Jelena Racković · · 2 min read · Mindset
Lazy is not the same as efficient: where shortcuts stop helping
I love efficiency. Templates, shortcuts, automation and good tools have saved me countless hours over the years, and I encourage my team to use them generously. But I have also learnt to notice a quieter pattern, one that disguises itself as efficiency: skipping the thinking because the tool made it easy to skip.
When a shortcut becomes a skip
A shortcut is efficient when it removes effort that adds nothing. Reusing a component instead of drawing it again, generating a first draft of documentation, automating a repetitive export. A shortcut becomes lazy when it removes effort that was actually the point: understanding the user, questioning the brief, checking whether the solution fits this particular problem. The output looks the same at first glance. The quality is not.
Automate the boring parts
I am happy to automate anything repetitive, mechanical or predictable. Naming layers, preparing assets, resizing for platforms, formatting documents, producing variations of a layout. Every hour saved there is an hour I can give to the parts that need attention, and that is efficiency in its best sense.
Never the judgement
What I refuse to automate is judgement. Deciding what matters on a screen, which option serves the user, what to say no to, whether something is actually good. Those decisions can be supported by tools, informed by data and sped up by prototypes, but they have to be made by a person who has thought about them. When that step gets skipped, the work becomes fast and empty at the same time.
A simple check
When I take a shortcut, I ask myself one question: what thinking did this save me, and was that thinking necessary? If the answer is none, the shortcut is a gift. If the answer is the important part, it is not efficiency at all. It is just a faster way to get to the wrong place.
Is your design system starting to fade?
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