You’re feeling lazy right now, and reading blogs instead of doing what you’re supposed to be doing. That’s OK — we all do that. We’re all lazy, in different forms, at one time or another.

But let’s look at how to make that laziness work for us, and how to turn lazy into productive.

We often beat ourselves up about our laziness, even though it’s a natural condition that every human being gets to some extent. It’s time to stop the self-criticism and see how laziness can actually be a positive, no matter what society tells us.

Here’s an observation: often the smartest people are the laziest ones. They’re always looking for ways to get out of work, or do make something easier, and their creative ways of doing that have come up with some of the most ingenius, productive inventions: the computer, the microwave, the car, the Clapper, to name but a few.

Now, I don’t know about you, but laziness doesn’t seem so bad to me when you look at it that way. Let’s see how laziness can actually be productivity if you use it the right way.

Be productive to avoid doing something. Now turn that concept on its head. It’s an idea called Structured Procrastination, and written about much earlier by Robert Benchley in a great article called Getting Things Done from 1949. The basic concept is that in order to avoid doing something difficult, you’ll do a bunch of other things instead. A lot of those other things might also be important too, so you’re being productive because you’re too lazy to do the most important thing on your list. So, to implement this, put one really hard task at the top of your list, and a bunch of other important stuff below it. Now, tell yourself you really must, must get that first task done right away. If you’re feeling lazy, you’ll do the other stuff on the list instead. Now, when more important stuff comes up, the first item of the list gets pushed down and will get done.

Automate. Instead of doing the same things over and over, see if you can find a way to automate it. This will require that creativity that lazy people have. You can find ways for the computer to automate it, or give others the authority to do something following certain rules without your approval, or outsource something you really don’t want to do all the time. Great! Cross off more items from your to-do list without actually doing anything.

Read the rest of the Lazy Tips @ FreelanceSwitch >>>