Productivity For Lazy People Like Me
I’m a pretty lazy person. Well, I have written thirty novels and a few hundred blog posts, but still — I am sluggish. The secret of my productivity is my sofa.
Today I am quite lazy again. After I wrote an article of 1300 words, I’m exhausted and would like to sleep. But unfortunately, I have to write another essay and work on my new book.
I hate this stress.
On the other hand, I am much better off today than I was eighteen months ago. Back then, I had a full-time job with forty hours a week. I had to write my books after work. Those were often very long days, but because I’m a lazy person, I put up with that.
My goal was to one day live on writing alone so that I wouldn’t have to get up at five every morning, go to work and come home in the evening completely exhausted and frustrated.
This is the only reason why I have managed to look like a hard-working man for over a few years. In reality, I just wanted to be allowed to be really lazy at last. So I wrote, learned marketing, built up a fan base, and sold more and more books.
Finally, I had really made it and was able to quit my job. Today I work from home and write books.
Unfortunately, it turned out that I’m by no means finished with my work by noon, as I had hoped. Sometimes I sit at the computer until the evening.
A pretty stupid thing, you could say now, but it’s not that bad. Yes, I work more now than before, but I have become even lazier. Because when I say that sometimes I sit at the computer until late in the evening, it’s not quite right.
There’s a couch in my study. You can turn it into a bed if you have visitors. My study is also our guest room.
But mostly the couch is just a couch. It’s to the right of my desk, right under a window through which I can look out onto the street from my chair.
I spend a lot of time on this couch. Whenever I get stuck writing, I get up first and walk around a bit. Sometimes that helps to clear my head and get my creativity going again.
But much more often, this method does not work. Then it is time for the couch. But I do not sit on it — I lie down. My head rests on one cushion and my feet on another. Then I close my eyes and do nothing.
If my wife saw me like this, she would call me a sluggard, which she would be right about. But, of course, I’m not just lying there to be lazy. No, really. I work when I lie there like that.
When I slowly calm down and am almost on the verge of falling asleep, the conscious thinking stops, and the chase for the next idea also ends. I no longer think about what I could write next, or how my story should continue.
And then something special usually happens. It doesn’t happen every time, of course, but it happens quite often. The ideas I was chasing a few minutes ago suddenly come out of the thicket.
It’s as if they’re suddenly no longer afraid of me because I’m no longer running after them like a maniac.
Then I open my eyes, return to my laptop, and continue writing.
This is actually the whole secret of my productivity. As soon as I don’t feel like it or have any more ideas, I lie down on my couch, let everything go, and trust my subconscious.
I am really a lazy person. And because I’m really good at being lazy, I’ve turned it into a strength.
What are you really good at? I’m sure there’s a way to turn that strength into productivity. If I can even do that, then anyone can do it.
René Junge a published author writing on ILLUMINATION.
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