I do nothing all day: 7 reasons why doing nothing is a useful skill

Remember how many times you dreamed of doing nothing on your weekend or at least Friday night—just lying on the bed, flipping through memes, relaxing, watching your favorite movie, taking a bath, or just looking out the window at a beautiful or not-so-beautiful landscape. Now think how many times your attempts to succumb to your laziness have been crowned with success. Indeed, after the first 10-15 minutes of rest, you already tormented yourself with thoughts about how you could spend this time productively.

In other words, each of us is a big fan of relaxing, but it turns out that we are all, to one degree or another, subject to the modern principles of “faster, higher, stronger.” Just lying on the couch on your day off seems like a crazy idea: you can spend time wisely, clean the house, finish the work you carefully brought with you from the office, make a few work calls. Remorse does not allow you to take a break, and at least for a few hours, fall out of that frantic rhythm to which you are accustomed.

Psychologists say that the ability to do nothing – at least occasionally leave yourself alone and not set new tasks for yourself – is one of the most useful skills and best things you can do for yourself. We have collected several arguments “for” your periodic losses in the battle with laziness and yourself.

You become more productive

Paradoxically, to become more productive, you need to drop out of your usual life for a while and allow yourself to forget about solving important and urgent matters. If you learn to have quality rest – not to read the daily norm of pages, not to open new levels in computer games, not to take the required number of steps, namely to do nothing, not to achieve some regular goals, you will be able to restore your energy quickly.

You will learn to do more, approach work organization more innovatively, and allocate your time. The hardest part is to pull yourself together and eliminate myths about productive laziness – not to replace one useful activity with another. Forget that you need to constantly be in motion, develop, change the reality around you. If you want to lie and stare at the ceiling – give yourself such an opportunity, and your body will thank you so much.

You free your head and protect your brain from overload

Your ability to do nothing protects your brain from the overload that intense mental stress inevitably leads to. If at least an hour or two a day you allow yourself to relax, lie down, forget about everything, free your head from obsessive thoughts about work – then by doing so, you restore your thinking abilities.

After such a rest, it will be much easier for you to engage in intellectual work, and the results of your efforts will be of higher quality, and the time spent on achieving them will be significantly reduced.

You start to understand yourself better

When you constantly force yourself to think about something useful: about work, about solving pressing problems, about everyday tasks that you need to complete, you have absolutely no time and energy left to dig yourself. Allowing yourself to be lazy and do nothing, you free your brain; you begin to understand yourself and your desires better; you try to dream, ask yourself questions that can lead you to make the right decisions.

Time for self-reflection is necessary for each of us. Still, it becomes impossible to devote at least half an hour a week to this seemingly useless activity in a series of constant activities. As soon as you change your priorities, your life will change dramatically for the better.

You get rid of stress

The constant desire to do something useful inevitably leads to stress. You get confused in tasks, constantly fill your head with important information, scroll in your memory what else you have to do for today.

Naturally, as a consequence of such an obsession, negative consequences of the influence of stress on your body appear. You get tired faster, feel apathy, experience anxiety, and all this strongly affects your productivity and only pulls you even more into the swamp of procrastination and self-flagellation.

You improve concentration

Allowing yourself to do nothing during the minutes of forced rest, you become more focused, better concentrate on the tasks being performed, less distracted by external stimuli, etc. But for this effect, you need to give yourself time for regular rest.

For example, leaving your desk every couple of hours to sit on the sidelines, chat with colleagues, and eat in the cafeteria. Do not occupy your pauses with something useful – other things, helping colleagues, working conversations – just listen to yourself and relax.

You reduce the number of possible mistakes and failures

In life, unhurried people win more – those who can afford to rest normally before rushing into battle. They can distract themselves from the frantic work rhythm and assess the situation in a new way. If you know how to do nothing, your regularity in making decisions will benefit you in any case, help you avoid stupid mistakes, not waste time and energy, and reduce possible risks. You will be more focused, forward-thinking, and productive. And all this, in turn, will exclude those failures that you can suffer due to your carelessness.

You increase your creativity

Contrary to popular beliefs that laziness is a demotivating quality that prevents a person from developing and moving forward towards their goals, give yourself a chance to try doing nothing for at least a couple of hours a week.

Go for a walk just like that, lie on your bed, staring at the ceiling, flipping through funny memes, and watching mind-numbing programs. Over time, you may notice how much easier it will become for you to find a way out of unresolved situations, include inspiration in your work, be creative in standard tasks, and look for unusual ways to achieve your goals.