Letting life happen...finally

Leaning into laziness and appreciating chaos

Artist Caitlyn Murphy, quoted in The Lazy Report

Browsing Instagram the other week, something caught my eye. The Lazy Report by It’s Nice That’s Creative Insights team aims to investigate whether the hunt for productivity might be hindering our creativity.

Needless to say, I gave them all my data and downloaded the report instantly, thrilled to read all about my hard-wired approach to work and life, there in black and white:

“Our greatest achievements aren’t developed in dedicated windows of time for “ideas”, but when our brains are given the space to explore possibilities. In other words, the key to creativity might have less to do with productivity and more to do with being “lazy”.

Reading the report and absorbing its comforting findings was like wrapping myself up in the softest blanket imaginable. You see, I’ve always had a complex about my slow and ‘lazy’ existence. In fact, I used to go to (ironically) exhausting lengths to disguise it. On the surface, I appeared to be constantly busy, active and highly productive at work. I was a rusher-arounder.

And yet, I didn’t rush because I was motivated by measurable outputs or driven by workaholism. Rather, experience had taught me, quite subconsciously, that the sooner I completed my work and household obligations, the sooner I could stop and rest – and for longer.

This way of existing used to work well for me. I got things done to a high standard, developed efficient ways of working (a double-edged sword, since people then gave me more work), and always looked forward to switching off at the end of each day to find solace in stories and blissful noiselessness.

But that pattern was formed when I was working in roles I didn’t find particularly fulfilling, when I was in control of my spare time and I could find silence whenever I needed it.

Those days are gone. And I never released how much I valued quietness – how much I relied on it – until it was practically impossible to find.

With two chatty, personality-clashing children, there’s almost no peace to be found at home, especially as day slips into night. Instead, those hours are full of noise and tense bedtime-based negotiations, my body rigid with hypervigilence rather than soft with ease.

These days, my silence and solace must instead be found during my working hours, and in the pockets of time I carve out for writing my own stories. But, as I’ve previously touched upon, there are times when all of these opportunities for quiet contemplation and creativity are beyond my grasp entirely.

The most recent school holiday is one such example. On the one hand, I wouldn’t describe anything about those 2.5 weeks as a ‘holiday’ since they were full to the brim with chaos, noise and big feelings. But, on the other, the enforced time away from my current writing project ended up becoming not just helpful for my creative process, but vital.

Because the chaos, noise and big feelings ended up unlocking the ending of my story, which I’d been struggling to write for weeks. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted my main character to have learned. And, as it turned out, I couldn’t have known – because it took the emotional intensity of those 2.5 weeks for me to learn it myself.

So, the next time I’m itching to get back to my writing desk and surround myself with silence, I’m going to keep telling myself this: the noise and chaos counts. The creative nothingness counts. The blank pages count. They count because they enable our life experiences to imperceptibly whirl, meld and multiply with our ideas, turning them into something much deeper and more unexpected than what existed before.

Would I still describe myself as ‘lazy’? No, because the dictionary definition of that adjective states that, to be lazy, is to be unwilling.

So, what adjective would I choose instead? Here’s one, inspired by one of my favourite Substack newsletters: ‘sluggish’: “moving or operating more slowly than usual and with less energy or power.”

It’s not will I’m lacking, but physical energy. And if I succeed in creating a slow but certain trail of disruptive ideas that are kind of hard to overlook? I would count that as a win.

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This month’s tip for other aspiring authors:

                  Write a quick Haiku
                  To summarise your novel.
                  Won’t fit? Then it's too-

What I recently enjoyed reading: Blackwater by Michael McDowell: A bit of a generic departure for me, but I’m keen to read more widely and weirdly this year, and this pick from a book club I’ve joined through work got me off to a great start on both fronts. Originally published in the 1980s as a commercial horror saga, the story has found new fans in recent years, with the entire series available to buy as a single ebook. It’s undoubtedly dated in terms of some of the language, but it’s creepy, atmospheric and incredibly readable.
What I recently enjoyed watching: Have I ever mentioned Ted Lasso here? I don’t think I have, you know. Well, the third series coming to AppleTV+ in the next couple of months, so now’s the perfect time to binge-watch the first two in preparation. It’s one of the most special and uplifting programmes I’ve ever watched, and yet it manages to explore the complex issue of toxic masculinity with an incredibly deft touch. Do watch it if you haven’t already done so.