the productive benefit of doing nothing

As a self-defined Type-A person, I spend much of my life doing things. Somewhere along the line I adopted a belief that’s now become ingrained inside me that I need to be doing—whatever doing is—and if I’m not doingthen I’m somehow wasting the day. I have to fight feeling guilty those times I let myself do nothing.

Note: I don’t count reading a book or watching a movie as doing nothing, because I do those intentionally. I choose to spend my time in that way. So, when I mean “doing nothing,” I mean something that isn’t on any to-do list. Something that would never be on a to-do list. Like, lying on my back on the floor and staring at the ceiling or watching guilty pleasure YouTube videos or petting the cat. (Unless you put petting the cat on a to-do list, in which case I bless you.) (Also, I don’t truly believe pleasure needs to be guilty. My point is simply they’re not things that you can justify to someone else, not that I think you need to justify any action to anyone.)

Still, from an intellectual standpoint, I know that “doing nothing” is often a very good thing to do. We need downtime to process our lives and thoughts, just like we need to sleep.

(I probably don’t get enough of that either, but that’s a topic for another day.)

I understand the need for pauses and time to reflect. When I get out of town or take a vacation, all sorts of new ideas come to me. I often think of not just creative projects, but also things I’d like to do around the house, or new ways of looking at problems.

Knowing this, I schedule time to reflect every day, though journaling and meditation.

But even those things feel like things to do, if that makes sense. I can cross them off my list.

So, what I’m talking about, is true “wasted” time. Cat meme time. Harry Styles kissing James Corden in a YouTube video time. (Go to: 2:06)

I took a day off work this week. (Actually two.) And I spent a morning going down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos on a topic that I’ve never investigated before, but on which I readily became obsessed. Rather than fight it, I figured apparently this deep dive is what I’m doing on my day off—looking at “dumb,” “guilty-pleasure” videos.

So, okay. I let myself do it. I tried to not berate myself for wasting time or looking at things that had no productive value whatsoever because I knew I was getting burned out and really needed a break, and they were fun. I was highly amused.

Then the strangest thing happened.

The most magical thing.

After I woke up from my time wasting, I took a shower, and an entire book came to me, just downloaded into my brain.

Not an idea or premise for a book. Not a simple character. But the whole damned thing, from start to finish.

I got so freaking excited.

I ran to the page, still dripping wet, so I could scribble it all down.

Then I went to my studio and wrote out the whole outline.

And now I’m writing the book.

(In the middle of all the other writing projects.)

There’s no question the idea was inspired by my obsessive and superficially pointless YouTube dive. I don’t want to say specifically what I was watching, because the creative idea feels like the early gestation of a baby, and I want to see if it gets to the first trimester and beyond.

But I am ridiculously excited.

So, in a weird way, doing nothing ended up being one of the most productive things I ever could have done. I’ve never had a book come to me like that before, from start to finish all the way through.

I have no idea if I’m particularly hard on myself (in not taking breaks) or if this is common. I think I likely have a high-achiever personality, but still, I often feel like I don’t have much to show for it. I’m always climbing the next mountain.

If this is you, though, I encourage you to take a break. Take a guilt-free break. Let yourself watch every guilty pleasure video, read every smutty manga book (wait, that’s just me), and pet the cat or the dog.

Know that your brain needs the rest.

Trust that there is a reason why you are interested in the things you’re interested in and let yourself fangirl (or boy) all over them. Let yourself do it even without the promise of a productive ending.

It’s too much fun not to.