A Confession: I'm Inherently Lazy (And That's Why I Automate)

I have a confession: I'm inherently lazy.

Not the kind of lazy that leads to nothing getting done. The kind of lazy that absolutely hates doing the same thing twice.

The kind of lazy that, when faced with a tedious, repetitive task, immediately thinks: "There has to be a better way."

That's why I automate.

The Lazy Mindset

Lazy people, properly channelled, make excellent automation builders.

We can't stand inefficiency. We're physically uncomfortable with manual processes that could be automatic. We get itchy when we see someone copy-pasting between spreadsheets.

That discomfort drives us to find solutions.

How It Started

I've been automating things since before it was cool, mostly out of necessity.

Back when I was working in food delivery (2004, long before Deliveroo existed), we had a problem: restaurants couldn't reliably receive online orders. No smartphones, terrible mobile internet, unreliable systems everywhere.

The lazy approach would have been to give up. The properly lazy approach was to figure out how to make it work anyway.

We built systems that seemed impossible at the time. Not because we were brilliant, but because the alternative, manually handling everything, was unbearable.

What Lazy Really Means

"Lazy" gets a bad reputation. But there's a difference between:

Unproductive lazy: Avoiding work, letting things pile up, doing the minimum.

Productive lazy: Refusing to accept unnecessary effort, finding better ways, building systems so you don't have to work harder than necessary.

The second kind is actually a superpower.

The Three-Time Rule

Here's my simple rule: if I have to do something three times, I start thinking about automation.

First time: Fine, I'll do it manually.

Second time: Okay, maybe I should note the steps.

Third time: Right, we're building something.

This means I don't over-engineer things that only happen once. But I also don't spend years doing repetitive tasks that could be automated.

What I Automate

Client onboarding: New client signs up, welcome emails go out, tasks get created, calendars get updated. All automatic.

Follow-ups: Lead comes in, doesn't respond? Automated nudges at sensible intervals.

Reporting: Key metrics assembled and delivered without anyone having to compile spreadsheets.

Content scheduling: Write once, schedule everywhere, forget about it.

Admin tasks: Appointment reminders, invoice chasers, review requests. All the things that are essential but tedious.

The Freed-Up Time

Here's the thing about automation: it doesn't just save time. It saves mental energy.

Every task you don't have to remember is cognitive load you're not carrying. Every process that runs itself is one less thing demanding your attention.

Lazy people guard their mental energy fiercely. We know it's a limited resource. We refuse to spend it on things machines can handle.

The Irony

The irony of productive laziness is that it often looks like hard work from the outside.

Building automation takes effort upfront. You have to understand the process, design the system, test it, refine it. That's not lazy at all.

But it's strategic laziness. Front-loaded effort that pays dividends forever.

The truly lazy move is spending an hour building something that saves you 10 hours over the next year. And then another 10 hours the year after. And so on.

Embracing Your Laziness

If you've ever thought "There has to be a better way," that's your productive laziness talking. Listen to it.

If you've ever felt annoyed by repetitive tasks, that's a signal. Something should be automated.

If you've ever avoided a task because it felt like make-work, maybe it is. Maybe it shouldn't exist at all.

The Bottom Line

I automate because I'm lazy. Not despite it.

The discomfort with inefficiency, the refusal to accept unnecessary work, the constant search for better ways: these aren't bugs. They're features.

Some people work hard. I prefer to work smart, then hardly work at all.

That's not laziness. That's leverage.

And if you want help bringing that kind of productive laziness to your business, well, that's kind of what we do here at NotLuck.

Because we hate doing the same thing twice. And we figure you probably do too.