Take advantage of your lazy ass
Achieve success by following the path of least resistance
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I’m a lazy bastard. You’re a lazy bastard. We’re all lazy bastards. In fact, I’m so lazy, I’m considering ending this post right here right now leaving it up to you, to figure out where I’m going with this. But I won’t do that. I know you’re too lazy to care! How do I know that? Because science.
As humans, we’re hard-wired to follow the path of least resistance. Researchers have found that we believe the low-hanging fruits are the ripest. It’s actually our brains playing a trick on us by making sure we perceive challenging things to be less appealing.
Why would our brains lie to us? Maybe it’s a biological thing from back when we needed to preserve energy to go hunting for food. I don’t know. What I do know is that we can take advantage of our shady brains by making the right choices the easy choices. Let me give you a couple of examples.
In 2019, The danish digital analytics company, IHH Nordic, wanted to reduce the time the employees spent in meetings. The solution that ended up cutting down meeting time across the company by 50% was to reprogram the default meeting time of their calendar software. Before, when employees scheduled a meeting the length would be set to one hour unless they changed it themselves. Now the default is 20 minutes, forcing the employees to actively change it, if they think the meeting requires more time, thus increasing resistance on the path to longer meetings.
Cool story, bro! But how can I apply this principle to my own life?
One of the ways I have made the right choices the easy choices in my life is by investing in tools that do the hard work for me. When I realized I needed to eat more fruits and vegetables, I bought one of the sharpest blenders out there. This blade-wielding beast turns any greenery into a smooth smoothie in a matter of seconds. I don’t even have to do any cutting myself. Now the easiest meal my lazy ass can think of is also the most healthy option available.
How can you take advantage of your lazy ass and make the right choices the easy choices?
