Think about your most annoying, soul-sucking, life-draining regular task. Maybe it's constantly picking up the small pieces of litter and detritus that small children somehow leave in their wake. Maybe it's cooking dinner every night, force-feeding it to your family, and then cleaning up afterwards. Maybe it's yard work or an awkward social event or TPS reports or shaving. Now imagine that you just stopped doing it. What would happen?
Josh Kaufman, author of the The Personal MBA, talks about the business principle of cessation as any task a business owner can delete without having a negative result. We can use this principle in our own lives too. What can we just stop doing, and it won't matter? And if the results of quitting are negative (ahem, yard work), it is something we can stop doing with our own time and energy? I need to personally nurture my kids and support my spouse, but I don't need to personally pull weeds. And studies show that people who buy time by paying someone to complete household tasks are more satisfied with life.
Let's hear it for quitting. Here are a few more:
Turns out money can buy happiness and love
The next best option to quitting annoying tasks? Lazy Genius them.