Can lazy jobs actually be a healthy thing?

What Judge recommends isn’t all that extreme — it is, in many ways, just a normal job. However, in a post-hustle culture world, it is deemed as ‘lazy’ simply because it’s a job that doesn’t require giving absolutely everything.

According to Perlin, the basic premise of the ‘lazy girl job’ isn’t unhealthy. “If we define a lazy girl job as a job that allows you time for nourishing yourself outside of work, one which allows you time to explore hobbies and passion and develop projects that fulfil you, it is easy to see how much happier, less stressed and content you could be,” she tells us. “When we feel in charge of time, as opposed to chained to a desk, we experience life in a much more relaxed, peaceful way.”

However, Perlin warns that using language like “lazy” to describe your job could have negative side effects. “It is important to define what is feeling relaxed about going to work and what is doing something that is not fulfilling your potential,” she says. “If we commit to laziness in the workplace, it can lead to decreased job satisfaction, fulfilment and, crucially, confidence in ourselves. We need purpose as humans to drive us, to get us up in the morning, and feeling stagnant in something that doesn’t stretch you can have a really detrimental effect.”

Striking the right balance between laziness and overworking

While working in a job that is unfulfilling and dull is unhealthy, so is overworking and ‘hustling’ just for the sake of it. So, how do we strike a healthy balance?

“I teach my clients about a work/life integration as opposed to a work/life balance; the latter, for many years, has been the go-to of what is healthy,” says Perlin. “It came from a place of trying to protect peoples lives outside of work, but I don’t see it as a useful and realistic idea. A work/life balance indicates there are scales that tip between one or the other, a work integration is about how you as an integrated human being can find harmony. If you are trying to find a balance, as you might know from yoga poses, you are always in a shaky space.”

Instead, she recommends thinking in terms of integration. Ask yourself questions like:

What does integration feel like to you?
Do you need to redress boundaries at work?
Do you need to do a different career?
Do you need to invest more time in self care?
Are you interested in exploring hobbies outside of work?

Lazy girl jobs: is this work trend really the answer to our burnout problem?