I started writing this post about a year ago, and it sat idle while I was too busy to finish it. Now we’re in the world of COVID-19. I’m incredibly sad about the losses so many have experienced. The tremendous pain and suffering on so many levels is unfathomable. And the injustice of the populations that are being hit hardest is very troubling. I feel something akin to survivor guilt that I can bear the blows to my income, and I’m sheltering in place in a comfortable home, in a nice neighborhood, with people I love. I’m doing what I can in my own personal ways to try and make a difference for those less fortunate than me.
So I had very mixed feelings about whether or not to publish this post, that I finally have the time to finish. And as I type this, I realize my words are not quite accurate. In the year prior to COVID-19, I did have the time, but I didn’t have the mental energy to finish my post. Now I do. Please forgive the minor details that are somewhat inaccurate in this time of COVID-19; I believe the more salient points are still highly relevant, and perhaps this forced idle time will give us the opportunity to ponder those points and how we will choose to live, post pandemic.
Spring 2019…
This post was sparked last year by an interview I heard with Jenny Odell, author of How to do Nothing. I haven’t read the book, but I greatly appreciated hearing Odell’s thoughts about the value of doing nothing. I’m still making peace with the fact that I call myself a “productivity coach,” because I think a lot of our societal and personal problems stem from pressures to be more productive than is healthy, so it was great to hear my thoughts validated.
Transitions take a toll
Technology has allowed us to do things so much more quickly, and our response has been to pack more and more into our days. But that also means more and more transitions, task switching, and quick decisions. This rapid-fire way of dealing with our world eats a lot of mental bandwidth and we’re doing nothing to replenish. We used to do two things that each took four hours in a work day. Now we are expected to do 16 things that each take half an hour. Even if the time allotment is the same, all those transitions take a toll. We just can’t operate at that level, so we fall further and further behind and blame ourselves for not being more efficient.
Our workplaces are managed with the assumption that we don’t need time to transition. That we can spend all day in back-to-back meetings. And then there is the assumption that everything will always work perfectly. Printers will never jam, the network will never go down, our computers will never give us spinning beachballs. There is no built-in reserve of extra time. But that’s not the real world.
Keeping up, until we can’t
Here in the high-tech Bay Area, workplaces are full of young, brilliant adults who can keep up, until they can’t. The lucky ones strike it rich and retire at age 28. The less fortunate quit or go out on disability, only to repeat the process with a new company. Some companies hire a few token middle-aged people so they won’t be sued for age discrimination. Those older workers burn out trying to keep up with their young counterparts; or get frustrated and quit, because nobody will listen when they suggest more realistic (and often more effective) processes.
Valuing idle time
Remember when we used to bring a book to read at the airport? Now we bring laptops and keep working. Our kids used to have to look at the scenery outside the car window and make up license plate games to pass time on a family vacation. Now they are glued to their screens.
This isn’t about our screens and what we’re paying attention to on those screens (which is a whole quagmire in and of itself). It’s about the devaluing of idle time. I believe there is incredible value in the time we spend doing nothing. I hypothesize that we are happier and more satisfied when we integrate moments of idle time throughout our day; when we just sit and do nothing except take in our environment. How many of us can allow ourselves to sit by a pond, waiting for an elusive turtle to swim by? To notice the way the rain drops stream down the window? To count the number of birds we see out our kitchen window? These moments of idle time are truly idyllic. They nourish us.
When we don’t have idle time, our bodies and brains force it upon us. We get sick, or we veg out on the couch, glued to mindless activities on our screens. Idle time as a result of mental or physical exhaustion doesn’t work quite so well. It gives us a little bit of reprieve, until we can somehow muster up the energy to re-enter our jam-packed lives, but we’re not truly rejuvenated.
Enter COVID-19
Despite the tremendous pain brought by COVID-19, I can’t help but appreciate this opportunity to learn a new way of being. Is this Mother Nature’s way of making us slow down? I’m noticing how many people have become bored watching Netflix, and instead are using their new-found time and mental energy to get creative. Some of it is silly fun, like dressing up pets and creating domino chains. Some is more purposeful, like de-cluttering closets, working in the garden and trying new recipes. These are all things we didn’t have the time or mental energy to do pre-COVID, and now, they are the things that keep us going.
So what will our lives look like, when the world opens up again? How many of us will be willing to go back to 2-hour commutes? To a life that left us too exhausted to clean up after ourselves? To days where idle time was boring and something to be avoided? To an existence where we didn’t have the energy to pursue our passions?
And how much more meaningful will our lives be, how much more more effectively will we use our time, now that we are finally discovering the benefits of being idle? I am hoping that we fortunate “idlers” will each discover our own creative ways to make the world a more idyllic place for everyone.