I Have (Another) Dirty Little Secret: I’m Type-A, Lazy, And Refuse To Apologize For Either
If you’ve read my recent Blue Skies Consulting Insights article you already know I have a dirty little secret: I am a die-hard, unapologetic Real Housewives fan. The confession went well, nobody revoked my change management consulting credentials, and my reputation survived intact, thankfully. So I figured, why stop there?
Because I have another dirty little secret…and this one might actually be more controversial than my Bravo habit. Here it is:
I’m lazy.
The woman who has spent 26 years leading Fortune 500 companies through multi-billion-dollar transformations, who developed an entire methodology with the word Strategy in it, who will obsess over the perfect font for a slide deck, and who will rearrange a bookshelf until every tchotchke is exactly right. That woman… also refuses to spend more than two minutes making her bed in the morning.
And my bed looks incredible, if I do say so myself.
The Type-A Trap
I am Type-A to my absolute core. Gen X. Perfectionist. Detail-obsessed. The kind of person who will go all in on something and not come up for air until it meets a standard that most people would call unreasonable and I would just call Tuesday. That part of me isn’t going anywhere, and I don’t want it to because it’s the engine that built my career, my business, and a home I genuinely love walking into every single day.
But along the way, through many hard lessons learned both in work and life, I realized something that changed every aspect of my existence and it’s this:
I can’t be 110% about everything, all the time, and still be the version of myself I want to be.
Nobody can.
And yet that’s exactly what most high-achieving women are trying to do. We pour ourselves into our careers, relationships, homes, health, side projects, families, and we hold every single one of those things to the same incredibly high standard. We give maximum effort in every direction, push harder, and constantly take on more.
We try to maintain a home that looks like it belongs in a magazine while simultaneously crushing it at work and remembering to schedule the dog’s vet appointment (and date night, and coffee with the girlfriends, and everything else). And then we’re exhausted by Thursday and can’t figure out why we’re so overwhelmed.
I burned out early in my career and that (thankfully) was a pivotal moment for me because it’s when I decided to opt out of that cycle. And the tool I used is laziness.
Lazy: Redefined
Now I know “lazy” is not exactly aspirational. Society has taught us that lazy is the opposite of ambitious and the antithesis of everything a successful person should be. Lazy is what happens when you give up, right?
Except that’s not what I mean. Like, at all.
When I say “I’m lazy,” I mean I have made a conscious, deliberate, strategic decision about where my energy goes and where it doesn’t. I know exactly where I want to be a perfectionist and exactly where “good enough” is not only acceptable, it’s the entire point. I am selective about what gets my obsessive attention and ruthless about simplifying everything else.
I aim for maximum impact with minimal effort, whenever possible.
It’s never about giving up on life, lowering my standards, or giving in to pressure, but rather about being very smart and very intentional about everything.
Think about it the way I think about corporate transformation (because yes, my brain works like this at all times). When I walk into an organization that’s trying to change everything at once, I already know they’re heading for trouble. Their vision isn’t wrong, but the strategy usually doesn’t support it. You can’t overhaul every system, every process, and every behavior simultaneously and expect any of it to stick. You identify where the highest impact lives and you focus there with everything you’ve got. And then you right-size everything else so it supports the mission without draining the resources.
My life works the same way. I go all in on the things that light me up, move me forward, and make me feel like the person I want to be. I engineer everything else to be as effortless, as streamlined, and as beautifully simple as possible. It takes some work up front, the but long-term reward is astoundingly bountiful.
What The Type-A Lazy Girl Life Really Looks Like
My bed. I mentioned it takes less than two minutes to make, and it looks like it belongs in a boutique hotel. This was no accident because I designed it that way on purpose with the right bedding, the right number of pillows (just enough to look intentional and feel luxurious), and a layout that practically makes itself. Making my bed every morning matters to me because it’s the first small win of the morning and I don’t have to look at the mess throughout the day. Spending ten minutes wrestling with decorative shams and an origami-folded throw blanket? Absolutely not. So I eliminated it before it ever had the chance to become one more thing I had to maintain. Keep it simple. Insanely simple.
My desk. When you see it, it looks curated (because it is lol). A plant on the left creates this quiet vignette with a piece of art above it on the wall. It’s warm, personal, the kind of workspace that makes you want to sit down and do something meaningful. But the outside corner of that desk is intentionally empty – no décor or anything because that’s where the receipts land. That’s where the papers go when I walk in with my hands full and need to drop something right now without fussing with anything. I designed that empty space so that the beauty and the laziness can coexist because they actually need each other. (And yes, there is a spot for my can of Diet Coke with a coaster, obviously.)
My sofa. I have a big, comfortable sectional with four throw pillows. Total. Not 15 like the home influencers insist you pile on. FOUR. Because I know myself and those fifteen pillows on the sofa mean fifteen pillows on the floor by 8 PM, and I am not picking those up every single night for the rest of my life. Four pillows look beautiful, feel intentional, and require almost zero nightly maintenance. I sit down, I’m comfortable, and I never once think about pillow arrangement. Karate chop on each before bed and done.
Every one of those choices follows the same logic: What is the minimum I can do to create maximum beauty, function, and peace? And then I stop there. I don’t add more, I don’t complicate it, and I refuse to let perfect become the enemy of fabulous.
Bigger Than My Home
This is the part that matters most: Being a Type-A Lazy Girl is a life philosophy that doesn’t stop at my front door.
I apply it to my career. After 25+ years in consulting, I know which battles deserve my full intensity and which ones I can navigate with grace and just enough effort to be excellent without being depleted. I recognize when a deliverable needs to be flawless and when it needs to be…done. I can walk into a room as the most prepared person there without spending my entire weekend proving it. I never cut corners or lower my standards; I just know where the corners are and I decide which ones actually deserve my attention.
I apply it to how I take care of myself. My morning routine is streamlined, not because I don’t care, but because I care about the right things. My wardrobe is curated (think: a few “uniform” options) so getting dressed feels effortless instead of a recurring panic attack. My skincare is effective and simple because I know myself well enough to know that a 12-step routine is a routine I will abandon before the end of week one. And, perhaps most importantly, I’m not constantly fighting an internal anxious battle of guilt, doubt, or resentment because I’ve done the mental work INSIDE to complement everything I do on the outside.
I apply it to my relationships and friendships, to how I spend my time, and to how I make decisions about what gets a wholehearted “yes” and what gets a very polite, very firm “no”. It helps me cut the drama, embrace the fun, and create deep, meaningful connections.
And it all starts with my home, because it’s the anchor for everything and it makes the life I want possible. When my space is set up to support me (not drain me, not demand constant attention, and not make me feel like I’m always behind on something), I show up better everywhere else. The energy I don’t spend fussing with my living space is energy I get to pour into building a business, being present with the people I love, and living a life of meaning and purpose.
My home is the foundation for all of my fabulosity. (Yes, I just said that and I totally stand by it.)
What This Means for You
If something about this feels familiar… if you’ve been white-knuckling your way through a life that looks impressive from the outside but feels exhausting on the inside… I want you to sit with this for a second.
What if you don’t need to try harder?
What if the kitchen island that’s permanently buried under mail and water bottles doesn’t need more discipline… it needs a smarter setup that takes the daily decision out of it entirely? What if the closet that frustrates you every morning could be simplified so dramatically that getting dressed becomes a five-minute, feel-good experience instead of a negotiation with your own wardrobe? What if your home could look and feel like a place you’re truly proud of without requiring your weekends to keep it that way?
What if the most ambitious thing you could do is give yourself permission to be a little bit lazy about the things that don’t need your best effort… so you can be extraordinary where it counts?
That’s what I did early in my career and it’s a decision that’s evolved with me over the years in my life and my home. And it’s how I live today. And that’s what I’m going to help you do, too. Starting with your home, because that’s where the ripple effect begins; but trust me…it won’t stop there.
Welcome to the Type-A Lazy Girl life. It’s fabulous in here!
