7 Habits that Seem Lazy but are Helpful For Productivity

In 1850, Frensh economist Claude- Frédéric Bastiat published his famous essay What is seen and what is unseen, in which he criticises the bad economist who focuses only to the initial effect of actions taken, and not their further consequences that may come in the long run.

Bastiat uses the example of a broken shop window. To repair the window, the shop owner has to hire a glass maker. Now the glass maker has money, and can use it to buy further things. Thus, the economy has improved.

But this only notes the visible things, the money spent, and glass maker, while the invisible things note what could have been bought with the money instead. A bad economist focuses on the visible thing, and says we ought to break windows to stimulate the economy. The wise economist confirms that breaking things makes people worse off.

It is obvious that breaking things leads to negative results. Yet, in our working lives, many of us are exactly the bad economists that Bastiat warned against. We focus on being visibly productive, often subtly undermining the invisible ability to do important work.

Consider the person who stays late at the office every night to show everyone around him that they are  interested in achieving  success for their team. However, this makes them sleep less which makes them lazy and sluggish. Thye miss time spent with colleagues, who would have recommended them for projects and promotions. They never have time to think, and thus fail to think of brilliant ideas that would propel them forward. Despite their drudgery, their lack of progress only convinces them that they have failed to work hard enough.

To consider Bastiat’s question as it applies to our work. What are the invisible factors that influence our productivity so that something that looks lazy actually gets results?

1. Actually getting enough sleep:

People who think about productivity waking up early. They believe that waking up at 7am isn’t enough. You need to wake up at 6 , 5 or even 4:30 in the morning.

We all vary in our natural sleeping hours, so early rising might be right for some. But for many others, it’s forcing us into an unnatural rhythm that naturally leads to less sleep.

Sleeping is a basis of productive activity which is a reason for feeling lazy. Not only does sleep consolidate memory, enhance  cognition, and improve your mood, but it absence is disastrous. Failing to get sufficient sleep, many of us believe we’ve adapted, but the truth is our cognitive performance continues to decline. Sleeping well leads to working better.

2. Taking long walks just to think:

We devalue time spent in thinking since it isn’t obvious  to outsiders what we’re thinking about. It’s often the case that those staring off into space or taking a break are seen as slackers.

Long walks just to think are one of the most productive things you can do.

Albert Einstein applied many of the ideas behind general relativity by thinking in long walks. Had he been forced to constantly publish shoddy research instead to show productivity. Our full understanding of the universe would be incomplete.

3. Chatting with colleagues about work:

Gossip in the corridors of offices is a sign of slacking and evading work. But researchers Hugo Merceir and  Dan Sperber  argue that humans  did not evolve to reason well about things in isolation. Our ability of deduction, logic, and insight were developed to win arguments, not to determine the truth.

What this implies, is that when you only think about problems on your own, it’s much harder to arrive at the correct solution, but when you discuss your ideas with others, many insights that seem unreachable in isolation are obvious in interaction.

Like all unseen productivity enhancements, this one gets a bad rap because socialising is often not about making productive breakthroughs. Still, setting up time to chat about hard problems with colleagues is rarely a waste of time.

4. Taking a nap:

Sleep is important, particularly in the night when you can enter deeper phases of sleep that enable memory consolidation. However, our lives don’t always permit perfect sleep. Sometimes we’ll find ourselves struggling to stay awake during work, barely making any progress. In those cases, taking a nap should be seen as a productive thing, not wasteful time.

A difficulty with taking midday naps is that you oversleep and feel groggy after ( not to mention wasting time). Thus, if you’re in a position where napping is an option, you can use the spoon trick. This involves holding a spoon in your hand raised off the ground. When you slip too deeply into sleep, your muscles will relax, the spoon will drop, and the clatter will wake you up.

There is also coffee naps, where you combine a short nap with a pre-nap coffee can also extend your wakefulness. The combination works well because adenosine, which makes you feel sleepy, is removed from receptors following a nap, and the freed receptors can then be plugged by caffeine, keeping you awake.

5. Say “no” to most opportunities and tasks:

“If you want something done, give it to a busy person.”  This saying conceals a hidden meaning. Busy people are those who have the hardest time saying no to those who make demands on their time. That’s why they are busy.

The approach Nobel- laureate physicist Richard Feynman took, is good. Feynman admits that “To do high, real good  physics, you need absolutely solid lengths of time. The solution I offer to avoid people interrupting me at work is to tell them that I’m lazy and irresponsible. I tell everybody that I don’t do anything. If anybody asks me to take care of anything, I refuse and tell them I’m irresponsible.”

Productivity doesn’t mean doing the most, but getting the most from what you have done.

6. Taking regular vacations:

“If you love what you do, everyday is a vacation.” This is nice in theory, bad in practice. Even if you love your job, stepping away from the work you do to clear your mind is essential to getting rid of the routines that make you feel stuck.

In a discussion on travel between journalist Ezra Klein and economist Tyler Cowen, Klein remarked that he often feels exhausted from travel. Cowen responded that he is able to travel so much because he treats travel with the seriousness most people apply to work. Instead of expecting it to be leisure, he sees it as an opportunity  to expand his knowledge.

Travel is not the only way to broaden your mind, but regularly going somewhere new is essential to avoid falling into meaningless habits. Your routines eventually prevent you from discovering creative new solutions. Seeing and discovering new things is essential to prevent becoming  inflexible in your thoughts and actions.

7. Stop doing work you hate:

It’s sometimes the most diligent and productive who end up accomplishing the least. That’s because their tolerance for drudgery  prevents them from quitting on work that’s unrewarding.

All people who have accomplished something of value did work that was meaningful and enjoyable to them. Perhaps not all the time  or without effort, but grinding for years at fundamentally unsatisfying work is rarely the recipe for greatness.

To really do work you love, sometimes you need to stop doing the work you hate.