Bill Gates co-founder of Microsoft is reputed to have said, “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job, because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” What Gates was attempting to communicate is the natural tendency of bright people to seek the shortest route to the solution to a problem by ruminating about it before diving in.
Most people who know a procedure for completing a task, will merely follow a tried-and-true procedure when faced with that task. However, before expending considerable effort to complete a job, a highly intelligent person will often seek a simpler solution. That’s probably what happened when humans invented the wheel. Someone watching a group tugging a heavy object was probably reluctant to join the others and thought, “There must be an easier way.”
The natural inertia resisting strenuous effort is in us all, but those equipped with excellent problem-solving skills often seek that plan of attack before engaging in the routine approach. “Lazy” is a pejorative term for this tendency, but it characterizes the natural tendency of the very bright to postpone routine tasks or look for short cuts.
The “lazy” tendency is often coupled with mental excursions that manifest as a form of daydreaming. From early on in life, Isaac Newton had displayed a remarkable power of concentration and intense focus that would render him entirely unaware of his immediate surroundings. In traveling home from Grantham, to Woolsthorpe by horse, it was necessary to dismount at Spittlegate hill, lead the horse up the steep hill, and then remount at the top. On one occasion, while deep in thought, Isaac dismounted at the bottom of the hill and forgot to remount–unaware that the horse had slipped from his bridle and bolted. On arriving home, bridle in hand, he scratched his head, pondering the whereabouts of his horse.
Newton consistently neglected doing the routine tasks on the family farm and it was eventually recognized that Isaac was unfit for farming. The house servants regarded him as lazy, incompetent, and foolish because he so often forgot to eat his meals. The historical record states, “[they] rejoic’d at parting with him, declaring he was fit for nothing but the ‘Versity.” There was a collective sigh of relief when Isaac left Woolsthrope in the fall of 1660.
Similarly, Leonardo da Vinci, was often regarded as lazy because he was always reluctant to finish a painting, believing that he could make it even better by letting his ideas incubate and return another day to add the finishing stroke: (See: Intelligence, IQ & Perception: Chapter 1 Intelligence, IQ & Perception: Chapter 1 for more information)
While almost all genius share the tendency toward daydreaming and avoidance of routine tasks, the converse is not true. Many people who appear to be lazy and daydream at length are just lazy and have no productive output. So, the reflective disposition and the tendency to daydream can be an asset to people of high intelligence if it is applied to the creation of something.
