Martin Varsavsky: how to be successfully lazy

The founder and CEO of Fon is coming out of the closet – as someone who doesn’t work that hard. He doesn’t think that entrepreneurs need to work that hard, despite the traditional image. How does he do this?

• He never watches TV – just YouTube and Netflix sometimes.
• He doesn’t watch sports – but he does them.
• He reads few books – but he writes a lot, ask yourself: “am I prepared to give 20 hours of my life to this person?”
• Guys spend an average of 83 minutes grooming themselves. He spends 10 minutes.
• He flies his own page and has a driver. That saves time – but is “elitist” he admits.
• He almost never talks on the phone – he uses messaging clients instead.
• He doesn’t drink.
• He doesn’t do business meals – he hates them.  He saves meals for family and friends.
• He shows up on time.
• Social media works for him. Twitter is his best search engine. He asks questions. He hires people…
• He sleeps with his baby. Sleeping is important – and you should share it with the people you love
• He goes to conferences – but says “no” to a lot of them. Saying “no” is a huge part of managing your time.
• He devotes time to philanthropy – because he enjoys and believes in it.
• He spends wight weeks sailing – with his family and friends. And he doesn’t pretend that he’s working. But it’s great for problem-solving
• Oh, and he has a great team.

But it’s not for everyone. You have to be able to delegate – you have to say goodbye to having things done exactly the way you wont them done, and to decision making – but it gives you your time back.