The Lazy-First Framework™: Boredom, Brilliance, and Burnout-Free Productivity
Discover the Counter-Intuitive Path to More Effective Teams and Effortless Productivity
I studied Ecology at University, but I never managed to get a job in the field. While I eventually moved on to a great career as a programmer, for a long time I felt a nagging unease about not doing anything with my studies. Until I started working as a Scrum Master. It was only then that I found out how naturally empiricism came to me, and what a great job my teachers had done making empiricism second nature for me.
I’d like to say that this fervour for empiricism was born out of some sort of high-minded idealism. But to be honest, it is just because I’m plain lazy. I’d just rather try something — anything — out and see if it works rather than put in all the effort of thinking my way to the right answer in the first place. Much too tedious! And the worrying and stress! No thank you. Let me enjoy my naive creativity thank you very much.
So yes, if you want me to excel at my work, just let me be lazy. Let me try out some crazy idea, and if that doesn’t work, no worries, as that will point me to the next best thing, as Dave Snowden would put it. Eventually, I will get there, and instead of a headache, I will be sitting back and laughing at my… well, I don’t know what to call it. Creativity? Intuition? Or just plain luck? Whatever the case, getting to the solution with minimal effort is great fun. So much fun that it is actually quite addictive.
And it is fast! No writing user stories, estimating them, roadmaps, dependencies - all the accepted contraptions of an Agile approach! Instead, just bounce ideas around with my team, infecting each other with enthusiasm and mischief, until we are all ready to go for it.
What’s more, no burnouts! With this approach, I get to skip worrying about all the things that might go wrong. I’m not really counting on it working in the first place anyway, so why worry? A side effect is that it makes people think me a very brave person (I’m not).
When I do get whatever it is working (to my surprise), it is too late to worry. And anyway, once there, seeing the actual thing, it is a lot easier to think about the wisdom of my solution. And all the things that might go wrong. In fact, once I get it working, I get a front seat in experiencing most of the things that can go wrong, and that can be a whole lot of fun too. Like watching an episode of Jackass.
And from that front seat, having become quite practised in this Lazy-First™ approach, it is then quite easy to use the same approach to solve the problems as they turn up. Ad hoc. Which only makes me look braver. And cooler — cool cat with sunglasses on.
The Lazy-First Framework™
Lately I’ve come to realise that this seemingly “negative” attitude of mine, if you really think about it, is actually a full-blown methodology worthy of its own place in the annals of Agile methodologies. There’s a method — check! Psychology — check! It is based on empiricism — check! And lean — of course! And I even have a successful use case — check!
Yes, I can hear you chuckling from here, so let me elaborate. Backwards and with different names, because naturally I’m too lazy to keep track of my own train of thought.
Empiricism
First of all, Agile is based on empiricism (yes, same name here as above, by pure luck, just to get you started). Empiricism means acting as a scientist. Which means that you are trying to push the envelope. Thinking up crazy ideas should be your bread and butter. We’re not interested here in maintaining the status quo, no. What we are looking for is the next horde of uninhibited Einsteins and Freuds who will turn the world on its head. The only thing you need to worry about is proving your ideas with an experiment, which is exactly what the Lazy-First Framework™ does: just try it out and find out if it works!
OK, so yes, you do need to come up with the crazy ideas in the first place. But that’s not work! That’s being lazy in a way that is accidentally productive. We all do it. Or used to, before smartphones and modern life. It used to be called “being bored” and the biggest victory of Big Brother was to get us to stop doing it. Voluntarily! The ultimate Bond baddie movie plot!
So, indeed creativity and innovation are intimately related to being lazy and being bored. Laziness and Boredom are like the two angels sitting on your shoulders, one black and one white. The white one creates the setting and the black one gets carried away…
Like the time I was trapped in the house with nothing to do and tried to build a lightbulb using a spring and some wires and blew up the power for our whole street (I was only 14). OK, not the best example, because the result was not really productive. But it could have been!
Anyway, the point is that creativity doesn’t like schedules and deadlines and the like. Creativity requires boredom and time to think. A rested mind and the right setting. Time to savour the craziness and mould it in your mind and just lazily enjoy the laziness. The very things usually missing at work.
Human Nature
Going further, what is really important in my methodology, and very Agile, is an understanding of our human nature. I propose that my method frees the creativity completely in all of us and reduces stress absolutely. Not simply skirting around the subject, like other Agile approaches do (which is the reason they don’t work), but by looking the truth in the eyes and not flinching.
Simple things like for example the idea of being told what to do. I’m terrible at being told what to do. Tell me what to do and I will either have a nervous meltdown (the stress of expectations), or I’ll start wondering what would happen if I did it any other way (did someone mention creativity?).
On the other hand, if you tell me what you want, or even better, why you want it, formulate that correctly to tickle my turkey, and that will get the scientist in me (yes, you can also call him the little boy) going and I’ll be doing my utmost to get it done. Not in the sense of hard work, of course, you understand, but in the sense of commitment. Intrinsic motivation and such — I’ll get it done, but it will be my way. Or the highway.
Another good example is treating me, well, professionally. Again, something I can’t help myself with — give me money and I’ll end up finding all possible ways I can get more money, including those that are completely, totally not what you wanted me to do. Or maybe not, maybe I’ll just get all stressed out about all that money and my brains will go awry and I’ll degenerate into a helpless mess of incompetence.
Give me trust instead and I’ll be your friend forever and ever and do my ridiculous best to fix any challenge you throw at me. Again, not in the sense of hard work, but just because it’s so much fun to make people happy. In the depths of our complex humanity, we are all just little round-eyed puppies wanting to make everybody happy.
Process
So yes, this all sounds very much like a rambling, but there is a method in there. And the method is — be Lazy-First™. Perfectly structured methodical laziness. There is a very serious process to Laziness-First™, which takes some pretty serious discipline. Supported, of course, by a process.
However, the discipline necessary for this framework is all on the side of the manager. So, if you are not a manager, do skip on to the conclusion. Or read the next bit for pleasure and for insights into how to manage your typical manager.
So yes, dear Manager, the hard bit of the Lazy-First Framework™ is mainly for you, hard-working managers, because as you surely know, the profound truth is that mere employees are inherently lazy. So that means that for this framework to work, they don’t need to do anything, just be themselves. As usual, all the sweat and blood and tears are for you.
But! The huge innovation of this framework is that for once, you don’t need to force, manipulate, cajole or threaten your employees in any way! No more nerve-popping frustration and irritation! This framework guarantees ultimate world peace!
The only thing you need to do is think of a cool, inspiring why! Just drop some idea you have, with no obligations, and eventually boredom will lead your people back to that idea you planted, and then the fireworks start. That’s growth mindset for free!
Imagine that, motivating people by doing nothing? And it works for you too, Mr. Manager! Let your own natural laziness rule, and since there is nothing else left for you to do, think about all that boredom and all those beautiful whys just waiting to be born in your visionary mind!
The hardest bit is that you will need to kill all your Tayloristic demons and tendencies first, taming the managerial monster in you and discovering your own inner laziness.
Ah yes, and this part you will like, bullet points! No process is complete without bullet points, so here you go:
Start with being lazy, and keep that up to cultivate boredom.
Boredom leads to why, preferably in a pub or some lazy lounge kind of place.
Share the why with your employees as if it were a prank and you’re daring them with it.
Give your employees space to savour and enjoy that prank — I mean why. Do not, I repeat, do not, get involved in what happens next. Just let it happen. Go away and be lazy somewhere else.
Wait and be patient, and someday those employees will come back, full of pride and mirth, to show you what amazing thing they came up with to fix your why.
Rinse (the beer after the party) and repeat!
So, Mr. manager, remember, just do some his Dudeness stuff to get us going. Share some beer. Tell stories, tall stories. Anything as long as — god forbid — it doesn’t sound too serious or professional or anywhere close to something managerial.
If you really cannot help yourself, feel free to try to coordinate this whole process in any way you like, just do not let the people find out you are doing that. Any mistake in how you manage this, and there will be no end to the trouble you will get.
You see, this is a stubborn approach which tends to go off on its own and is extremely allergic to being managed. Remember the human nature stuff! Mismanagement is the way!
It’s a bit like riding an elephant. You might think you are in control, but you are really just a very weak lobby (average say 90kg?) trying to get a LOT of independent will (average 40 people? Which surprisingly and coincidentally is the average weight (4000kg) of an Asian elephant) moving where you want it to go.
So sit back and relax, enjoy the laziness. Let it manage itself. A beautiful black box where you put in whys at one end and get wonderful stuff out the other end. Think of the elephant as the black box, if you like. Try to imagine those huge turds are worth their weight in gold.
And naturally, exploit the Lazy-First Framework™! Just throw in the minimum from time to time, say like some money, just enough to make that discussion disappear off the table, some good food now and then (pizza!), and of course some really good coffee, sit back, relax, enjoy your own laziness and watch amazing things happen!
Conclusion
So there you have it, the amazing Lazy-First Framework™! A compilation of our beautiful human nature of laziness and some Agile jargon to make everyone’s life flourish and there is simply no excuse for how powerful this methodology is. This is the Agile way.
Oh yeah, and another Agile thing is of course, certifications! Please support me in really making this framework take off by applying for the first round of essential certifications! The first ones we have for you are:
The Boredom Sower™ (your Scrum Masters will love this one),
The Why Popper™ (this one is for you, Mr. Manager) and
The Laziness Cultivator™ (learn to manage the manager).
But remember! Be Lazy-First™. The laziest applicants will get a head start, of course. I’ll get back to you on this as soon as I have patent approval and the royalty scheme for the Lazy-First Framework™, but you can contact me in the meanwhile for one-on-one custom trainings by the awesome all-seeing founder, i.e. me!
Incidentally, I ran into this story as a half-written draft, with interesting chunks of text but no real direction. And I happened to be terribly bored. So I just let the story take me along, just for fun. And even though I say it myself, I’m thinking, “Not bad”. That was a lot of fun to write!
Yes, you are very sharp, this is indeed the use case I promised you back in the beginning somewhere.
Anyway, the point being that this is the ultimate proof that laziness works. Cultivating boredom is the next epiphany to our journey beyond Agile! Join me in taking the world by storm with the Lazy-First Framework™!
I love this! The number of hard truths in here are well, countless. I mean, this will never fly with management until someone writes a management book about it. So... write a book? :D