“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” – Bill Gates
I’m lazy. It’s true. But most people who know me wouldn’t label me as such because I get a lot done, both in my personal life and at work. My motivation? Laziness. I’d much rather automate a task than do unnecessary manual steps over and over again because I hate wasting time!
Case in point: there are files I have to download from my employer’s financial system which need to be manipulated in Excel via formatting and formulas before they can be used to create a wire transfer, and later, to enter and clear the invoices in the system. Each batch of invoices contains several of these files. It would take hours to manipulate each one manually. Or I could record a macro and run it on each file which takes less than 30 seconds. Now, creating the macro initially took a little time because you have to think about how to design the formulas to account for the fact that you aren’t sure how many total lines of data will be in each file, but once I got past that hurdle it was smooth sailing. Now I couldn’t imagine having to manipulate those files manually every week. It is a daunting enough task as it is but my laziness made it that much easier.
I have lots of spreadsheets and email templates set up to save myself time, as well as provide consistency in my work. I would feel disorganized and ineffective if I didn’t, plus like I said before, I really hate wasting my time on mundane tasks. The easier I can accomplish a task with the least amount of steps, the better.
What efficiencies have been born out of your laziness?
