For all the talk about productivity, the value of time, time management, we are guilty of missing the other end of the spectrum entirely, myself included.

That other end of the spectrum being doing absolutely freaking nothing.

I’m talking about doing nothing in the sense of doing nothing related to what you normally would do on a given day.

I mean just FREE time where you have absolutely nothing on your mind but what’s going on around you right now.

I’m not necessarily talk about sitting down, crossing your legs, meditating, although you can certainly do that.

I’m just talking about having an ideally long period of free time where you can just do what you want that you normally wouldn’t do.

What should you do with that free time?

Let’s say you have a day free.

It’s easy to carry over your to-do list on that day in terms of planning the day out entirely but if you’re just crossing items off a list during that time, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of doing nothing.

Yes, you can have some structure in the sense of where you’re going to go but that should be the extent of it.

You want spontaneity. Curiosity. You want to stay present, not wonder if it’s time to do the next thing on your list.

Deplug yourself from email, work, the past, the future. Focus on what’s going on now.

Having that time and freedom is a great, great luxury. You have to think that way because it really is. Way more luxurious than having a mansion and a Lamborghini in the garage because those things take away this precious gift of free time.

Think about it.

Why do we work?

So we can have leisure time.

That’s why we ultimately do it.

And yes you can love your work too and say it’s not really work but there’s something to be said for cutting off all the strings to work and just enjoying life.

Eating new cuisine.

Savoring the gelato in your moth

Taking a new hike. Smelling the flowers.

Doing nothing but what you want, just in that day.

And you don’t have to travel far.

Explore around where you live. Chances are, you haven’t really explored all the nooks and crannies of your city. Sure you’ve driven by the streets, but when you walk them, you see so much more.

New restaurants to eat at.

New hobbies to try.

New conversations to have with “new” people.

You would think this would be really easy to do but you’ll find it’s actually mentally hard.

Your mind will fight you saying you could be doing so many other things right now and that you’re wasting your time and if left unchecked, you could let this bother you and ruin your day.

OR you can use this as a chance to practice CALMING your mind, saying that you understand what it’s saying, but that this is your reward for working hard the past few days. You’re going to relax now and set aside all that.

Your mind will also try to sabotage you by judging what you choose to do with your free day. It will try to make you think you made such a bad choice with that new dish you tried out, but didn’t really like. It will try to make you think you’re stupid for trying out that new dance class while you stumble about the steps. It will try to make you second guess yourself for all the decisions you made on your free day just to get you back to what’s comfortable – your normal daily routine.

But instead of fighting it, you can calm it.

You can learn to calm your mind and to tell it not to judge.

And when you do that, you’ll find your mind will relax and give you those great ideas.

Those ones that will change your life.

Why?

Your subconscious works best when relaxed.

I remember hearing about a business owner who closed down his shop for one full year, every seven years. During that one year, he did nothing. He indulged himself. He traveled. He let inspiration come to him.

Guess what.

The ideas he had during that one year proved to be the ideas that his business would implement for the next 7 years, ideas that would prove to be VERY beneficial financially.

While this whole notion of doing nothing might seem to be related to laziness in some sort of way, it’s actually not.

Think about it.

If you want this, you really have to plan for it.

You have to budget your time AND money for it.

You have to really get your work done so you can enjoy your free time stress free, without having those nagging work feelings come into your mind throughout the day.

So there’s value not only in experiencing the free time, but preparing for it as well.

If you haven’t really done this for yourself, I highly suggest you do. Not only will you look forward to doing it more often, you’ll find that in preparing for those days, you find yourself more productive and that on the days where you do nothing, in hindsight, see that you did indeed do a whole lot without even realizing it.