To be more productive - Do nothing

I started a session with a client yesterday with the common opener, “How was your day?” He answered, “Full of meetings, so completely unproductive. I got nothing done.” Yup. I remember that feeling well from my leadership days. I would annually set a new year’s resolution to build space into my work calendar for big picture thinking like vision, strategy, and the development of new impactful new programs. Not to mention time to eat, take a walk, connect with my colleagues, and use the restroom between meetings! I see you nodding, you know what I mean.

After years of being in this cycle, I figured it out. My top tip for productivity? Do less. Or, even better, do nothing.

I am aware this sounds ridiculous.

Adding a 30 minute buffer in between meetings doesn’t seem that difficult, so why don’t we do it? Our answer is always a short laugh followed by an automated response, ‘I just don’t have time.’ Today’s blog is designed to challenge that mindset. Taking a ‘step back’ is critical to our ability to take a step forward. The first step is to quieten the voices that tell you that ‘stepping back’ is a waste of time. (Your voice will be the loudest.) Know that you are doing your colleagues, organization, family, or friend group a disservice if you dismiss ‘doing nothing’ as a waste of time. Secondly, experiment until you find a version of ‘doing nothing’ that works for you. The necessary qualities are few; realistic, repeatable, and restorative. The three r’s! Thirdly, trust that you will notice the benefits of this practice over time and like any practice, you’ll get better at it. Once you personally experience the value of stepping back, it will become an essential function within your work/life flow .

Fundamentally, we understand the idea of a ‘retreat’, a break from the normal way of doing things. This is essentially what a vacation is right? You remove yourself from your regular environment, the cues, people, and behaviors that populate your daily life. The goal of a vacation or retreat is…? You can fill in that gap with your own answer. For me, it’s a sense of adventure, a chance to see things from a new perspective, and to get a change of scenery. The cumulative effect of these benefits is that I feel rejuvenated and inspired.

When you scale the vacation example down to our day-to-day experience, it might look like a walk in the mid-afternoon, a 2-hour weekly calendar block titled, ‘do nothing’, sitting quietly in a softly lit room for 30 minutes a day, the daily 5-minute walk to your favorite spot to pick up coffee. Solo. No scrolling. No phone calls. For once in your life you don’t have to produce results or accomplish anything.

The idea of stepping back or even ‘out’ of doing something to do nothing, has become significantly more challenging for most of us during COVID. For some people, their commute to work, however much they might have complained about it, served as their ‘nothing.’ Gone. I’m hearing from friends and clients that creating structure in the day when every function of their lives, work, sleep, exercise, education, worship, etc., is happening under the same roof. This is becoming a chronic issue, and as working from home is likely to be a norm moving forward, it feels important for us to develop productive habits as soon as possible, habits that include ‘doing nothing’.

So, what does your version of ‘doing nothing’ look like? Mine is rambling, (surprised much?). I do my best thinking and writing when I am walking or running. I also have some productive conversations (with myself), and find I rant very persuasively when running!  I’ll come home, turn on my computer and the creative content is ready to flow.

Your ‘doing nothing’ doesn’t have to be perceptible to anyone else other than yourself. It doesn’t have to be seated meditation, crocheting, or rambling for that matter. You just need to create conditions that promote generative thinking; solidarity, the absence of technological distractions, and if possible, a change of location is helpful. These conditions might create enough space in your crowded crania for new thoughts, solutions, and for inspiration to surface.

I was recently gifted a beautifully illustrated book (pictured below) by a Zen Buddhist teacher and writer, Haemin Sunim, called, ‘The Things you can see only when you slow down.’ I think the gift giver (an employee) was trying to tell me something! He writes:

Do you have something on your mind?
Then take a walk in the sun.
Under the warmth of the sun,
your brain will release serotonin, which calms
the mind.
If you let your mind linger on the question
without trying too hard to find the solution,
an answer will emerge on its own

And if that wasn’t inspirational enough, I had to have my favorite poet, Mary Oliver weigh in. In her work, I consistently hear her encouraging us to step back and out; it’s at the heart of her creative existence. I’ll leave you with this poem, and a reminder of the question of the day,

“What does your version of ‘doing nothing’ look like?”

Today

 Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.

But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.