I reckon a few of you are sitting there right now and thinking “all of this just sounds like you’re a lazy pr#*^k Owen?”
To which I reply, “guilty as charged!” and actually quite proud of it. Confessing to being lazy is frowned upon in our culture so I don’t do it often (although see here). Instead, I look to reframe laziness as being obsessed with effectiveness. The search for effectiveness is the way of the lazy and innovation is often the outcome. As Frank B. Gilbreth Sr. :
“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
An easy way to do hard things, that’s what I want. In many ways my work and life has been the search for easy ways to do hard things. When it comes to delivering value from IT here are some easy ways to do hard things:
| The hard thing | The easy way |
| Balancing strategic projects and limited resources | Ask what’s most important, or more fully ask, reflect back and agree |
| Delivering large complex projects | Break traditional projects down so you are delivering small and simple projects |
| Changing priorities from your manager | Make “requests” public and openly and consistently discuss them |
Predictably, some of the “easy way” answers get dismissed by smart people as being simplistic. If this is you, fair enough and good luck with whatever approach you choose. I just ask that you don’t complain about being too busy and always being asked to do more with less. This was after all your choice (yes this is an unreasonable view and no I’m not going to justify it now, maybe in another blog).
If you want to click into your inner laziness (and many won’t because we have been trained that laziness is a bad thing), then you can start by considering the following questions when faced with a “call to action”
Is it important? That is, does it directly contribute to your purpose, mission or goals?. If it’s not, don’t do it. If it is, consider asking ….
Is it high leverage? Or does it pass the Pareto test?. The Pareto test, Is this likely to be part of the 20% of tasks that creates 80% of the value? If not, you probably shouldn’t do it; rather you should search for a higher leverage opportunity. Even if it is high leverage, consider ……
Does it need to be done at all and does it need to be done now? Perhaps this should be the first question you ask but asking it here helps us identify transitory issues. These are issues which might be a problem now but are likely to go away by themselves in time. Often active neglect is the best approach to transitory issues, just ignore them.
If it does need to be done, does it need to be done by me? This is a particularly important question for a leader. Should you be doing this or should this be an “opportunity” for a member of the team.
Can this be automated? This is a particularly useful question for tasks that need done often. Automate, automate, automate.
and finally
Will this be fun? If the answer is yes, then despite everything else you might just decide to do it anyway because what’s life if there is no fun.
This isn’t a complete list of questions or a 100% solution to the challenges but I do believe it’s a step in the right direction. Let’s finish with a quote from Agatha Christie
“Invention isn’t born of necessity, but arises directly from idleness, or perhaps even laziness, to save oneself trouble”.