What are the benefits of Lazy Intelligence? Part 1

We all know that person who seems to have time for everything. He is enjoying life more than you, but he is also excelling professionally. He seems to have time for friends and family, and he seems relaxed. He seems to have so much more time than you! Maybe he does? What would you do if you had 3 extra hours each day? Would you enjoy them, invest them, waste them? This may sound like a silly and theoretical question, but it isn’t!

Time is perhaps the most abundant resource in the world; time comes around every day. Our problem with time is not our lack of it, but how we spend it. I would propose that the person just described is spending his time much better than you. But how? The theory of Lazy Intelligence can help you get those 3 extra hours.

The 80/20-Principle Shows That There Are Enormous Differences in Effectiveness

The 80/20-Principle (Thank you Richard Koch) states that 80% of outcomes are often produced by 20% of inputs. This is often true for an organization: that 20% of employees produce 80% of results. What does that mean in practice? If 20% produce 80%, those 20% are producing results at an average effectiveness of 80%/20% = 4. The remaining 80% produce 20% at an average effectiveness of 20%/80% = 0.25. Now the interesting question: how much more effective is the 20%? Are they twice as effective? Are they four times as effective? No, they are 4/0.25 = 16 times more effective. 16 times! If a person is working 16 times more effectively than you, the natural conclusion is that he should be able to achieve 8 times the results in half the time it takes for you!

How does he do it? Is he 16 times smarter than you? The answer is definitely no. Is he working 16 times as hard as you? Absolutely not, the time wouldn’t allow for that. Is he working in a better way? Most like, yes. That doesn’t answer how, but it implies that you must work differently to achieve better results and unlock your time. As a first step, if you are already hard-working, the Theory of Lazy Intelligence shows how you can get your time back.

The theory of Lazy Intelligence shows that you can get more for less

So, what is the Theory of Lazy Intelligence? The theory of Lazy Intelligence states that, in most human endeavors, output increases by the amount of work put in, but only up to a certain point. Once that point is reached and more work is applied output DECREASES. This is the work-output paradox.

The immediate conclusion is that if you have passed the point where output decreases with more work, you benefit from working less—both by improving the output and freeing up time. One Task: Beneficial Results

What happens if you apply this principle to a task you normally perform on a given work day? You can reclaim time! How? By aiming at working in the lazy intelligent rather than hard-working intelligent way. In a given task where you usually end up working more than is necessary, if you aim at working less, you can free up a portion of your time. How much could you free up? Hard to know exactly, but if you work at it, my guess is that you could perceivably reduce time spent by 30% without negatively affecting your output.

But that is just one task. How about if we try to apply this principle to all our tasks in a day?

All Tasks: Remarkable Results

Can this idea really give us 3 hours back every day?

Meet Jane: she is 33 years old, works at a PR firm and has a husband and son. This is her day:

As you can see, her day is divided into before work 1.5 hours, at work 8.5 hours and after work 6 hours (excluding sleep). Assuming that she is hard-working, can we use the theory of lazy intelligence to give her some of her time back?

Let’s apply it to her work-day:

She starts by reduces her time spent on admin by only sending short emails and batching admin tasks to one specific day of the week. This saves her on average 30% of an hour.
She then says no to one of the 1-hour meetings that she scheduled because “it is good to show up on meetings”. This saves her one hour!
After lunch, she asks her excel-wiz colleague to help her with two of the tables for her report. It takes him only 5 minutes to do it, and he enjoys it anyway, but it saves Jane 30% of the total two hour time she spends on the report.
She then says that she can only do the first half of the afternoon meeting. This saves her 50% of an hour.
Finally, she finishes her PR material quicker by not adding the “extra slides” that nobody looks at anyway. This saves her 30% of the two hours she normally spends.

Let us do the maths now: after these adjustments, she has already saved 0.3+1+0.3*2+0.5+0.3*2= 3 hours!

While she’s at it, she remember that she needs to do laundry after work and buy some groceries online. To save time, she decides to make the following changes:

She will not iron any of the family’s underwear or socks
She will just click “buy again” on the grocery list she ordered 2 weeks ago, instead of picking out a new list.

This saves her an additional 30% of the 3 hours she normally spends on home work.

Wow! From these adjustments, Jane was able to save almost 4 hours!

The example of Jane illustrates a point: if you work at reducing your inefficient time spend, you can free up oceans of time!

Now, what would you do if YOU had those 3 extra hours each day?

The extra time can be enjoyed or invested

Lazy intelligence teaches that there are two big and impactful ways of spending the extra time that you unlock with the theory of lazy intelligence. You can:

Enjoy the time. Spend it with family, with friends, on hobbies, or on a non-profit side project. This is called causal lazy intelligence.
Use the time for achievement. You can use your time saved at work for developing your skills or starting up new projects. You can take the lead in a project. You can learn how to be more effective in planning and strategy. This is called ambitious lazy intelligence.

Lazy intelligence can pay in any part of life that you choose

You can do anything you want with the fruits of lazy intelligence. You can start going to the gym, you can read a book, you can start a company or you can relax. It is up to you! None of these are inherently better or worse than the others; all of these uses are good as long as you enjoy it!