Working Smart, Not Hard

I believe in being lazy. “Work smart, not hard,” is my dad’s advice to me whenever I come and complain to him about schoolwork, extracurriculars, and more. I always thought, “Don’t you have to work hard to be smart?” and didn’t really understand the meaning behind the phrase. It instantly clicked for me in my first week of high school– when me and three other people were grouped together to work on some “team-building” science project. My classmates knew I cared about school, that fact being obvious from me turning in all of my previous assignments before the due date and raising my hand too many times in class. My groupmates, trying to take advantage of the situation and be lazy themselves, assumed I would do all of the work for them because I was the only one who cared. If there is one thing that I realized then it’s that I care more about not doing extra work rather than presenting a finished and polished product. Instead of spending hours and stressing about the presentation, script, and prepwork I named every slide, let everyone know what they were supposed to do, and waited. Instead of some glorious scene where all of my group members stumbled through improvising their slides and scripts, I found most of them, realizing that I was not willing in the slightest to do their work, did what they were supposed to do. Being lazy isn’t about procrastination, not waking up on time for school, or not doing the work you’re supposed to do. It can certainly be those things, but I find myself defining it as managing your time so you can do more things you want, less things you don’t want, and excel in both categories without burning yourself out. Being lazy means managing your time wisely and living life the way you want to, and I think more people would definitely benefit from being just a little bit more lazy.