10 Ways to Be Successfully Lazy in Business

Published on AllBusiness.com

How to Make Laziness Pay

Ever hear of Hlade's Law? It says that if you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they'll find an easier way to do it.

Actually, the smartest people are often the laziest because they are always looking for better ways to do things. In the process, they're finding that working smarter, not harder, offers a fast track to business success.

In that spirit, here's our salute to couch-potato business tactics. These 10 suggestions may not make you the busiest business owner on the block, but they just might make you the most successful one. And at the end of the day, isn't that what really matters?

-- Barbara Swenson

Sharpen Your Stalling Tactics

Are you the type of person who makes snap decisions? Sales pros love people like you, because it's often easier to talk you into spending money and making commitments you might later regret.

The next time somebody tries to pressure you into making a decision, step back. Tell them you'll think about it. Take your sweet time, mull over the pros and cons, and weigh your alternatives. Or do what any truly lazy person would do -- tell them you'll sleep on it.

And when they tell you that time is running out or that you'll miss the "opportunity of a lifetime"? The more somebody tells you that, the less likely it is to be true.

Add Incentives to Your Work Life

How do you turn a couch potato into a lean, mean efficiency machine? That's simple -- you offer them a sweet reward for getting their work done.

So figure out some fun incentives that you can offer yourself for a job well done. Maybe it's that new movie you'd like to see, or an hour at the pool, or even a trip to the spa. Or maybe it's something as simple as our favorite leisure-time treat: a quick midday nap!

Whatever it is, set a specific goal, and then dangle that carrot to get yourself moving. Sure, it's the lazy way to get work done, but be careful -- you just might find yourself looking forward to your next big project.

Learn How to Delegate

Remember in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, when Tom convinces the neighborhood boys to whitewash a fence for him? Some folks might call Tom Sawyer a con artist, but we'd rather celebrate him as a master at the art of delegation.

Delegating work means finding employees you can trust and learning how to match the right person to the job -- two of the most important duties of any good manager. But it also means learning how to give up control over every single detail and allowing your employees to do their jobs.

Don't get carried away, especially at first. It takes time and (brace yourself!) work to delegate successfully. But once you've got a system in place, you'll have a lot more time to focus on more strategic business tasks -- and, yes, to commune with your inner couch potato.

Learn How to Use 'Structured Procrastination'

Structured Procrastination is the idea that you can avoid doing a difficult task at the top of your to-do list by focusing on other, less difficult tasks. Or as John Perry, professor emeritus of philosophy at Stanford University, puts it, "Structured Procrastination is about using one character flaw (self-deception) to offset the bad effects of another (procrastination)."

Start by putting a hard task at the top of your work list, and then below it list other important tasks that need to be done. Your natural laziness will propel you to do all the other things on the list except for the top one.

Eventually you can replace this top task with another one and move the first one down the list -- where you can double-talk yourself into tackling it.

Automate Everything!

Nothing eats up time like doing the same tasks over and over. Fortunately, with a healthy dose of modern technology, you can automate a variety of tasks, from email sorting and social networking to digital marketing and appointment scheduling.

Get started by identifying everything you do at work that involves repetitive -- and often mindless -- activities. Once you have a prioritized list, simply do a bit of research to find the tools to automate these tasks. These solutions can be as simple as a bit of boilerplate text you use for common email replies, or as complex as amarketing automation system.

Better yet, be really lazy and kill two birds with one stone: Automate common work tasks anddelegate them to your employees.

Streamline and Simplify

Albert Einstein once said, "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."

We don't know if Einstein was a lazy guy, but he makes a lot of sense. Streamlining and simplifying eliminates unnecessary steps in your business processes, which can potentially save you time and money. You'll spend less time figuring out how to do stuff, and a lot more time just getting stuff done.

A good example of how simplicity pays off is theToyota Production System, a car production method built around simplicity and elegant efficiency. If the world's biggest car maker can celebrate simplicity, it's a safe bet that you should, too.

Embrace Last-Minute Fire Drills

So, what do you get when you combine two of our previous suggestions, procrastination and stalling tactics? You get the occasional fire drill. And that's actually a good thing.

Fire drills involve lots of frenzied activity, late-night work sessions, and the occasional bout of full-blown panic. Yet they also provide the kind of focus, urgency, and motivation that you just can't get during the daily grind.

Of course, as a lazy business owner, you have one goal: to wrap up the fire drill as quickly and successfully as possible. So when an urgent project lands on your plate, be sure to round up your team, define your goal, get organized, anddevelop a plan for completing the project. You'll feel that much better when the work is done and it's time to kick back and celebrate.

Give Busywork the Boot

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 Rule, dictates that 20 percent of your effort produces 80 percent of your success.

What about the other 80 percent of what you do? Some of it might be useful, but most of it is useless busywork that doesn't contribute a dime to your bottom line. The trick is identifying the important stuff -- the 20 percent -- and ditching the rest.

Sounds easy, right? Maybe, but if that's true, why are so many of us still stuck with so much busywork?

Follow Your Personal Bliss

In his book A Lazy Man's Guide to Success, author Bill O'Hanlon proposed that people should follow their personal bliss and passion in life, or they will always be unhappy -- particularly if they never try. In other words, laziness is a symptom of a boring and unfulfilled life. Who knew?

According to O'Hanlon, the recipe for success is simple: passion, pursuit, and persistence. Begin by listing five things you find most interesting and would like to do in terms of business. Explore each of these things and, using the 80/20 Rule, focus on what's important and productive while still retaining a level of excitement.

If all of that sounds like too much work, don't worry about it. There's room in the world for happy and fulfilled lazy people, too.

Turn Your Work into a Game

Gamification is a process that uses game play as a way to encourage people to do boring tasks. Now, businesses are taking the idea a step further by designing games that simulate business situations and strategies, and in the process making workers more engaged and productive.

So next time you're feeling lazy about doing a difficult task, unleash the creative entrepreneur within by turning the task into a challenging game. If possible, make the game into something unpredictable that demands fresh strategies and new ways of thinking from you and your team. And use simple game dynamicsto turn a tedious task into a fun and rewarding win-win experience.

We have to admit: Turning work into a big game sound like a lot of, well, work. But it also sounds like the results -- and the good times you'll have -- make it well worth the effort.