Lazy is OK

​We live in a society that rewards us being busy. The rush we get from a like, the nod we get from the work mate when we proudly boast how busy we've been, or the knowing understanding of someone who is working as hard as you are and can acknowledge you as part of the tribe. However back through the ages it was known that being busy does not create new ideas.

It's what Cal Newport talks about as shallow work. Deep work, focused quiet, laser beam concentration, silence and stillness are the ticket to your next true great idea. Leonardo Da Vinci once said “there is no room in a busy mind for creativity”.

Yet today to be lazy comes with a sense of guilt. We feel we have to be doing something. To stop, sit, ponder and do nothing, to just look around to observe and contemplate, comes with an enormous guilt where we feel as though to be part of the tribe we should be doing something, accomplishing the next goal, or checking in on social to make sure we are up to date with the latest happenings.

​Finding time to chill, relax, contemplate, drop your shoulders and be lazy is okay. Pick any of your creative heroes and they are sure to have times where they disconnect, and sit or lie down and enter into the space called lazy. It is not rewarded but it brings the rewards.