As a White Van Man working longs hours in all weathers is a given, however since reading my Mindfulness book I’ve started to realise there is a lot to be said for being lazier.  Currently, the UK is ranked 11th in Europe for the number of hours people work with countries like Sweden, Norway, Netherlands and Germany all enjoying the benefits of working on average a 30hr week. 

The power of laziness is being taken seriously in business, for example Amazon is trialling a 30 hr week with 75% of full pay and benefits.   The thinking is, if staff are allowed more time off their productivity and creativity increases.  Please don’t confuse laziness with sitting around watching TV and eating fast food.  Good quality laziness is time spent doing nothing important, strangely its quite hard doing nothing important!  When you are not doing anything important your free to think and thinking about nothing important can lead to new ideas and perspectives.

Laziness and mindfulness go hand in hand, here are some tips on how to be a better loather:

  1. Most importantly unplug from technology.
  2. Take a lazy walk with nowhere to go. 
  3. Advertise your new silly business idea. (Fortune telling for pets maybe)
  4. Learn a circus skill, who knows where that might lead…
  5. Spend all day in just your pyjamas.
  6. Listen to your favourite childhood pop songs.
  7. Go barefoot around the park.
  8. Eat dinner by candlelight.
  9. Do something silly – have a pillow fight.
  10. Try and peel an orange in one piece.
  11. Feed the birds.
  12. Gaze at a tree or cloud.

When I go to the zoo I always find watching the monkeys most interesting, these guys are our closest biological relatives and they have it all figured out.  Basically, when not sleeping they spend most of the day socialising, picking bugs from each other, eating and generally messing about.  I’ve tried to find my inner monkey but somehow it does not pay the bills and after not washing for a week I found socialising quite difficult…

Disclaimer:  This has been written for entertain purposes only, if you need advice on being lazy its best you speak to a teenager and not a white van man, green van man or any other coloured van man or me.

Comments to: clevedonmanwithvan@gmail.com