29 “Lazy” Habits That People Swear Have Genuinely Improved Their Lives

As someone who starts each new year with 500 resolutions and abandons them all by January 3, let me tell you, it’s hard to change our ways. But recently, I came across this Reddit thread full of “lazy” habits that people swear have changed their lives for the better, and a lot of them actually seemed doable. Here’s what people had to say:

1.“If I’m procrastinating on a task, I often set a timer and tell myself I will work on it until the timer rings. I’m usually finished or close enough/motivated enough to continue until completion.”

—One_Ad_9188

“I do this with household chores. I started with stuff like, ‘I’ll do dishes and clean the counters until the oven is preheated.’ It’s amazing how motivated you can be when you think you only have to do something for 10 minutes or so. And it turns out that task you’ve been avoiding only takes about seven minutes.”

—Dame_Ingenue

2.“For small items that you’re constantly misplacing, and are constantly searching around for, just buy a lot of them and put them everywhere you might think to look. In my house, you can find chapsticks and nail clippers in every drawer, and a phone charger in every room.”

—Devourerofworlds_69

3.“Keep a note in your phone of things people mention wanting, especially your significant other. Then, when an occasion pops up, you have a list of possible gifts.”

—johnvoightsbuick

4.“Make food in double batches and freeze the part you don’t eat. Cook/prep once, eat two or three times.”

—Dawnguard95

“This is the way. My husband and I usually make six to eight servings in one go, and freeze two to four.

That way, we’re only eating the same thing two days in a row (which is all he can handle, haha), but now we have food for future busy/lazy days. Then you only end up cooking three times at most a week (ends up being cheaper too).

I also found it helpful to over-prepare with other foods that I’m already making. Like if I only need a half onion, I’ll cut the whole thing anyways and put the rest in the fridge because we’re definitely going to use it later in the week. Boiling eggs and only need two? I’ll do four.

I have ADHD, so I always have to take advantage of my motivation because it’s inconsistent. But I will only over-prepare on ingredients I know we’ll actually use; otherwise, food will be forgotten and thrown out.”

—The_Dancing_Cow

5.“Get the same pair of socks multiple times. No time wasted to pair them up. Just grab two of them out of the drawer.”

—w00h

“And once every three or four years, just buy two dozen new ones and throw out the previous ones. I hate sorting socks.”

—Cool_Honey_2540

6.“A lightweight cordless stick vacuum is a game changer. Grab it and just quickly hit a room without being too thorough while you’re waiting for water to boil or whatever. My house is much cleaner with a bunch of frequent sloppy half assed vacuuming here and there than when I’d put off lugging out the big vacuum to do a ‘proper’ job.”

—sqplanetarium

7.“My lazy habit is brushing my teeth to keep from snacking. I had a bad habit of late-night snacking, so I started brushing my teeth earlier in the evening. That made me stop snacking because I don’t want to have to brush twice.”

—Deathwalker47

8.“If a new task comes down from above at work and seems absolutely insane, put it off for a few hours or a day. Because very often, whoever relayed it had the wrong end of the stick, and you’ll get a clarification a little later that you don’t really need to do that.”

—OkSecretary1231

“Definitely! I’ve run into this a lot. Someone will task me to ‘reach out to X department urgently about Y issue,’ and I take about a 15-minute to 1-hour pause depending on the issue, and usually, the same person will tell me, ‘never mind, it was worked out/it was fine.’ It keeps a lot of domino reaction chaos from happening over something that was fine, and I save a chain of people from pausing what they were doing for nothing.”

—peanutbuttermuffs

9.“Lazy exercise. Feeling lazy, trying to get the remote off the end of your bed? Squeeze your abs while trying to sit up and get it. Same while watching TV. I’ll lift my lower body up to a hover and hold.”

—PossibleJazzlike2804

10.“Clean the shower while you’re in the shower.”

—Big_Literature_6635

“My spouse and I got one of those dish-washing wands, where you add soap and water to the handle and leave it in the shower. Every couple of days (ie, when we remember; more than once a week but less than every shower), we use it to ‘scrub’ the tub and walls after our shower.

Essentially eliminates the need to clean the shower when we do a weekly clean of the bathroom. We just have to wipe down the outer lip of the tub with the sponge we used to clean the sink.”

—stranded_egg

11.“Tackling hard problems at work tomorrow. Instead of stressing out immediately, I just say, ‘Let tomorrow me figure it out.’ Nine out of 10 times, I figure out the solutions while driving to or from work or while showering.”

—InstructionDeep5445

12.“Toddler parents, if your toddler has to be dressed for something the next day, don’t bother with pajamas. Bathe them at night and put them in clothes you plan for them to wear. One less thing to deal with when you’re inevitably running late in the morning.”

—magicrowantree

“We did this when my twins were babies!!! Lifesaving for us.”

—Ill_Return_5535

13.“Every time we have to perform a new household maintenance task, I take the time to make a cup of tea first (yes, I’m English). It takes me out of the blind panic and stops me from overthinking. My other half thinks I’m trying to procrastinate.”

—Large-Meat-Feast

“Starting a task with routine (boiling water, teabag in cup, etc.) and a four-minute mental(/or actual) timer probably helps with orienting yourself mentally for the task ahead.”

—omza

14.“A habit that I’ve started to pick up is for laundry, especially if you’re a person who separates their laundry into loads (and you’re like me and laundry creates the most of the mess): have separate baskets for each load. When you’re done wearing something, put it in whatever basket you have for each load (or start one if it’s empty).”

—ta_beachylawgirl

15.“At work, when we are introducing a new process or a new way of doing things, I will procrastinate on starting anything. Then, when folks have started, I listen to their feedback about how they started, roadblocks they ran into, issues they have encountered, etc. This way, when I get started, I know immediately what to avoid and what not to do.”

—FuckChiefs_Raiders

16.“Soaking dishes in the sink. Now, I’m not talking days here. But I’ll put a coffee cup in around breakfast, top it off with water. Plate or bowl from lunch, silverware goes in a coffee cup. Cook dinner, put pans in sink with water (if they’re cool enough). Rest and Digest, watch a show, then wash all the dishes. This only works so well because it’s a small household, and mostly just my partner’s and my dishes. But we never have to scrub silverware, and pans are a breeze.”

“I freely admit this becomes way too much if you have kids. But that was my other lazy habit (don’t make kids!).”

—ThoreaulyLost

17.“I put all my monthly work tasks in an Excel spreadsheet organized by deadline. I don’t ever think about what I have to do; I just look at the spreadsheet and do them in the order of deadlines. It takes a huge amount of ‘feeling’ and ‘deliberating’ out of completing tasks.”

—Secret_Ad5684

18.“I have always found getting dressed really hard and stressful, so I created a ‘uniform’ for myself that I wear every day. It’s not literally the same clothes, but a go-to combo that I know I feel good in and looks put together. It saves me time and mental energy.”

—Bopobabe

19.“Sometimes, if you don’t answer emails right away, they figure out their questions on their own, so you don’t have to do anything.”

—Soaring_Falcyn

“This one is a lifesaver in IT. 90% of all issues are resolved with either a reboot or some extremely basic troubleshooting (‘is it plugged in’ level shit). If you give them 30 minutes to figure it out on their own, a good chunk of the time they do it themselves.”

—SayNoToStim

20.“If you have kids, as soon as they can walk, have them fetch things for you and teach them to throw away their diapers and little bits of trash. You have to get up less often, and they love doing tasks. It builds their self-esteem. It’s a win-win. If you don’t have kids, but are around kids, this will also work with them, too, even older kids. They love to help.”

—oldladywhisperinhush

21.“You don’t have to do the whole chore to get it done. For example, if I want to clean the bathroom, I can just wipe the sink one day for five minutes, then go back another day and scrub the toilet (so on and so forth). Breaking chores up into sections has made my house a lot cleaner, for less effort, and more motivation to actually clean; instead of letting it all get grimy and nasty until I muster up the strength to spend an hour on the task.”

—posilutelysoa

22.“Get a slow cooker. Throw in frozen veggies/chicken/etc before work or when going to sleep, and you can wake up/come home to a whole meal while you do other tasks/rest at your leisure. It’s helped keep me from going out spending money on fast food when I’m too tired to cook, get veggies in me, and eat a more balanced diet with leftovers, as well.”

—posilutelysoa

23.“I set an alarm for tasks I don’t like doing. Example: I hate reading and replying to emails. So I set an alarm once in the morning, which I can finish in 20 minutes. Another alarm for after lunch, which I finish in 5-10 minutes. And then another alarm at 4 p.m. to make sure nothing is left behind unread.”

—BearMaplePH

24.“Organizing my desk before starting work. I swear the cleaner it is, the more confident I feel pretending I actually know what I’m doing. Still, I’m usually lazy about organizing it to not be lazy.”

—Li_Na_Al

25.“Do chores in a comfy way. If you need to sit on the floor while folding laundry, do it. If you wanna sit on a chair while washing dishes, do it. That little extra makes the task so much less daunting.”

—DarlazMIRS

“The day I worked out you could have the ironing board set low enough to use it while sitting on the sofa was a special day for me.”

—Mamagrey

26.“Naps. If you’re feeling a little sluggish or not as sharp, take a 15-20 minute nap and your brain will reset. Sometimes I have taken a four-minute nap and have the same effect.”

—tboziguess

27.“I don’t fold most of my kids’ clothes. If I want something to look nice, I just toss it in the dryer for 10 minutes to get wrinkles out. I have extremely limited energy and time from chronic illness, so this is one thing I just do kind of lazy.”

—No_Revolution_619

28.“If you hate working out, you first have to find something you really enjoy doing. Like walking outside. Whatever it is, even if it is just going to the gym, do it lazy. Walk on the treadmill at a low speed for 10 minutes. At least you’re doing it. For me, it created a snowball effect that fired up this internal ambition. Setting small goals is definitely key to success.”

—Marble_Kween

29.And finally, “It’s actually a lot easier to do things properly the first time than it is to deal with ongoing difficulties caused by cutting corners.”

—tibsie

“A very good friend of mine says, ‘If you don’t have the time and money to do it right the first time, where will you find the time and the money to do it again?’ Words of wisdom!”

—spiritthing69

Do you have a lazy habit that genuinely helps you? Tell us all about it in the comments or via this anonymous form: