You’ve heard of taking an hour a day to read or exercise, and these certainly have their benefits. But what about taking an hour a day to do absolutely nothing? That’s right. No productivity, no entertainment, and no problem-solving whatsoever. Forget about time management. Doing nothing is actually a pretty important habit to create in your life. Here’s why.

Doing Nothing As Stress Relief

Everyone always seems to be doing something. It’s like people have lost their ability to relax. Many people are kept up at night because of stressful jobs. Some spend their leisure time thinking about how they can work or solve problems more efficiently. The issue isn’t that life is full of Problems, but that people often approach life from the wrong mindset.

The get-it-done mindset means your brain is constantly working around the clock to achieve. You may look at doing nothing as a horrible waste of time. Maybe it’s even unethical to you. That’s why you have to consciously give yourself permission to do nothing. When you sink back into a chair and simply exist, you’re giving your mind a chance to relax. It’s a great feeling.

Of course, doing and achieving isn’t bad. Setting goals is one of the best ways to sharpen your focus and ensure that you’re going where you want to go. But when you focus exclusively on doing and getting things, you lose sight of the beauty of life. Life wasn’t meant to be spent acquiring stuff. In case you didn’t know, you’ll be parting with those items and achievements immediately upon death. Sure, you could brag to God/consciousness/spaghetti monster about your accomplishments, but something tells me they won’t be particularly impressed.

The purpose behind doing nothing is to shift your awareness from doing to being.

Temporary Shift In Awareness

A big staple of personal development is time management and doing more in general. You may have noticed that I don’t write much on these topics. I plan to cover them in the future, but I doubt I’ll spend much time on it (irony!). To me, achieving more is misguided. A better perspective might be appreciating more, or loving more. Here’s an example.

My friend came over last night while I was in the midst of a productivity frenzy. I was working on an ebook while simultaneously promoting and fixing various aspects of my site. I had complete tunnel vision. During this frenzy she decided to go cook, probably out of sheer boredom. I thought it would be rude if I didn’t go help a little, so I followed her in there.

After she got everything going I thought I’d leave her in there. It was her idea after all! However, part of me knew this was coming from the wrong place. Plus, I felt bad abandoning her to the kitchen while I went off to mess with more computer stuff. There wasn’t much I could do to help, so I decided to lay on the floor and play with my little dog Cookie while she cooked. Within a few minutes I had gone from complete tunnel vision to actually having fun. The vibe in the room was completely different.

Even Cookie noticed this. Usually if I’m working on something she doesn’t pay much attention to me. She pretty much knows I’m going to be boring. However, once I had undergone my technological detox, she couldn’t get enough! After I was done playing with her she just sat there staring at me. It was like she was saying, “Yay you’re back! Let’s play more!”

The key to having this playful energy is to be present, and you can’t do that if you’re stuck in the future. Goal setting and the achievement mindset are pretty important for determining the course of your life, but you have to remember to actually live it.

I think that life is a lot like being the captain of a ship. You’re going to have to do a fair amount of planning and goal setting to arrive at your destination. In fact, if you don’t go visit the helm every once in awhile you may end up running into a lighthouse. Likewise, if you don’t go on deck and appreciate the ocean or the sea breeze every once in awhile, what’s the point?

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Related posts:

1. Following Inspiration on Time
2. How To Stop Worrying About Time
3. Adopt a Weekly Time Management Schedule

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