The Awesome Power of Laziness

Here is what you will learn in this Number One Best-Seller:

• How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week and how you can too!
• Everything you need to know to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
• How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
• How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
• How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent "mini-retirements"

The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.

From Leo Babauta on FreelanceSwitch

1. Make not doing it harder. We lazy people hate doing hard stuff. So let's use that for us. Let's say there's something hard that I need to do right now. Of course, I don't feel like doing it. But if I put up obstacles that make it harder NOT to do it, then I'm going to do it, because I'm too lazy to do the even harder stuff. For example, if I'm prone to watching television instead of working, and I put the remote on the roof of my house, well, it would be too hard to get a ladder to get that remote. And being lazy, I hate to watch TV without a remote. So I'll get to work instead. Same concept could be applied to the Internet - take your cable modem's cable and give it to someone to hold until after lunch. Or tell people that if you don't complete this project on time, you will wash their cars. Engineer a solution that will make you more likely to actually do what you need to do.
2. Be productive to avoid doing something. Now turn that concept on its head. It's an idea called Structured Procrastination, and written about much earlier by Robert Benchley in a great article called Getting Things Done from 1949. The basic concept is that in order to avoid doing something difficult, you'll do a bunch of other things instead. A lot of those other things might also be important too, so you're being productive because you're too lazy to do the most important thing on your list. So, to implement this, put one really hard task at the top of your list, and a bunch of other important stuff below it. Now, tell yourself you really must, must get that first task done right away. If you're feeling lazy, you'll do the other stuff on the list instead. Now, when more important stuff comes up, the first item of the list gets pushed down and will get done.
3. Delegate. Lazy people like to become managers, so they can delegate things to others and look productive while doing that. Even if you aren't a manager, learn how to delegate to your coworkers or even to your boss. Look at your to-do list and see if you can delegate half of it. If in doubt, route it and ask for input. Now you can cross off half the items on your list and you haven't done anything!
4. Automate. Instead of doing the same things over and over, see if you can find a way to automate it. This will require that creativity that lazy people have. You can find ways for the computer to automate it, or give others the authority to do something following certain rules without your approval, or outsource something you really don't want to do all the time. Great! Cross off more items from your to-do list without actually doing anything.
5. Eliminate. Now look at your remaining items on your to-do list (assuming you weren't too lazy to write out a to-do list - if you are, it can be something you do to avoid doing something more difficult). How many of these items absolutely have to be done? Is there any way you can eliminate some of them, especially ones that you really don't want to do? You can always go and ask to be removed from a project for one reason or another, or say that you have too many commitments and can't do this right now. OK, more items off your list without doing anything!
6. Stall. Another good way to cross things off your to-do list without actually doing them is to not do them until they are no longer needed. I've done this many times - I stall and delay and procrastinate on something, doing other things I'd rather be doing, and then in a week or two, those things I was procrastinating on are no longer necessary. Turns out they didn't matter anyway.
7. Simplify. If there's something that you do that is complicated and difficult, find ways to make it easier and simpler. List out the steps, and see which can be eliminated or streamlined. Which steps can be done by someone else or automated? What is the absolute easiest way to do this?
8. Wait until the last minute. Sometimes when you stall (see above), it turns out that the thing you're stalling on is really important, and needs to be done. If so, you will find this out when someone else who needs it done gives you an urgent call and 10 emails, asking for it to be submitted. This is when urgency comes into play, and it's a great motivator. You'll get the thing done. But that urgency didn't exist until you stalled for a week. So the trick is to wait to do things until the absolute last minute, when you will be super motivated to do them. So don't schedule some of your tasks until the last possible time you could start them and still get them done before deadline.
9. Lazy reward. I like to reward myself by telling myself that if I just do this work, I get to be lazy. This will motivate me, because I love being lazy. In fact, if I can finish the next item in five minutes, I get to go watch an episode of Gilmore Girls.
10. Go with what excites you. If you are too lazy to do something, it's probably because that something seems boring to you. If so, move on to something more exciting. Come up with a list of things you could do that are important and productive and still exciting. And go with those tasks. You will be avoiding something boring, sure, but you will be motivated to do the other, more exciting stuff. Now, if you still need to do the boring stuff (and can't stall, eliminate, delegate, or automate that stuff), then find a way to make it exciting. Rewards of sweet treats or laziness can make something more exciting, or try this technique: instead of thinking of how hard something is, think about all the benefits that you'll get from doing it. Money, fame, gorgeous women, snacks %u2026 these exciting things can all be yours by accomplishing this task.

The power of Laziness is based on ideas expressed in the works of the great entreprenur Fred Gratzon. The basic idea is that YOU WORK TOO HARD!

Laziness comes in a variety of skill levels. Of course, there is your basic garden-variety, couch-potato laziness where avoiding work is its own great reward. This type of laziness certainly has its own value and charm and should be encouraged and nurtured, as all laziness (even this tender sprouting) is heaven-sent.

The Lazy Way to Success:
How to Do Nothing and Accomplish Everything

At the other end of the spectrum are masters of laziness who have harnessed the immense power of doing as little as humanly possible. These advanced black belts in laziness not only enjoy the pleasures of work avoidance but they also are able to accomplish great things and amass great fortunes because they have abstained from work. It is this highly skilled form of laziness that drives all progress in society. Unfortunately, the unchallenged thinking in our culture calls laziness a blight on your character at best and at worst the Devil's workshop. Those of us who practice the high art of laziness are subjected to stinging rebuke and are harangued with mind-numbing repetition that to accomplish more in life we must work harder and longer.

"I put in 16 hours a day of hard work," is a typical boast from a poster boy for this twisted, snore-inducing mentality. Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with hard work and long hours per se. If you don't mind sacrificing your health, your family life, the rest of your life, and your spiritual evolution and you are willing to settle for a pedestrian achievement (snore), there is nothing wrong with working long hours. In this light, hard work has its own level of merit and satisfaction.

But if you want the kind of success that has Wall Street investment bankers dancing around you like trained bears, then you need replace the 16-hour mindset with a new math. The one-plus-one-plus-one-plus-one plodding mentality of working longer and harder is like ending your education in mathematics at counting.

I will readily concede that if you achieve something in one hour, you will achieve two somethings in two hours. If your desiring limit is 16 somethings, then you have the mindless formula. But what if you want a million somethings? Then you need a new math.

The basis of that new math is this pure, simple and elegant truth - success is INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL to hard work. That means, as effort and hard work become less, success becomes more. As you move towards effortlessness, success moves towards infinity.

The natural conclusion from this truth is that hard work is detrimental to success. One obvious clue is that the world is chock-full of hard workers (nearly everyone works hard) yet there are rare few successful ones among them. But for some cockamamie reason, people cling to the notion that the harder they work the more successful they will become. In reality the only thing proportional to hard work and effort is fatigue.

Rember this when you are lifting weigths heavier than twenty elephants, you can be hit on the head with a feather.

In pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.

True mastery can be gained
by letting things go their own way.
It can't be gained by interfering.

Tao Te Ching of Lao Tsu Translated by S. Mitchell

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Get Ready for to Laugh Your Way to Success

The Lazy Way to Success is not like any book you have ever read. Authors Fred Gratzon and Lawrence Sheaff have collaborated to create a an amazing book on both an artistic and philiophical level-

Fred Gratzon puntures once and for all the commonly-accepted notion that hard work has anything to do with success. Instead, he successfully argues the exact opposite. YOu will come to understand that success comes from finding ways to avoid work. Not only that, he shows how to successful avoid work.

The authors have fused a playful narrative with remarkably funny illustrations. Each page has been massaged to be maximally seductive and irresistible. The end result is a reader-friendly book filled with infectious bliss, insight and edginess. Like a favorite song, you will enjoy The Lazy Way to Success over and over again.

The Lazy Way to Success is one book you should not miss. Download a sample chapter 3 as PDF by clicking here.

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