Thank you :) i enjoyed your thoughts. Good that you went to the doctor:)
I love how you and amie break it down and have a honest conversation about work a day.
I am taking the weneedyourart course and also in the middle figuring out those small chunks of work that are manageable for me to achieve my goals. And not exhaust myself but still see progress. I hate to see one goal one the side lines. One week only writing and the just music is definitely not working for me. Both need to be in there in different intensity levels :)
I loved reading this. I felt hopeful remembering that I only need to do a little bit at a time and I can trust that it will still take me where I want to go. Thanks for sharing ❤️
Is it laziness or not? I don't know. But I surely know that I've been called lazy. Thank you for articulating my thoughts, as I think the whole grind culture is crazy and not something to be proud of.
I spent a year embracing my "laziness" and doing small chunks of work while people criticized me. However, at the end of the year I had a finished film and the results were showing! :)
Ah good idea! I suppose what I do is, think about something I want to achieve, like writing a book, think about about when I want to achieve it by, add on a little extra time to give myself grace, then work backwards. So, I know I want to write a book a year, a book is 100,000 words, I also need time to edit. It will take me 200 days at 500 words a day, so that then gives me 165 days to edit. So I'll just try to do 200 days... it's a little messy but it works for me.
TLDR, don't look at the big scary goal, break it up into chunks by working backwards from it.
I really needed this as well .. and due to my laziness of reading it 2 days after it was published makes me embrace my lazy habit of reading 😊 I've struggled my whole life feeling I'm lazy because I do enjoy downtown and refuse to be crazy busy. I think this part that you wrote "Laziness is beautiful.
It is an acceptance that you don’t have unlimited time in your day. It’s an acceptance that you would really rather not be stressed and tired if you can help it. It’s the realisation that you can’t actually pull all nighters regularly and not burn out. It’s meeting your body where it’s at, and giving it the grace and the tools to accomplish things in its own time. It’s understanding that small actions taken regularly are much more powerful than big gestures." THIS IS GOING TO BE WITH ME FOR AWHILE. Thanks for sharing and to everyone else who commented ❤️
Well look at me taking a week to reply! Laziness for the win! I love this: "an acceptance that you would really rather not be stressed and tired if you can help it."
This is so, so good. I used to be all or nothing in my twenties, and honestly, it landed me in the hospital more than once. Now, as I approach 40—especially as a mother—I’ve had to embrace the approach you write about here. I can’t just power through and get everything done whenever I want. Small steps, every day. That’s how the dreams happen.
This is the article I did not know I needed to read!!! Feeling so seen, held, and inspired at the same time. 1 hour a day makes 1 novel a year?! Fck yes. Thank you James 🙏🏽
Love everything about this essay. This was the best bit: "It sounds like a lot but it was done so languidly, so easily, that I never felt hungry, didn’t restrict any food groups, and barely noticed I was losing weight. In fact, I was often full and satiated." If taking care of your body can feel like this, I think a lot more people would do it earlier and stick to it
100% Esha! Diet and exercise culture have become like work culture. We've assigned moral value to how difficult it is rather than caring about actual results... so silly...
Being gaslit by middle management exhausts me. Realizing that I'd rather be honest that I do actually work smarter not harder but then coming to terms with the fact that gets me no where either.
Middle Management will go bye bye very soon and they know it so they are desperate to prove their worth by having pointless meetings about performance and not about results. I was once empathetic but my burnout is preventing me from feeling that way currently.
Middle management should 100% be the ones that have to prove they deserve their extra pay, not regular workers. But of course, if they weren't policing your work hours, there'd be nothing for them to do...
I have long said there’s no such thing as laziness. If you don’t want to do work there’s so many reasons for it from you’re either not aligned with it, you’re putting pressure on yourself or like you said here, you don’t yet know your particular formula for peace in the pace of it. I’m sure there’s 1 million other reasons. Thank you for yet another great Substack!
Reminds me of the baffling state of affairs where, we've reached the GDP/ total societal wealth which John Maynard Keynes determined would let us all work 15 hours a week. AND YET we screwed it up so monumentally that instead of letting us all enjoy the fruit of that productivity and wealth gain. It has to be ideological. At some point we decided that the moral thing was to work.
I've been journalling the fuck out of this this morning. Thanks James. :)
So glad you liked it, Emi!
Thank you :) i enjoyed your thoughts. Good that you went to the doctor:)
I love how you and amie break it down and have a honest conversation about work a day.
I am taking the weneedyourart course and also in the middle figuring out those small chunks of work that are manageable for me to achieve my goals. And not exhaust myself but still see progress. I hate to see one goal one the side lines. One week only writing and the just music is definitely not working for me. Both need to be in there in different intensity levels :)
Yes that's so important! You can actually have multiple goals using this method because any one goal doesn't demand too much from you!
I loved reading this. I felt hopeful remembering that I only need to do a little bit at a time and I can trust that it will still take me where I want to go. Thanks for sharing ❤️
Jackie, you are on the path. Baby steps are great!
Enjoying the phrase "keto lifestyle." Lovely article James!
"Have you tried keto lifestyle, bro?"
As a lazy person with a lot of shame around it, I needed this today. Thank you.
Thanks so much for reading, Jade!
Is it laziness or not? I don't know. But I surely know that I've been called lazy. Thank you for articulating my thoughts, as I think the whole grind culture is crazy and not something to be proud of.
I spent a year embracing my "laziness" and doing small chunks of work while people criticized me. However, at the end of the year I had a finished film and the results were showing! :)
That's amazing Mateja! They can call us lazy all they want, but they're the ones trapped in cycles of burnout not accomplishing anything they want...
Would love to hear more about how you break down big goals or decide on how small and how often to break them down!
Ah good idea! I suppose what I do is, think about something I want to achieve, like writing a book, think about about when I want to achieve it by, add on a little extra time to give myself grace, then work backwards. So, I know I want to write a book a year, a book is 100,000 words, I also need time to edit. It will take me 200 days at 500 words a day, so that then gives me 165 days to edit. So I'll just try to do 200 days... it's a little messy but it works for me.
TLDR, don't look at the big scary goal, break it up into chunks by working backwards from it.
I really needed this as well .. and due to my laziness of reading it 2 days after it was published makes me embrace my lazy habit of reading 😊 I've struggled my whole life feeling I'm lazy because I do enjoy downtown and refuse to be crazy busy. I think this part that you wrote "Laziness is beautiful.
It is an acceptance that you don’t have unlimited time in your day. It’s an acceptance that you would really rather not be stressed and tired if you can help it. It’s the realisation that you can’t actually pull all nighters regularly and not burn out. It’s meeting your body where it’s at, and giving it the grace and the tools to accomplish things in its own time. It’s understanding that small actions taken regularly are much more powerful than big gestures." THIS IS GOING TO BE WITH ME FOR AWHILE. Thanks for sharing and to everyone else who commented ❤️
Well look at me taking a week to reply! Laziness for the win! I love this: "an acceptance that you would really rather not be stressed and tired if you can help it."
This is so, so good. I used to be all or nothing in my twenties, and honestly, it landed me in the hospital more than once. Now, as I approach 40—especially as a mother—I’ve had to embrace the approach you write about here. I can’t just power through and get everything done whenever I want. Small steps, every day. That’s how the dreams happen.
Amazing that you've found your own rhythm. Thank you so much for reading.
This is the article I did not know I needed to read!!! Feeling so seen, held, and inspired at the same time. 1 hour a day makes 1 novel a year?! Fck yes. Thank you James 🙏🏽
YES! I would even say you can write a book a year on half an hour a day, if it's good focused work and the book isn't a giant 200k Fantasy tome!
This feels like the version that doesn't stress out your nervous system, and I'm here for it. 100%
Yep exactly!
Love everything about this essay. This was the best bit: "It sounds like a lot but it was done so languidly, so easily, that I never felt hungry, didn’t restrict any food groups, and barely noticed I was losing weight. In fact, I was often full and satiated." If taking care of your body can feel like this, I think a lot more people would do it earlier and stick to it
100% Esha! Diet and exercise culture have become like work culture. We've assigned moral value to how difficult it is rather than caring about actual results... so silly...
Being gaslit by middle management exhausts me. Realizing that I'd rather be honest that I do actually work smarter not harder but then coming to terms with the fact that gets me no where either.
Middle Management will go bye bye very soon and they know it so they are desperate to prove their worth by having pointless meetings about performance and not about results. I was once empathetic but my burnout is preventing me from feeling that way currently.
Middle management should 100% be the ones that have to prove they deserve their extra pay, not regular workers. But of course, if they weren't policing your work hours, there'd be nothing for them to do...
I have long said there’s no such thing as laziness. If you don’t want to do work there’s so many reasons for it from you’re either not aligned with it, you’re putting pressure on yourself or like you said here, you don’t yet know your particular formula for peace in the pace of it. I’m sure there’s 1 million other reasons. Thank you for yet another great Substack!
Reminds me of the baffling state of affairs where, we've reached the GDP/ total societal wealth which John Maynard Keynes determined would let us all work 15 hours a week. AND YET we screwed it up so monumentally that instead of letting us all enjoy the fruit of that productivity and wealth gain. It has to be ideological. At some point we decided that the moral thing was to work.
Love this, all of it 💕💕💕
Iconic
No you.