Hey, it’s OK. Just break away and Do Nothing.
Be sure to ask how everyone’s doing at the start of your next Zoom meeting.
Lots of us will say we’re super busy. Some of us may even say we’re busier than ever in the new normal.
We’re taking online courses and webinars while self-isolating. We’re earning microcredentials and networking at virtual meetings and conferences. We’re building our personal brand through social media. We’re binge-watching TEDTalks instead of Tiger King. And our workout playlists are all self-improvement audiobooks about thriving in uncertain times.
But maybe we should heed Celeste Headlee’s advice and dial back our busy-ness. It’s OK to be idle and pass the time with leisurely pursuits rather than invest every minute on productivity hacks.
“We are overworked and overstressed, constantly dissatisfied, and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher,” says Headlee, an award-winning journalist and author of Do Nothing: How to Break Away From Overwork, Overdoing and Underliving.
“We are members of the cult of efficiency, and we’re killing ourselves with productivity. We are working our way out of happiness and well-being. We’ve lost the balance between striving to improve and feeling gratitude for what we have. We’ve lost touch with the things that really enrich our lives and make us feel content. We now live in a culture in which we are not happy being and only satisfied when doing.”
All work and no play doesn’t just make us dull and miserable. Our physical health and mental well-being take a beating and we become less creative, compassionate
and productive. Despite what productivity gurus preach, hustling all day every day puts us on the path to ruin and regret.
And it turns out idle hands aren’t the devil’s work. Don’t give a big job to a busy person. Instead, assign it to someone who’s not in the efficiency cult. They’re more likely to find a smarter and innovative solution because that’s the quickest and easiest way to quit being busy. In response to productivity and efficiency hacks, Headlee’s come up with her own six “life backs:”
1. Challenge your perceptions around how you’re spending your time. Track your days and draw up a your ideal schedule that allows for both work and leisure.
2. Take the media out of your social. Quit comparing yourself to multi-tasking, always hustling family, friends and celebrities. “What we see on Twitter or Snapchat is a curated, heavilyedited version of our friends’ lives. It’s not real because it’s not complete. Yet subconsciously, we are still using that inaccurate picture as a basis for comparison.”
3. Step away from your desk. Our brains and bodies are not machines that can run without interruption.
4. Invest in leisure. “The purpose of leisure is not to make you better at your job, but to let you enjoy the life you work so hard to achieve.” It’s OK to have fun.
5. Make real connections. Online friends and followers don’t count. “Human beings are social animals who are at their best when they connect with one another. Collaboration is our superpower.”
6. Take the long view with a focus on ends rather than means. “The question is not whether you are productive but what you are producing.”
So, maybe we should pass on the next webinar, online course and self-improvement audiobook. Give yourself permission to leisurely pass the time rather than invest every minute in your professional growth and development. Lean in to boredom and let your mind rest and wander off in new directions. “When our minds are idle, we allow ourselves to reconnect with our creativity and re-engage with reflective thought — two activities that are essential to progress.”
Jay Robb serves as communications manager with McMaster University’s Faculty of Science, lives in Hamilton and has reviewed business books with The Hamilton Spectator since 1999.