Let me just make it clear that by “lazy” freelancers, I am not referring to people who do nothing except play Halo/COD and waste their entire day, rather people who generally work hard but laziness slows them down from time to time. It is those freelancers who can use their laziness as a strength to become more successful then other freelancers who are robots. We are the freelancers who would rather do the “lazy person’s rubics cube” (pic) as opposed to the real thing and we are sexy!
How much work?
When we feel lazy, we always look at piling work and the thought of the length of time and effort which the work will consume causes us to become lazy and start watching videos on youtube. When you ask yourself “How long will this take?”, actually answer your question and say to yourself “I don’t care, but I am going to work for the next three hours and that is it”. When you have only three hours after which you have the freedom to do what you want, you will actually work those three hours and work harder for your laziness.
The robot freelancers will spend hours working, I know one particular freelancer who will spend more than 12 hours working. If he was to analyse his time, he would find that the rate at which he is working is very slow. On the other hand if you don’t have 14 hours and rather only 3 hours to do something, you will spend those 3 hours actually working and working hard.
Good Procrastination
There may be instances when you are not in the mood to do work and therefore wish to procrastinate by playing Halo or sharing intimate details with stalkers on Facebook.
Don’t
Instead watch a video, but a business related video, or something motivational. Do something which will motivate you, or spend time with you family or do some other form of work which you actually feel like doing.
Delegation
When it is financially feasible for you, you may wish to delegate work which you do not enjoy. This will help get rid of those parts of your work which you slow you down and make you lazy. Usually the root cause of laziness is not enjoying the work which has to be done.
Steven Covey’s To-do list
When you are lazy, like me, do not do things which are not important. Robot freelancers who will just work all the time, will not take time out of their schedule to decide what is important and what is not. We lazy freelancers, on the other hand, can do this and cross off our lists those things which are not important and therefore can not be done.
Reward
Try to reward yourself with something which excites you, whatever it may be. Tell yourself that if you get to the bottom of your to-do list then you can s
pend time with your kids, or play COD or in fact talk to rapists on Facebook. Usually however, rewarding oneself with laziness is the answer. So many freelancers will be motivated by the simplest of concepts. “If I finish this, then I will be lazy!”. This is definitely going to get you ass moving! and you will end up as sexy as the guy in this pic :P
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March 25th, 2010 at 12:37 am
Btw, this post is tongue-in-cheek for those with no sense of humour.
March 25th, 2010 at 5:42 am
Shoaib, you’ve got an unorthodox view of things – which definitely made me smile. I’d say being a ‘lazy freelancer’ is all about doing something with a purpose, even if you’re simply taking a time off from work. Sometimes, you get inspired along the way, or you may just encounter that solution you’re looking for. Is this the reason why a lot of creative people tend to sleep a lot? Nice sharing, thanks!
March 25th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Such a paradox, I was looking to see the next best thing for a freelancer. Great article.
March 25th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Lol @ guy on picture.. so not sexy
March 25th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Great article — even for us who are non-freelancer .. more steady 9-5ers.
Btw- if one of those chains holding up your CRTs breaks … I’m thinking maybe you double up those tiny tiny chains?
March 25th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Great read – very enjoyable. I’m happy to have stumbled upon this site. I thought I was doing something wrong, but perhaps I’m cut out for this after all :)
March 25th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
@Issa. Maybe this is the case, Jordan is a very creative freelancer so we should ask him how much he sleeps. So Jordan…
@Rudolf, you know you wish you were as sexy, I sure do! lol
@Nurbie. At least if the CRT fell on him he would have an excuse to be lazy!
@Michelle. Try DZone too, its very easy.
March 25th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
I tend to forget this principle. Thanks for reminding me. And, indeed I found it more rewarding, even effective, to work hard 3 to 4 hours and then take a (long good) break rather than work the whole day without accomplishing anything.
Now, I would like to know how you get this Space-Station-like work setting! So funny!
March 25th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
@Philippe. Absolutely and Thank you. Good luck with your Space-Station-Lazy Setting ;)
March 25th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Enjoyed reading this article a lot — made me smile a couple of times and for some reason it at least particularly matches my own way to work.
However, you seem to know some rather weird folks on Facebook! ;-)
March 25th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
@Maximilian, lol and thanks!
March 25th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
great post! i think the best way to procrastinate is read about the things you’ll have to do it. :D
March 25th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
LOL … My goal is to be as sexy as that guy in the pic … One day it could happen ;-)
March 25th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
@Cr8ive Commando, one day mate, one day we will get there! lol
March 25th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Interesting take on how to use laziness to your advantage! We posted something similar for small business owners telling them to “Get their business moving the lazy way.”: http://www.smallbusinessmarketingandadvertisinghelp.com/blog/2010/01/22/dont-be-lazy-use-technology/
:) Great minds think alike, eh? Great work! Keep it up!
March 25th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Shahab, they definitely do. We normally don’t allow links, but this looks like it may be relevant ;)
March 31st, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Thanks u are a great help!! The part about watching an inspirational video is great, will try that next i feel less interested in my work
April 13th, 2010 at 12:56 am
good information. hopefully, I can run all of your suggestions
April 26th, 2010 at 5:01 am
Damn! I’m lazy enough to read this article..
April 30th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Ein Freund hat mir deinen Blog gerade empfohlen und dann hatte ich gedacht schaue ich doch einmal vorbei. Und ich muss sagen er gefaellt mir richtig gut, ich glaube er koennte zu meinen Stammblogs dazu kommen bei denen ich regelmaeßigoft vorbei schaue.
May 23rd, 2010 at 10:55 am
I have been to your website before. The more I take in, the more I keep coming back! :-)