I am Always Late

As we already know, what role such factors as laziness, depression and apathy can play for developing such nasty habit as being always late. Laziness and depression are the most common signs that many people display in the time period from late February to early April. This type of seasonal laziness, apathy and lack of inspiration can have serious effects on our productivity and psychological condition, but it is quite typical and many people have the same feelings this time of the year.

Actually, there are several types or sorts of apathy, which can be caused by certain factors like our health condition, stresses and so  on. If you wake up in the morning and feel very weak and lazy to perform even your usual daily rituals like making coffee or taking a shower, it can mean that your body is weakened and you need to support it by improving your diet. In this case, you laziness can be understood as a protective reaction of your body and mind, in order not to get too tired. A simple and good solution can be to add more foods rich in vitamin B, as well as to try making little changes in your daily routine and daily activities. Why don’t you spend more time outside walking around and looking for spring to arrive?

If your laziness manifests itself mostly at work and usually is linked to one definite type of job (writing reports, feeling a database, talking to your clients, etc.), it can mean that you actually feeling pressed and stressed out. This type of laziness can be pretty dangerous because it contributes greatly to accumulation of your tasks at work and making you being late again and again. Besides, you boss will tend to label you as a procrastinator that will affect your reputation, at least. Therefore, to get rid of this type of laziness, try to find the source of stress you are experiencing, and try to figure our what can be the best technique to combat this stress. Taking more rest, spending more time with your friends, aromatherapy, physical activities, a new hobby – those are the best anti-stress solutions I know.

There can be one more type of apathy and laziness which is linked to total exhaustion and constant overwork. Many hard-workers and chronic activists usually have really unlimited amounts of energy, but there are times when they just fall down and feel like not doing anything anymore. Sometimes it happens in the time of spring depression, too. Do not leave such situation to the flow, talk to your chief and ask for an assistant or tell him to relieve your job load, at least for some short period of time. It is very important too take pleasure from what you are doing, and, according to a recent study, apathy at work can cause even more serious outcomes than chronic stresses and depression. It is better to not do any work at all than do something that makes you feel apathetic or depressed.

We all got used to the idea that laziness in any form is always something bad and negative, something we all need to fight against and feel embarrassed to demonstrate in public. However, there are always two sides of the same story, and there are situations when laziness should not be considered something shameful or embarrassing. Nothing is good in excessive amounts, as well as a habit to work hard. In such situation, using a little bit of laziness to calm down the urges to work hard without any rest will definitely have positive effects. Another type of healthy laziness is the one, which is supported by a good motivation. Fred Gratzon discusses the issues related to a motivated laziness in his blog, My Lazy Way to Success.

In his writing, Fred talks about two types of laziness. One is  a true evil, a type of laziness, when its owner tries by all means to avoid any possible sort of work which requires making some efforts. It is a basic form of laziness and it will never result in something positive or useful. Another is a good, healthy laziness of a higher level, which can always work for the good of its owner. Fred describes it as a tendency to “skillfully avoiding work“. In other words, such laziness results in looking for the ways of accomplishing everything by making minimum efforts. Obviously, knowing how to have the things done faster, cheaper, more effectively and with minimum losses of the resources should not be considered destructive.

Laziness is not always a bad thing which ruins people’s lives and creates obstacles for becoming reach or successful. You know so well that working hard is not the only factor which leads to success. It is not less important to be educated, talented, insistent and, certainly, lucky. “If correctly utilized, laziness is a one way ticket to great success“, Fred Gratzon writes in his blog. A healthy motivated laziness can help us learn to find the shortest ways to achieveing and accompishing the tasks that must be done. Therefore, transferring your passive, apathic and depressive laziness into an energetic, alert and skillfull laziness can be a great key to a personal success!

This time, my friends, let’s look closer at the main problem of the majority of us, Her Majesty Laziness. Nowadays, there are quite a lot of various techniques and strategies to assist people in fighting against laziness. They are available online or in a specialized literature. Once upon a time, while surfing on the Internet, I came across one interesting and very easy tactic to overcome my laziness. This technique really worked for me, and the most important fact is: it actually does not require any special state of mind, excessive enthusiasm or will power, any special preparation or knowledge. The tool I want you to try is something that can be easily done even by the laziest person on earth.

However, let me begin with talking about several myths connected with our laziness. To be proper, two of the myths, which do not allow many people understand better their laziness and start their battle against it. Here we go: it is supposed that laziness is an ineradicable personal trait. This is not true, because laziness is actually a special behavioral pattern, a habit, which certainly can be changed. Another myth is connected with the definition of laziness. We usually think that “Laziness is a condition when I am not doing anything“. This is so very wrong, because when we are lazing, we can be eating, watching a TV, listening to music, talking on the phone, playing a PC game, reading books, etc. etc. All of those are actions, and real laziness is the condition, when those activities start taking 6-12 hours a day and affecting our life. Therefore, laziness means being involved in quite useless activities (to some extent) for very long time.

Now, let’s get closer to the point. The tactic we are going to test has a certain mission: in order to beat laziness we can try not doing anything. Let’s suppose that you have something urgent or important to do, but you feel lazy to do that. It’s ok. First of all, let’s apply the strategy we were talking about before, and make a plan. You should schedule your activity, so take a piece of paper and write down on it, when you are going to start doing the task and for how long you are going to be busy with it. For example, “Today from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.” or “Tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.” The most probably, when the mentioned time has come, you start feeling lazy again. What actually do you need to do to fight with it?

Ok: when the scheduled time came, give up doing what you were doing before, get up from your place and stand in the middle of the room (standing is better than sitting or laying down, I hope you understand why!). Do not do anything and just go with the flow of your thoughts, until you start feeling like you are ready to start doing the task you planned to do. Not doing anything and just standing still is quite unpleasant and hard, so it will eventually come to your mind that you need to start doing your task. So, take your time for choosing from two alternatives: the thing you need to do, or doing nothing, From my own experience, I can tell you that the longest it took me to stand and wait for the inspiration to come, was 5 minutes. Hint: do not think about how complicated and long the task can be, just think about doing the first step. It’s like pressing “Start” button on your computer: find the way to begin, and it will be easier to proceed.

You can apply the same tactic in the situation, when you start feeling lazy in the middle of doing you task or assignment. Go back to the room and stand still doing nothing for a while. Believe me, very soon you will feel like being back to your task. This technique is applicable for any sort of tasks or activities, in any situation. And it’s advantage is: there is no need in making extra efforts or persuading yourself that you need to start working on something. Moreover, do not try to control your thoughts and just go with the flow. Most probably, inspiration and motivation will come soon. Good luck!