We’re all prone to acts of laziness, and today we’re counting the 10 most impressive examples ever recorded. Maybe you should be washing dishes, but you’ve chosen a foosball table instead. Maybe you were supposed to write an article, yet you fell asleep on a plate of nachos. Whatever the excuse, every one of us slips into a lazy groove now and then – and some people have turned that into an art form.
10 Most Impressive Acts Of Laziness
10 The Oxford English Dictionary Outdated Itself Before Release
Creating the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was a colossal undertaking from the start. The final work, a 20‑volume behemoth with roughly 228,130 entries, was meant to be the definitive record of British English. When the project secured a publishing contract in 1879, the planners estimated a ten‑year timeline. What they failed to factor in was the scholars’ extraordinary talent for putting things off.
Half a decade into the effort, the team had barely made it past the word “ant.” That should have been a red flag, but it wasn’t enough to jolt anyone into action. By 1889 the year had slipped by, and the alphabet was still nowhere near its end. Ten years later, the editors had only scraped the very start of the alphabet.
When the entry for “Zzz” finally appeared, the 19th century was already a memory: Queen Victoria was gone, World War I had raged and ended, jazz was humming through the streets, and the Wall Street Crash loomed. The complete OED finally saw the light of day in 1928, already stale. Their legendary procrastination forced an immediate launch of a second edition.
9 Jamestown’s Colonists Were Too Busy Partying For Executions
John Smith, the English adventurer who first met Pocahontas and earned a spot in Disney lore, was anything but beloved. On two separate occasions his fellow settlers at Jamestown drew lots that named him for execution. The first time, his name was drawn from a sealed box before the voyage, and the colonists opted to keep him alive.
The second time, fate—or rather, a raucous celebration—saved him. After a brutal Powhatan assault, Smith was blamed and sentenced to hang. The settlement was starving, so the thought of one fewer mouth seemed appealing. Yet the night of the intended execution, an influx of a hundred fresh settlers arrived with much‑needed provisions, sparking a town‑wide revel.
In the ensuing festivities, the colonists postponed Smith’s hanging. They never got around to it. Thanks to their party‑hard attitude, Smith lived on to chart some 4,000 km of New World terrain, influencing future exploration.
8 Richard Sheridan Redefines Missing Deadlines
In the latter half of the 18th century, Richard Sheridan dazzled London with witty comedies like School for Scandal. He was equally renowned for his spectacular inability to meet deadlines. Sheridan turned tardiness into a high‑octane sport.
He didn’t merely hand in scripts late; he delivered them during the performance itself. By the time opening night arrived, the play was still unfinished. A daring plan emerged: Sheridan would write scenes on the fly, feeding fresh lines to actors waiting in the wings, hoping to stay ahead of the curtain.
Astonishingly, the scheme succeeded. The audience never realized the playwright was scribbling in real time, and the production became a runaway hit, later inspiring Oscar Wilde’s own theatrical triumphs.
7 The Crematorium Owner Who Made Laziness Terrifying
Imagine, for a moment, that you run a crematorium and the furnace conks out. The sensible choice would be to call a repair service. Ray Brent Marsh, however, chose the opposite path.
When his Georgia crematorium’s oven died in the late 1990s, Marsh decided it would be less of a hassle to secretly inter the bodies in his backyard and hand families urns full of concrete dust, hoping they wouldn’t notice. In other words, he preferred the grueling task of digging graves to the simple act of making a phone call.
The scheme wasn’t a one‑off. Police eventually raided the site and uncovered over 320 sets of human remains left to rot. For this chilling display of indolence, Marsh received a 12‑year prison sentence, slated for release sometime in 2016.
6 Britain’s Laziest Prime Minister
In 19th‑century Britain, class often trumped competence. Lord Melbourne exemplifies this: arguably the most idle prime minister ever, he stumbled into the role and spent seven years snoozing through British history.
Before his political ascent, Melbourne married the tempestuous Lady Caroline Ponsonby and lingered in the marriage out of sheer inertia. While he idled at home, Lady Caroline carried on high‑profile affairs with the likes of Lord Byron and published scandalous tell‑all memoirs right under her husband’s bewildered nose. It took Melbourne two decades to finally divorce her.
His rise to the premiership was equally unremarkable. When Lord Grey declined the post, Parliament settled on Melbourne simply because he never took decisive action. In office, he turned every meeting, debate, and sermon into a nap, snoring so loudly that colleagues could barely hear themselves think. Benjamin Disraeli quipped that Melbourne could “lounge away an Empire.” His tenure lasted only because Queen Victoria, enamored with him, kept him in the spotlight. He was finally ousted in 1841, much to the nation’s relief.
5 The ISIS Jihadi Who Was Too Lazy to Fight
Members of ISIS are notorious for brutality, but laziness is rarely among their traits. In January 2015, middle‑aged Abu Ali crossed from Turkey into Syria to join the caliphate, only to become a costly liability.
He cited a Quranic verse stating that no one can force a Muslim to fight, using it to demand a desk job instead of front‑line combat. ISIS, bound by its own interpretation, kept him on payroll while he lounged, watching Rambo on TV and gaining weight on the group’s “teat.”
Months passed as Ali drifted, downloading music videos and chatting with fellow militants. When forced onto the battlefield, he invented a medical condition to avoid fighting. He bounced between commanders, draining resources and driving the organization “mad with his dedication to personal comfort.”
Eventually, his superiors grew so exasperated that Ali fled back to Turkey, resuming his idle life after siphoning four months’ worth of ISIS funds. Whether he was a genuine sloth or a covert operative remains a mystery.
4 Douglas Adams Procrastinates Right Into Productivity
Douglas Adams, the master of absurdist sci‑fi, penned the iconic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy while cultivating a reputation for extreme procrastination. At one point he left a chapter hanging simply because he couldn’t be bothered to finish the paragraph.
His most legendary stall occurred in the mid‑1990s. Contracted to write the novelization for Starship Titanic, Adams delayed the task for years. Eventually, his avoidance reached such heights that he built an entire point‑and‑click adventure game to dodge the manuscript entirely.
In the 1990s, creating a full‑blown PC game from a bedroom was a feat only a handful could achieve. Yet Adams produced a sprawling adventure, presented it to his publishers as a substitute for the book. They agreed to release the game but still demanded the novel. With a five‑week deadline looming, Adams begged fellow Monty Python alum Terry Jones to write it. Jones obliged, even claiming he completed the manuscript in the nude – because why not?
3 George Akerlof Turns Procrastination Into An Academic Field
Any man can delay a task, but only a few turn that habit into scholarly gold. Economist George Akerlof took his own chronic postponement and forged it into a Nobel‑winning discipline.
The scene: early 1990s India. Akerlof’s friend, Joseph Stiglitz, visited and left behind a box of shirts. He promised to mail them, yet kept putting it off for eight months. Eventually he concluded that his friend probably didn’t care and that procrastination deserved rigorous study.
Akerlof’s breakthrough was to treat his personal lag as a model for behavioral economics. In a 1991 paper titled “Procrastination and Obedience,” he extrapolated his own tardiness to broader population dynamics, sparking a wave of academic interest.
Since then, procrastination has blossomed into a vast research arena across economics and psychology. Akerlof’s contributions earned him the 2001 Nobel Prize, and Stiglitz eventually recovered his shirts.
2 Buddha’s Disciple Can’t Be Bothered To Ask Vital Questions
Long before Christ’s birth, Siddhartha Gautama – the Buddha – founded a religion followed by half a billion souls. One would assume his disciples would interrogate every nuance, yet laziness intervened.
Near the end of his life, the Buddha told his chief disciple Ananda that minor vows were no longer required for ordination, only the major ones. This was akin to the Pope announcing that certain prayers could be dropped. However, Ananda didn’t bother to clarify which vows fell into each category, assuming he could ask later.
That “later” never arrived; the Buddha passed away, taking the answer with him. As a result, for over 2,500 years, Buddhist practitioners have been unsure which vows are essential, leading them to recite the entire list – many of which may be unnecessary – just to avoid accidentally omitting a major one.
1 Da Vinci Turns Procrastination Into Genius
The Mona Lisa stands as one of the most iconic portraits ever created, a tiny canvas measuring just 76 cm by 53 cm. One might assume Leonardo da Vinci painted it swiftly, but the truth is far more procrastinatory.
Leonardo dragged the work out over fifteen years. When the piece finally emerged, the 19th century was long gone, and da Vinci himself, on his deathbed, apologized to “God and Man for leaving so much undone.” By contrast, Michelangelo completed the entire Sistine Chapel in a mere four years, covering about 1,100 sq m.
Nonetheless, da Vinci’s idle moments birthed a torrent of inventions. While he lingered over the Mona Lisa, he filled notebook after notebook with sketches of helicopters, tanks, scuba gear, and parachutes – ideas that would have reshaped history had they been realized earlier.
So the next time your boss catches you binge‑watching “Game of Thrones” instead of working, remember that a legendary procrastinator turned his laziness into timeless genius.