Published on November 8, 2025 3:53 AM GMT

Yesterday’s Out to Get You -flavored analysis seemed a bit lacking. The framework feels mismatched for self-imposed challenges. Perhaps the main concept of the series, slack, would be more appropriate.

For all my life I have hated work, especially housekeeping. There's an infinite amount of it, and it regenerates. No matter how well you clean up, it won't stay clean for long. Sure there are diminishing returns, but not before I've expended all the energy that could be used to have the productive kind of fun. No wonder most elderly people I know only do housework and watch TV.

School is also bad, and gets worse the more advanced the studies are. The returns are often exponential instead of diminishing, if you care about more than passing each course. I never had the mental fortitude for that, so I wouldn't know. A normal 9-to-5 job doesn't have the same problem, as the time and effort used are fixed. Or so you'd guess, until the fifth coffee break from browsing hacker news.

I suppose a big part of the problem is just the lack of immediate rewards. I find myself quite motivated to clean up the house if I have friends coming over, and studying the last night before an exam isn't so bad. But salary doesn't follow the same model, it's not like I'd starve for a long time if I stop working. Some intermediate goals like not disappointing your coworkers provide only limited motivation, and I used to think it was unhealthy anyway.

Don't let me get started on having friends, relationships or hobbies. The payoff is hard to measure, and I tend not to value it that highly anyway.

Naturally, I set out on my quest to eliminate all work, and that has been driving me for the past ten or so years. It hasn't always been a conscious one, but rather the path of least resistance. I've recently, maybe five years ago, realized that this is a life goal of a dead person. Sadly, the understanding hasn't changed much.

Many goals are actually achievable without having to do the work. If the specific kind of work is dispreferred, you can do another kind of work to obtain money, and then pay for someone else to do it. If you're lucky, you can even benefit from specialization and economies of scale. If you're even luckier, you enjoy some kind of activity that's well-compensated, and thus can barely be called work.

There are big downsides though. Sometimes the process itself is part of the payoff. Zvi calls this the Easy Mode. You won't develop new skills, gain experiences or make friends along the way. I don't think there are that many secondary benefits from cleaning an apartment when moving out, so I'll gladly pay for a cleaning service. Some might argue work ethic qualifies, but I'm not going to admit that one.

Many things you cannot pay for, as the primary point is self-modification, like studying, exercise, and almost anything creative. Other things cannot be bought because they're about proving yourself to others.

Another reason to avoid paying is the cost itself, as it's less straightforward than it seems. Due to taxation of work, economic inefficiencies and asymmetric information, you'll typically have to pay quite a bit more than doing it yourself would cost you. This effect is, however, way less if an experienced professional can do the work faster.

The major differentiator about money is that it can be automated. If you manage to amass enough money that the passive income covers all your costs, you can quit your day job. Some coordination work about actually buying all these services still needs to be done, and you don't want to outsource budgeting itself. The amount of money required varies depending on what you want to do. With conservative investing in index funds, depending on taxes and safety margin, between 250 to 400 times your monthly spending should sustain you indefinitely. Assuming the current type of economic system keeps going, but if not, all bets are off anyway. It's Still Easier To Imagine The End Of The World Than The End Of Capitalism.

Sometimes I debate whether the laziest person works a lot right now to enjoy rest later. Obtaining enough wealth to live off of it seems like the prime example. Others would say laziness just means aggressive time discounting. Fortunately, Scott has already written that one, so I won't have to bother. Also, semantics.

The other way is just not doing the work, and not getting the payoff. Most games are not worth playing. The less you want, the less you need to work. Play in Easy Mode instead of Hard Mode, or don't play at all. Equivalent if the reward is useless.

Living in an apartment is a lot less work than owning a house with a large yard. Food? Delivered. Owning a car versus taking a taxi? Just don't go there. Hobbies? Nope. Dating? AI (or porn). Exercise? Ozempic (or just not caring).

Optimizing away literally all you're doing seems like a mistake. Fortunately, or not, there's limitless and essentially free entertainment available, including fake work in the form of video games. If that's not enough and boredom keeps bothering you, mind-altering substances like depression medication can be used to fix that. I'm still trying to Hard Mode enough to avoid that failure mode.

But everything productive is so hard, and oscillating among media feels so much better.

I now realize I haven't talked about slack at all, but maybe I'll do that tomorrow.