Why I think Laziness is a VERY GOOD THING!

[canadian gardener]

I know, you think I've lost it now! But I've been thinking about life, and margins for error lately.

Margins of time and money, and energy. I think about these things when waking up in the morning. It spares me from contemplating icky things like what I need to get done today.

Laziness is a tool. It can help you find the lowest common denominator, that point below which you end up doing more work, and above which you do more work.

I'll explain.

Take the garden -- The areas where I've put my low effort garden in, I barely bother to weed ever. A few times a season and I'm away, and those aren't big sessions or even 5 minutes a day sessions. I'm talking a couple of hours 2 or 3 times a year.

Now if I get all excited and put in high maintenance plants, BANG goes my system.

If I get TOO lazy and don't bother putting the effort in to put the low effort garden in, or do the absolute minimum maintenance, BANG goes my system.

So think of it like a pendulum swinging from side to side. When it comes to rest in the middle it's found it's point of least resistence, ultimate laziness.

Take clothing for another example. If when you buy clothes you forget to look at the care instructions and accidently buy DRY CLEAN ONLY then my goodness you are in for a lot of fuss and bother, and driving back and forth to the dry cleaners, putting chemicals into your clothes, the environment and really biting into your time, energy and dollars.

I know a few of you are itching to mention at this point, WELL REALLY MARGERY, I'm not that kind of a spendy little fool, I WILL HAND WASH the item.

And most of the time you can, and get away with it. I applaud that spirit but I must point out that hand washing delicates is also a time and labour and energy intensive undertaking.

By now some of you are saying,
LAZY GIRL, she won't even hand wash her delicates

and you'd be right.

I avoid that as much as humanly possible. Now that doesn't mean I don't own dry cleanables, but they aren't in my daily wardrobe let me tell you.

But on the other hand if you never bother to wash clothes again, you'd wreck them. not to mention the budget.

If you bought too many sox for example because you couldn't be bothered to launder that often, you might jam up your dresser drawers and be swearing at the cleaning problem and have problems with that system.

So what I want to discuss is that fine line between doing too little (and costing you time and energy and money to fix what you should have taken care of earlier with less trouble in all three depts, time, energy and money)

or doing too much (and costing time energy and money)

Why am I on this?

Well apart from waking up thinking about it, I was thinking how much I enjoy my little minimum effort things that save me from having to actually wash the floor, or weed the garden or clean the fridge.

I used my paper towel (bounty lasts all day as a wonderful disposable dishcloth, no worse than toilet paper or kleenex) from yesterday to do a damp pickup of the crumbs and spots in the corners of my kitchen floor.

I then tossed that well used paper towel complete with crumbs and guck.

The floor badly needs a deep scrub but I don't care to today thanks, and this will keep it fine for as long as I care to avoid that bigger task.

I'm putting more mulch on to maintain my low effort garden systems and loving how little weeding I've done for the past 3 years.

The vacuum was near the fridge last week and I sucked up the crumbies. Fridge looks pretty good, and I think I may wash it come August but till then, a lysol wipe and the odd suck up with the vacuum is keeping it just fine.

We never know what life will land in our laps but one thing I can predict with absolute certainty (I'm a 100% accurate prophet now!!!!!!!!!)

is that we all could use a little more time in the day, money in the bank, and energy to spare for whatever little things life hands us.

[Darlene]

Ya that work stuff & being perfect is way overrated.
Living the good life with ya Margery.

[bg]

O my favorite topic- Laziness! I was a bit a*** retentive when I first moved in with DH. Bathroom had to get cleaned everyweek. Floors mopped and swept every week, blah, blah. Now standards are lowered. If the bathroom is really icky - then clean. If I don't mind a little soap sud on the side of the tub - why get all jumpy about it?

On another note I occasionally check this blog out, and like the general philosophy:http://lazyway.blogs.com/ The Lazy Way to Success

And Margery, you're my hero(ine?)

[betharoo0]

this thread has givin me ANXIETY!
you see iam a RECOVERING clean freak with a touch of OCD (obsessive complusive disorder)
iam doing quite good, i can actually leave the house without cleaning first
please dont mistake this post for being self righteous or whatever i admire where you guys are at cuz this freaky, squeaking clean stuff is ~EMOTIONALLY DRAINING~
keep postin stuff like this
i need it. serious.

[Early Bird]

Hmmm.... I'll have to give this some deep thought.

Both DH and I tend to get revved up on a particular project. Then, after a few days, we CRASH and BURN.

Sometimes it's necessary. For example, at $100/day, we rented a stump grinder. If you rent over the weekend, only Saturday 'counts'. As a result, we spent the whole weekend working in the yard.

And we've been exhausted since.

So, I need to figure out how to make the whole thing balance out. After all ... In a few weeks, we'll want to rent a tiller.

[starsapphire]

Margery I like the way you think

I was just saying to someone the other day, that when I am on my deathbed and ready to meet my Maker, that I will not be saying to myself, 'gosh I really wish I had done more housework during my life' and 'gosh I really wish I ate less ice cream during my life'.