday’