Why is it so hard to do nothing?
The other night, as I was putting away the dinner dishes, I looked over and saw my cat curled up in a ball on top of the sofa. And I thought, “I’m going to do that one day. One day I’m going to snuggle up on the couch and not move.”
I’ve thought this before. But I never do it. When we moved the sofa out of our last house, where we lived for a decade, I remember thinking, “I don’t think I ever sat there.”
I’ve found that the busier I am, the busier I become.
Lately I’ve had that merry-go-round feeling of nonstop activity more than ever. I finish one thing and launch right into the next. There are no spaces in my day. And with the holidays here, I’m starting to worry that I’m going to be too busy to enjoy them.
But how much of that busyness is necessary versus self-inflicted?
The test
One day last week my wish came true. I felt terrible, so I spent most of the day laying on the couch. I tried to do work. But my brain felt like mud. All I could do was sit there staring out the window, with my two cats curled up like anchors in my lap. If I hadn’t felt so badly, it would have been wonderful.
The next day I was jamming. My energy was back. I cranked out two pieces of work in half the time it would have normally taken me, which meant I had enough time for a walk.
Huh. I missed an entire day of getting stuff done, and it was FINE. Nothing bad happened. In fact, you could argue that the downtime gave me extra momentum the next day.
This is proof that I can afford to take time off. I don’t HAVE to cram so darn much into each day.
What’s important?
When my cat gets up from his six-hour nap, he spends about 90 minutes flying around the house chasing paperclips and transporting lone socks from one room to the other. He’s a very productive cat during his wake time. But that’s not his priority. His priority is napping.
I’ve always prioritized the activities in my life. And I know everyone’s not like that. I have friends who are just the opposite. They value their downtime and are reasonable about what they can comfortably fit into a day. They read, they knit, they prepare thoughtful meals. And they don’t rush around. These friends are way less frazzled than I am.
I’ll always be someone who likes being on the go. That’s just who I am. But there’s a difference between being active and being busy.
Activities takes place in chunks of time — going for a run or writing a first draft of an article. Busyness pervades my entire day. When I’m in the mindset of being busy, I fill my time with whatever is right in front of me. I’m not intentional; I don’t differentiate between what’s important and what isn’t, what fills my bucket and what depletes me.
And I don’t take breaks. I slog away until I’m exhausted on all fronts.
This is something I’ve struggled with for years — a propensity to stay busy and an uneasiness, even a sense of guilt, when I stop being productive.
Why is it so hard to do nothing?
Last night I picked up an old favorite, “The Artist’s Way” — a book about how to release creative flow — thumbed to the index and looked up the word “time.” I skipped to page 96, and right there in the bottom quadrant of the page about time was a phrase that fully resonated with me: The Virtue Trap. The author, Julia Cameron, says that defending our right to do nothing takes courage, conviction, and resilience. But we all need downtime.
When we defer nurturing our sense of self by taking time to recharge, everyone loses — we’re grumpy with the kids and partner we’re usually sacrificing that time for, lose touch with our core self, and are left feeling depleted. Cameron calls this being on the “treadmill of virtuous production.”
Genius.
That’s exactly where I am. And basically, the only way off is to make “do nothing” time a priority. It has to become as important to me as those other things on my to-do list. So, as much as I hate regimentation, I need to find a way to schedule it in.