I’ll let you in on a little secret that many people don’t know about me.
I’m LAZY.
Yup, I said that… and I mean it!
Don’t get me wrong, though. Â I’m not afraid of hard work. Â But, I am deathly afraid of hard work with no purpose.
I bet you’re probably the same, right?  The really hard-working folks that aren’t as lazy don’t have time to surf the Internet and read an article like this.  😉
Table of Contents
How to Profit from Laziness!
Well, here’s good news. Â You can allow your laziness to become your advantage, rather than let it become your burden.
“Choice” is a beautiful thing!  In fact, laziness can lead to accelerated profits and financial freedom.  Here’s why.
1. Use Laziness to Create Shortcuts
As a lazy person, I like to look for shortcuts. Â I like efficiency so that I don’t need to spin my wheels on something that could be done in half the time. Â Want some time-tested shortcuts to wealth? Check them out here – Shortcuts to Wealth.
Become financially alert!
And my favorite… modeling successful people who have already attained the results that I want.
2. Use Laziness to Create Win/Win Opportunities
One of my childhood heroes was Tom Sawyer. Â He was a charming young man who knew how to create win/win situations. Â On one such occasion, he was tasked with painting a fence for an entire afternoon. Â Yet instead of doing the work himself, he got super creative and convinced his friends to happily complete the entire chore for him!
Consider leveraging win/win opportunities with co-workers, friends, family, employees, or assistants (if you’re lucky enough to have one). Â Lazy people know that time is one of our most valuable commodities, so any leverage to give you back some additional time is golden!
As Scrooge McDuck used to say to his nephews in Duck Tales, “Work smarter! Not harder.”
3. Use Laziness as a Pathway to Entrepreneurship
Lazy people will do anything to get out of work when they’ve got something else better to do. Â So why not DO something that you’d rather do! Â Entrepreneurs create and build solutions and/or services to create efficiency in their marketplace.
This drive to “do more with less”, combined with persistence, can lead to a lazy person’s dream… financial freedom! Â I always knew for myself that starting a business of my own was one path that could lead to financial freedom sooner than later. Â Luckily, I was right and my motivation to be lazy in the future has paid off.
Being FIRE‘d has allowed me to try out a lot of different business ideas and see what I like. This blog is one of them, teaching NFTs, financial coaching, Amazon FBA, etc. Each of these has made money in varying degrees, and I LOVE the variety it offers me.
4. Use Laziness to Outsource Hard Work
Lazy people love to outsource work to professionals. Â This allows you to concentrate on what you know and understand best, and leave the “surgery” to the surgeons. Â There are many things that I’m able to do, yet I choose not to do them because I can usually find someone else that is better than me to perform that task.
For example, I outsource all of my property management to companies I trust.  This is a huge burden off of my plate and I’m able to go back into the market to recreate another deal instead of dealing with maintaining existing ones.  I guess you could also say I’m lazy because I don’t want to fix toilets either!  🙂
If you have a lot of K1s and a small business, it’s rather advantageous to hire a CPA to assist with your taxes. I don’t need to read the tax code to benefit, I’d rather have a tax expert advise me and stay lazy.
5. Â Use Laziness to Gain Wisdom Faster
Being lazy sometimes is boring. Â Instead of forging ahead into uncharted territory, the lazy person will sit back and observe. Â If you look and study long enough, you’ll begin to notice patterns of success from those already getting extraordinary results.
So, this increased pattern recognition leads to gaining wisdom in the fraction of the time it would take otherwise. Â Being able to have a “playbook” while playing the “money” game, is an advantage you want to take!
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot more. But, I’m too lazy to read an entire book many times. So, I’ve been using a cool app called Blinkist which summarizes books into a 5-minute read. It captures the gist of a book, and at least I can decide from there if I want to read the entire book in full.
6. Use Laziness to Seek Out Technology
Technology can be an incredible resource for the lazy person. Â In fact, I grew an entire business around technology. Â Lazy people always want to find the latest and greatest tech to help them complete a task faster.
However, don’t get fooled into thinking all technology can accelerate a result. Â You need to strategize, understand your intended outcomes, and then cut down your time with specific tools. Â Here’s an example for budgeting… the long way, and the easy way.
Lazy with your paperwork? Me too. This is how I use a scanner to go digital with my paper docs.
Final Thoughts
Use laziness to your advantage. Â Laziness drives us to seek a path of efficiency… a path away from hard work and labor… a path towards profit & financial freedom.
Once you find financial freedom, the lines between work and play begin to blur. Â I assure you, it’s a goal worth achieving!
Readers, how have you profited from your own laziness?  Did I miss any?  Help me think of some others, I’m too lazy to figure out the rest. 😉
My extended goal is to help you find your personal path to financial independence, and to enjoy the entire journey along the way.
More about me
- Finding FI Interview #44: Flying Free with Captain FI - July 24, 2023
- 8 Things About Money that I Wish I Knew In College - May 17, 2023
- It Pays to Pay Attention: How Diligence Can Save and Earn You Money - April 24, 2023
29 Comments on “How to Profit From Laziness”
Great tips, Michael.
#5 concerning using a CPA for taxes is a no-brainer… at least it should be. I use another CPA to do my bookkeeping. My tax CPA is on retainer for $100/month. I can call him with anything, and he does my tax return and my son’s tax return. I pay the CPA that does my bookkeeping $250/month. She keeps books for 3 companies (software, real estate, and publishing) and files all the state forms, runs payroll, pays/files payroll taxes, etc. They don’t know it, but I’d gladly pay $1000/month or more for all of this; instead it’s a real bargain at $350/month.
Wow, that’s an incredible bargain! I’m paying a couple of grand per year, but our return is somewhat complex.
Sometimes I wish our society embraces this kind of lazy instead of valuing face time and how late someone stays at work. I love to automate or outsource as much of the tedious part of my work as much as I could so I can focus on more interesting things.
That’s great! Being lazy can really help us find out what we value most. And, yes, I do wish more companies valued results over time put in.
Other ways to profit from laziness just off the top of my head:
(1) Participate in sleep studies and get paid doing them;
(2) House sit when friends/family members are on vacation – free rent for just lounging;
(3) Become a tv or movie critic – get to watch tv/movies all day;
(4) Mattress tester – get to sleep all day;
(5) Lazy river tester/reviewer/designer for amusement parks/resorts – self explanatory.
I love lazy rivers! Hmmm…
Ha ha, I would not call this laziness.
Infact this can be called smartly working around for a quick solution, without too much investment of time.
Yes, efficiency and laziness are directly related. But, “laziness” makes for a better title. ?
I love it! I was crazy lazy but as an engineer it spurred me to put all my companies design equations into computer code(in the early days of computing). It also drove me to find simpler more elegant designs. Both of those lazy byproducts made me look like a genius and led me to running the company and making lots of money. Working hard when you can instead work smart, that’s crazy. Lazy beats crazy!
Haha… Lazy beats crazy!! Love that.
Great story, Steve. Lazy really can drive innovation and smart innovations.
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I use my laziness to convince people to teach me about their passions. I was interested in self-publishing, but didn’t want to wade through all the contradictory information online. I asked my network, and found out that one of them had self-published and was happy to tell me all about his process. It was amazing.
Good point, ZJ! Always leverage your network to get things done if you’re able to. Our networks are much more powerful than we typically realize.
With my LLC that I am still growing, I use laziness to make my clients give me the information I need in an easy format for me to use. I created the checklist once and won’t work until they fill it out. Then I don’t have to keep meeting them for answers.
That’s great. The sooner you build processes the better! It will allow you to scale your business much quicker too.
Seeking automation and shortcuts is a good one. I’m always looking for new ways to improve efficiencies because my to do list is constantly growing.
Yes, you must be well versed at automation, Sydney! I can tell because you’re able to accomplish so much. 🙂
I feel like you’ve covered it nicely here man! Although rather than laziness I call it leverage 😉 haha
Glad you like it, Jef. You can definitely profit from leverage as well!
Interesting! I never would’ve thought of using laziness to profit before.
Thanks for the comment, Jen! Good luck with your debt journey. 🙂
I love the idea of being able to put things on autopilot. The biggest thing is with my finances. The easiest changes have been cutting unnecessary things that cost me money and time. Creating some positive momentum with investments is great too. The magic of compounding returns is awesome, and we can be lazy watching it all happen!
Michael, it sounds like you, me, and Brian are all in agreement! Automated investing, a dash of compound interest, and whhaaa laaa – the perfect vehicle to wealth for the lazy. Building momentum is a great tool for the lazy investor too!
I read the ‘I Will Teach You to Be Rich’ book a while back which really advocated automatic investing so you don’t have to think about it. Now that it is set up, I’m too lazy to make changes and just automatically save / invest every month.
Laziness is a big part of my day job too – figuring out ways to get repetitive tasks off my plate.
Brian, I love automatic investing! What a great way to be lazy and watch your dollars grow over time. Compound interest is truly amazing and you don’t have to do much, except be lazy and wait. 🙂
Laziness is often given a bad rap in our society, but I think you’re on to something here Michael!
Laziness has really driven most of man kinds technological advancements over the years! It can’t be all bad.
However, I wonder if certain kinds of Laziness could hurt you financially….say for example picking a bad financial advisor instead of doing your own research. That could be catastrophic for a portfolio over time.
Thanks Mr. Tako. I agree with you, laziness can certainly fuel disadvantages as well (it could probably be an entire other post!). I always try to tell people no one will ever care about your money more than you should!
Strategic Laziness is the Serial Achievers Secret Weapon.
It’s important to only spend your time doing “highest & best use” activities. I outsource the following so that I can focus on other activities:
1 – Monthly Deep Cleaning of our house
2 – Yard Maintenance
3 – Hot Tub chemicals and Maintenance
4 – Property Management
5 – I use Amazon and Petco for a lot of recurring purchases so that I don’t have to spend a ton of time going to stores
6 – I leverage technology to automate and streamline rote tasks
7 – Started using Fiverr to start outsourcing things to grow my blog
The list goes on and on.
Excellent list, Dom! Your strategic laziness has definitely made you efficient. I’m always fascinated by what people with do for $5… especially the infographic you shared with me. We also so outsource deep cleaning, but only do it once per quarter. 🙂