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Feb 2026 · 4 min

Laziness is a research method

The tasks you resent are a map. Follow it and you find the thing worth building.


I have never built anything useful out of ambition. Every tool I have finished started the same way: I got tired of doing something, and the tiredness lasted long enough to become information.

Enthusiasm is a poor guide because it survives anything for a week. Resentment is a better one. It is specific, it is repeatable, and it shows up at exactly the point where a process is badly designed. If a task still annoys you the fourth time, you are not being precious — you have found a real seam.

So the method is unglamorous: notice the friction, refuse to power through it, and write down what you were avoiding. Do that for a month and you will have a list nobody could have given you, because it is assembled entirely from your own irritation.

The tools worth making are already in that list. Laziness just gets there first.

Gianfranco OlofernesGianfranco OlofernesWrites it, sends it, reads the replies.Join the list