Category Archives: Goals and Motivation

Achieve More by Doing Nothing – A Laziness Guide

Posted on by Simpletom
1

"I can see the top of my to do list from here"

Protestants block your ears, you might want to ignore what follows.

I propose we all be a little lazier sometimes. Not all the time in a pizza-box hurling, beer-drinking, playstation tapping, dope-smoking teenage way. But having the gall to go to bed in the middle of the day and watch a movie or have a nap and NOT feel guilty about it.

We all need time to relax, yet if we feel guilty about not doing things then we never truly give ourselves the time to just be.

Chill out.

Do nothing for a couple of hours. Engage yourself in an activity that serves no purpose whatsoever.

Be unproductive.

Not only does it feel good, but it can help your productivity when you feel fresher the far side. Most importantly of all, don’t feel guilty about it. (Have I mentioned the guilt thing already).

I’ve taken to trying to have one day a month, perhaps more, when I don’t get out of my bedclothes (well, this is a slight lie as I sleep naked, but you get the drift). On the far side I always feel better for it.

They say that if you’re trying to learn something complex, practice lots and then sleep on it. When you awake you’ll be better than when you started.

Productivity can come from laziness. Ideas and creativity will come together when you least expect them.

I once told a friend of mine that I was sick and his answer was, ‘You lucky bastard’. Mainly because I got a chance to spend all day in bed watching movies.

Surely it doesn’t have to take sickness to take time off.

Personally, I love daytime long-distance flights because they give me a chance to sit still for 10 hours. Perhaps I should try to recreate that in the home.

I used to love smoking, because it gave me an excuse to go for a walk around the block late at night. Now I just walk around the block anyhow.

Sit yourself down. Make yourself a cuppa. Chill.

___

Other lazy-related posts:

Simplicity is complex

Posted on by Simpletom
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Both very simple and very complex

My experiments with simplicity have resulted a few different permutations, culminating in one of the best years of my life (to date). Yet simplicity is an ongoing journey that brings sacrifice as well as reward and pain as well as pleasure.

Since July I have been living one version of the simple life here in Kenya – lounging cat-like in the rays of diminished responsibilities and time. Despite the absence on this platform, Simpletom has wiggled on, in the form of two first-drafted chapters of a book.

Simple living can, as you might imagine, be the easiest thing in the world, leading you effortlessly though the days. At other times, pursing simplicity can provoke a host of paradoxes, as you scrabble to maintain a simplicity that tangles the more you pick at the knots of complexity.

Simplicity isn’t always simple. There is an ever-changing balance that must be gently observed, or the pleasures of simplicity can remain beyond reach, the irony of which serves to goad.  It would be comic if it wasn’t so frustrating when you find yourself unable to live simply. It should be simple, right? I mean it’s there in the bloody phrase. Simple. Cue some of Murphy’s best legalese.

Yet it’s not always easy. If it were, we presume, it would be ubiquitous, given how rewarding it is.

One of the most interesting and important lessons that I’ve learned this year is to give light touch to the moments when life can appear complex, despite your intentions to the contrary. How to explain this eloquently?

I’ll try: When trying to live a simple life, things can often conspire against your intentions. It is only when you let go of the desire for continual simplicity that the complexity that has formed reduces somewhat and you find yourself where you wanted to be. The more you try to shift the balance, the harder the obstacle. Yet when you want something, it’s almost impossible to let go of that desire, even if the letting go is the solution to getting where you want to be. To use an analogy, it’s like trying to sleep when you can’t – the harder you try, the harder it gets.

Life doesn’t have to be complicated. Think of our citizens of Ladakh and Kenya. Our education systems train us to try hard and become experts, yet with sleep or simplicity, this can often take us further from our goal.

Relax. Take your time. Be gentle with yourself. Accept things as they are. Accept that there will be periods of life which work against you, no matter how hard you try to wriggle free. Enjoy this moment, even if it includes pain, suffering or sadness. Take on the moments that don’t seem to work. Enjoy times that teach you, even if the hurt. As my great friend, musician Jim Kroft says, “Suck it up”!

Go easy

Posted on by Simpletom
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One of the best ways to determine the positive impact of a philosophy or lifestyle is to take a peek at the lives of those who follow it most closely and examine the result. However, perhaps even more important is the ability for the average person to adopt and maintain the philosophy.

Is a philosophy or a mode of living a good one if, despite the fact that in extreme examples it results in excellence, it is supremely difficult to follow and causes great pain and distress en route? Certainly, only the foolish or the inexperienced believe that significant change is easy. Yet, it seems that some ideas are just so hard to maintain, or have such powerful reactions elsewhere, that no matter how ideal the end goal, the journey is perhaps not worth investing in, despite the light at the end of the tunnel.

Celibacy, for example, has not been without its demons – despite the good intention behind it. Just go ask the Catholic Church.

It is oft believed that it is only by aspiring to the levels of discipline that a few extreme individuals (therefore perhaps extremists?) can achieve, you can truly adopt a way of life. Wouldn’t it be better if philosophies were gentler and understood the limitations of the average person, rather than the extremes? Yet our sporting, academic and professional lives all focus on those at the pinnacle, rather than the achievable.

I remember doing a workshop with the great Robert Holden, a kind friend who has just generously taken some time out to read a proposal for my book (yes, I may be boring you with more Simpletom musings in hard-form). The group were talking about our ambitions and things that we wanted to change about ourselves. When we put our lists together and examined them more closely – many of us discovered that these goals were often unachievable because some of them contradicted one another. You can’t be the head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, whilst also living simply. It’s just not going to happen. Many of us would never be happy because we were always disappointing ourselves as a result of our contradicting ambitions.

Simplicity should be simple – yet many of those that pursue it turn it into another difficult challenge. As I have said, perhaps too often, we need convenient actions rather than inconvenient truths. By lowering our expectation, as I mentioned in my last post, we can go some way to achieving this.

In addition, a piece of advice I find myself offering and repeating all to often, to others and within is ‘Go easy on yourself’. If we treat ourselves a little more gently, we find that the stresses of life can reduce and that the days become a little more enjoyable. Find contentment in what you’ve managed to achieve, rather than that you haven’t. No matter how hard you work, or how little sleep you get, what you haven’t managed will always be infinitely greater.

Over-expecting

Posted on by Simpletom
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It’s been a while (again) since I last wrote.

I’ve been away (again). After all, Leonardo da Vinci said,’ Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer’. I’ve merely dropped the ‘every’.
My mum once said to me that she worried about me because I ‘expected too much from life’. Given one should always listen to one’s mother, I had a good think about this and decided that she was almost certainly right. I’ve since reminded her of this and she now claims that she has been misquoted, but I’m going to stick with this because I like it, and I’m obviously still deeply rebellious.
The less you expect from life, the more likely you are to be surprised by the results. The more you expect, the more likely you are to be disappointed.

Modern media enables us to envision the trappings of the rich and famous. Our education system teaches us that almost anything is possible. Success is a universal goal. Every entrepreneur can be a Richard Branson with the right combination of hard work, luck and skill, so they say. Even the less talented can achieve the greatest heights – cue Liam Gallagher and Sarah Palin. How many people go through their teenage years expecting that, one day, they will be happy, rich, famous, satisfied? I’d guess quite a few. How many achieve all four? Not many.

Yet the less you expect, the more likely you are to be pleased with the results. I’ve learned, through listening to my mother to expect very little – which means that I constantly feel like things are going rather well. Yet I know others whose lives are much fuller than mine who are constantly disappointed because their actual life doesn’t live up to their exalted expectations.

I was once queuing up for a visit to No. 11 Downing Street for an event (yup, that was a bit of unashamed showing off, but it’s true and it sets the scene… so there). I remember looking over and seeing someone I knew who was still in their 20s who at the time was one of the most successful young entrepreneurs around. As an entrepreneur myself, I remember feeling a little envious of his success. Then, he noticed another entrepreneur who was more successful than he was and told me how envious he was of the other entrepreneur. Finally, perfectly on cue, the third entrepreneur spotted another entrepreneur who was THE most successful entrepreneur of the day in the UK and expressed his jealousy. There I was, sitting at the very bottom of a massive bundle of envy on what should have been a day when we all got more than we expected.

With that in mind, I’ve realised that the more you fantasize about what might be, the less you appreciate what is. As ‘ABC spirituality’ as it sounds, I try to enjoy what’s in front of me and expect a little less. I’ve been amazed at the difference it’s made to my mood, to my stress levels, to my enjoyment of things.

Thanks Mum.