The Lazy Loop
Tell me if this sounds familiar. It’s Saturday. It’s almost 3 PM. You find yourself sitting on your couch with the TV on, streaming your favorite show that you aren’t even watching because you have your phone out watching YouTube videos, playing some games, and checking out that DM you just got. Deep down, you keep on telling yourself that you got to do something, but you just keep waiting and waiting for that something to happen. You’re waiting for that spark to kick in and get yourself in gear.
Look, life just happens. We get ourselves stuck in a rut. We keep on spinning that proverbial wheel, hoping that something happens. Life begins to turn mundane, and we begin to wonder if there is anything better for us. Once you’re hit with that feeling of life incoherence, you watch time and life pass you by. You want to do something, but you’re just waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
You suddenly find yourself asking the big questions: why am I so lazy? Why don’t I want to do anything? Why does my life suck?
Look, you’re not lazy. You’re life doesn’t suck. You world just hit a roadblock that took you out of the game for a bit. All you just need are tools that can help you get back on the road again.
Choice Paralysis
Your life is filled with a terrible amount of choices that it leaves you drained – exhausted. You’re confronted with choice paralysis. What is choice paralysis? The inability to not make decisions due to the number of high amount of choices you can potentially make with no certainty of where you will be going.
Choice paralysis is everywhere. You know when you go to a restaurant for the first time (or thousandth) and you’re given the menu only to see that there are 40 items to choose from with no pictures to show you what you think you are getting? You tell your server you need another minute as you read through the entire menu, but you still aren’t sure what you are getting because there is no clear destination or result that can be seen from their descriptions. You’re sensing information overload.
It’s not your fault that life is filled with so many choices. The freedom to choose can also be our enslavement if we allow ourselves to be reacted upon. To free ourselves from the shackles of choice paralysis, we have to cut out choices in our lives. This will let us then create a roadmap that will allow us to see our destination that we are looking for.
There are 3 steps to eliminate choices and putting your life back to where you are wanting to go.
Step 1: Cleaning Simplification
Your environment, the things and the items that surround you on a daily basis on the outside, is a reflection of who you are on the inside. Pretty meta, right? This is a unique variation of the saying, “show me who your friends are and I will tell you the type of person you are.” The difference with this viewpoint, though, is not saying that this is determining your average income, lifestyle, or behavior. Instead, what this viewpoint is saying is that your mental coherence is on full display here.
Here’s what makes this even more interesting: when it comes to things of a mental nature, we may have a tendency to try to hide anything that may separate us from others in our circles. At work, someone comes up to you and says, “Hey! How’s it going?” Your immediate response comes out as “I’m good!” Ideally, we want to be good, but life throws us curveball after curveball. Swing and a miss. We somehow just can’t hit it out of the park or even land a hit on the ball, period. Yet, we don’t want others to see our hard moments. Therefore, we prefer to keep things to ourselves. We want to only show the best parts of our lives – just look at any social media influencer and you’ll get the picture.
To solve this, you will want to simplify the area around you. If you think I’m suddenly preaching “MINIMALISM!” no, I’m not advocating that you become a minimalist. There are people who thrive in a frenzied environment, while there are others who are unable to function properly in a clustered environment. My recommendation is for those who can’t function properly in a clustered environment.
Look at it like this. You’re hungry and decide to eat at a restaurant that serves amazing food. As soon as you sit at your table, you find that the table is a mess and the ground around you is dirty. You’re expecting your server to wipe the table down and sweep up the mess, but no response. Finally, the food is served, but you can’t fully appreciate the taste because all your attention and focus is going towards how filthy your area is. End result: negative recommendation and you probably won’t go back to that restaurant.
Your surrounding is the same as that restaurant table. Before you can fully enjoy what’s ahead, your area first needs to be cleaned up.
Start basic. Go to your desk. Is it piled with books, paperwork, keys, products, drinks? All that noise is just distracting you. Spend time removing everything that doesn’t belong on that desk. Picture in your head what the ideal desk that you will be using looks like. This will then give you an idea as to what should be on the desk and what should be put away.
After cleaning up your desk, put all the trash in the trash! If it’s other items, put them away in a drawer. Keep them out of sight.
Next, repeat the same process for your other surrounding areas. Again, visualize the ideal look and function that the item or area around you will be.
Step 2: Choice Simplification Into 2-3 Tasks
I remember watching a video that showed a picture of a tree and a small seed pod that was helicoptering down. It was describing that from small and simple things, great things come to pass. That phrase has always stood out to me. I started to think that if we can break things down into small steps, then the big things will come to pass! That’s what we are doing here now.
With your area cleaned up, it’s time to minimize your choices. Get that pen and paper out, your computer, or your phone, and write down all the things you want or have to do. These are your choices. If you have more than three, then circle the ones that you really want to (or have to) do. They all might be important to you, but you need to separate them for now.
After you’ve circled them, it’s time to ask yourself this: out of all these that are circled, which one would help me move forward with what I want to (or have to) do? You can only choose 2 or 3 items.
Now, it’s time to prioritize them. Number the ones you have chosen (with 1 being most important).
With your choices broken down to just 2-3 options, as well as knowing the priority level of importance for each option, now you can more effectively break down the task in front of you into small steps!
How you break these steps down is up to you, but I’ll give you an example. Let’s say that I have a 3,000-word article that I need to write within 7 days. That’s a ton of writing to do within a week, but I can do it. Here’s how I would break it down:
- Research: Spend 1-hour researching the topic. (Day 1)
- Sources: Choose 3-5 sources. (Day 1)
- Read: Spend 30 minutes reading and writing notes. (Start day 1. Spend 3 days)
- Write: Write 500 words in 30 minutes. (Start day 1. Spend 6 days)
- Revision: Spend 1-hour revising the article written. (Day 7)
- Publish the article. (Day 7)
That’s just one method. You can create your own method. The spirit of this list is to show how creating small, actionable steps leads to the completing of the bigger thing at hand!
Step 3: Simplify Time and Place to Do It
Now that you’ve learned to clean your surroundings and simplify your choices, you’re making big momentum. However, your task will never be completed if you haven’t set a time to do it.
Setting a time to work on one of your tasks will be one of the deciding factors that determines whether you complete your task or not. In James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, he describes a research experiment that took place in Great Britain during 2001. Three groups were formed. Group A was asked to keep track of how often they would exercise. Group B was asked to read motivational articles about exercising and health while also keeping track of their exercises. Lastly, group C received the same information that group B received, and they were also asked to set up a plan for when and where they would exercise.
According to the results, Clear says the following:
In the first and second groups, 35 to 38 percent of people exercised at least once per week…. But 91 percent of the third group exercised at least once per week – more than double the normal rate.
That percentage spike is huge! It might sound too good to be true, and reading it almost sounds like those crazy click bait titles from the past that would say “this one trick will make you have eternal youth! And doctors hate it!” Yet, it all goes back to the idea that through small and simple things, great things come to pass.
As Clear outlined it, all you have to do is just add on to the task shown in step 2.
I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].
So, if I were to write it according to my style of creating tasks, it would be as follows:
- Research: I will RESEARCH for one hour at 7 PM at MY DESK. (Day 1)
- Sources: I will CHOOSE 3-5 SOURCES at 7:30 PM at MY DESK. (Day 1)
- Read: I will READ AND WRITE NOTES for 30 minutes at 8 PM at MY DESK. (Start day 1. Spend 3 days)
- …and so on…
My method may be slightly altered than Clear’s method, but the spirit of it still is there. I have written my BEHAVIOR, the TIME, and the LOCATION. I find that it works well for me, and you will find the style that works best for you. But, above everything else, keep it simple!
Wrapping Up
Look, you’re not lazy. You are in a world filled with a bunch of noise and things trying to catch your attention. Maybe you’re thinking too far into the future or thinking too much in the past, and just trying to make sense of it all. That’s normal. I believe we live in one of the best times in human history – and it will continue to become even better. This also means that we are flooded with choices to make, and sometimes it feels you must make them at lightning-quick speed or else you will be behind.
The reality, however, is that we need to take a step back and refocus ourselves. We do this by reducing the amount of choices we have. To do that, we need to remember the three steps:
- Simplify your area – clean up your surrounding areas by visualizing what they are to you;
- Simplify choices to 2-3 tasks – write down your choices, highlight 2-3 of them and prioritize them; and
- Simplify time and place – follow-up with your tasks by writing down when [TIME] and where [LOCATION] you will get your task done.
Call-to-Action
Now that you have some tools at your disposal to remove choice paralysis, what are you going to do now?
I invite you to spend two weeks using this formula. You’ll gain greater clarity as well as a sense of freedom from all the choice-noise surrounding you.
Send me a message with your results! I would love to see what you were able to accomplish that is significant for you!
One of Your Fans,
Phil