New year, new resolution
Everyone, start being LAZY, but a SMART one
Let us first reflect on things we do almost everyday. How many of those are actually IMPORTANT and significant? How many of them, on the other hand, it’s completely useless and waste of time? Most of employees stuck on the office from 9 to 5, allow me to ask, how many hours do you actually WORK, but not surfing on the internet, facebooking, blogging, chatting online or even, daydreaming?
OK, let say you use 8 hours to do 10 important things everyday, what if I give you 5? Will you be able to do it? If not, let’s rethink when we were in college, I believe everyone of us experienced to stay overnight in order to meet the deadline assignment.I have this experience myself. I’m a typical ‘well-planned’ and ’start early’ person. It takes me normally 3 weeks to finish an assignment, from research to proofread and print. But of course, things don’t go as I planned sometimes. I had this assignment which I had only 4 days to finish, on top of the impossible deadline, I had also an exam to do before the deadline…which means…I WAS SCREWED!!! I spent hours worrying, thinking of an excuse to get an extension, preparing myself for failing this paper…even if I can write some crap in 4 days…I was frustrated…but again, I know no matter how I complained or worried, I still had to do it….thanks for the encouragement from my beloved, I took it as a challenge…i spent days and nights reading and writing, I read twice faster than usual, I eliminated all the useless information, I read only key points and jotted notes so I didn’t need to read again when writing…i focused and focued…I set myself a target (no of pages which I accomplished everyday) and didn’t stop until 1 reached it…
The result: i used only 3 days to finish a 15 pages assignment with an extra day for proofreading and getting it print beautifully.
An impossible mission seems so possible afterall. A 3 week person turns to a 3 day person, thanks for scratching my limit
What I learn from it is, I can be lazy for 18 days and work only for 3 days when the next assignment comes. (why 3 days but not 4? because I know I can push my limit even further to finish it in 2 days!!)
Now I have 18 days for family, friends, gym ,yoga, movie, music etc etc…I have my personal and social life back
When we have all time in the world, we start using it wastefully: we let ourselves to be drown by useless information, to be distracted and start going to the opposite direction of our goal. We then waste time to realize it and get back to the starting point. In fact, even I worked 3 weeks for my assignment, only 3 days of effort were actually giving results, others were me being lazy by doing something which I thought it’s worth doing (and realized it is not at all)
When we are given a tight schedule, we start choosing what is useful to read, what is important to do and remember and what is right to write. We are focused and straight to the point with no crap.
Furthermore, if we really can’t finish 10 things in 5 hours, please think again, are those 10 things really important? Or only 5 of them are? If so, 5 hours for 5 things is easy…mission accomplished!
“Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate actiion” by Timothy Ferriss
If you want to have a lazy life and don’t want to work 14 hours a day until 60, HAVE IT by focusing ONLY on important things (which make difference and add values) and cutting all crap, stop reading, listening and replying to trash, make your time useful and meaningful. Don’t do things because you feel nice (or obligated to do it). Hard-working is not a golden label, but smart-working is
Just a little to share, on the first working day in 2010, still reading the 4-hour workweek…
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