Dr. Dale Griffin of Sussex University conducted a five year study into "Task Completion Wishful Thinking Syndrome", which concluded that tasks always take longer than we expect. (Times 1/3/96)

This is apparently a universal human trait. From wallpapering a room to developing a new fighter aircraft, we all tend to underestimate how long it will take. We also never learn from previous missed deadlines - we fail to modify our expectations of our own performance based on previous experience.

The other side of this is that after any given time period, we will look back nd it will seem that we didn't do very much (relative to expectations). In an employment setting, we will go home from work every day feeling guilty, wondering what is wrong with us that we achieve so little in 8 hours, and not realising that everyone else feels equally ashamed.

We joke about laziness when it occurs within certain accepted limits, but step outside those limits and you risk experiencing real social wrath. Occasional indolence is 'normal' - the lie-in on Sunday after a hard week's work etc. Push it a little further though, into the area of prolonged and 'undeserved' laziness, and you place yourself outside respectable society - people are angered by it. Long periods of inactivity are deeply taboo - most people would rather tell a direct lie than admit to having done nothing. Employees often work for long periods without having anything to show for it. This lack of tangible evidence for expended effort produces excruciating guilt, and the worker will go to extreme lengths to demonstrate that he actually has been doing something. Even if there is nothing to do, you have to pretend that there is -this is expected, it's not regarded as odd behaviour. If you work in an open-plan office, try an experiment: time how long you can sit completely still, staring into space (ie not pretending to do something) while there are other people around. Another revealing practice is to consciously slow down your physical actions for an hour or more - picking up the phone, walking across the room, lifting the coffee cup to your mouth etc, in slow motion, as if you have all the time in the world. The only time we allow ourselves to be completely inactive for long periods is when we are sick, yet giving yourself the pleasure of total laziness can help you avoid being ill in the first place If you work in a large company, we recommend that when you feel over-stressed, you take a few days sick leave well before you get sick. Indulge yourself in prolonged luxurious comfort - deluxe laziness without feeling ashamed. You don't have to get out of bed unless you want to. Laziness acceptance breaks the link between guilt and work which chains us to primitive patterns from the past.

Anxiety Culture/Issue 2 - page 7

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