On being lazy as a successful strategy in life.

In the spirit of Maxwell Maltz ("The best response is no response), I humbly submit that the best effort is no effort.

Call it the Tom Sawyer strategy (hey, there's a great quickie business book title for you, take it and run).

You will recall how Tom Sawyer got his fence painted by another by cleverly making the other person feel it was in his (the other person's) best interest to do it.

I believe the "other person" is Huck Finn, but I'm not certain, and I'm not gonna break my train of thought by looking it up right now. Maybe when I'm done riffing. But I digress.

Anyway, Ray Kurzweil updated the Tom Sawyer strategy to the late 20th century with his pithy epigram, "Work smart, not hard." Precisely.

The reason I'm so passionate about good, clean design and function, whether in objects, ideas, or prose style, is that I have the Steve Krug syndrome: "Don't make me think!"

I want to do things without fuss or bother, so that I can have fun and spend all my time thinking about stuff that bears no relationship to any possible usefulness.

The highest and best use of the human mind is play. All else is a sad diversion. To this end, consider the most insightful definition of work ever, from a University of Virginia psychiatry professor:

"Work is what you're doing when you'd rather be doing something else."

There's nothing I'd rather be doing than typing these words, right here, right now.

I always look for the easiest way to do anything. As well as wondering whether it's even worth doing.

As my dad said (the only thing he ever said that was worth remembering - what a loser... but I digress), "A penny saved is better than a penny earned, because you don't have to work to save a penny."

Article Author: bookofjoe

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