Is “doing nothing” a good use of your time?

Doing nothing often is not really doing nothing. Overanalytical people might say that you’re never “doing nothing” because you are always breathing, but “doing nothing” can be applied to a lot of scenarios. Because it is so broad, doing nothing is not always good or bad, it depends on what kind of nothing you’re doing.

One definition of doing nothing is not being productive. If I have a paper due in two days and I spend an afternoon playing video games on the couch, you might say I’m doing nothing. My actions aren’t leading to anything consequential, therefore they are nothing. In this case, I consider doing nothing to be a bad use of my time. Of course, doing nothing could also be literally nothing. Sitting down with no activity to preoccupy myself with is not anything. This isn’t inherently bad or good because it is tough to categorize “nothing”. My personal definition of doing nothing, however, is being alone with my thoughts. Letting my head go through its own stream of consciousness.

With my definition, I don’t spend a lot of my time “doing nothing”. On a lot of my off-time, I’m listening to music or watching YouTube videos. I can understand why people would say that would be doing nothing. In those activities, I am acting as a passive viewer or listener. I am not necessarily engaged with an action when I listen to music. That’s partly why I like listening to music and watching YouTube, it fills time and makes life more bearable without requiring much energy or even attention. I think I can go overboard with this though. I don’t think it is healthy to spend every minute of my life preoccupied.

I find it important to take time off and really do nothing. Moments with no backtracking to my thoughts, letting my mind wander, are serene.

It’s great to take a break from the constant barrage of information that the rest of my life is. Though I love my phone, I feel like it’s always pushing something on me. I get notification after notification, and every second, there’s a million for me to look at and interact with. It’s healthy to just put your phone away and do nothing.

Lying in bed before I fall asleep is a great example of this. I can reflect on my day or think about tomorrow. I don’t need to engage with anything, nothing guides me. Even a small activity could be “doing nothing”. When I shave, even though I’m technically doing something, I consider myself “doing nothing”. I find it to be therapeutic because I don’t have any music or videos on. I just glide a razor across my face and ponder whatever happens to cross my mind. These minutes can be some of the best of my day. I think the reason why shaving is such a calming activity for me is specifically because I’m doing something and doing nothing. I am performing an action, a productive and self-helpful one at that, but it still doesn’t guide my mind. I can trick myself into doing nothing because shaving is a somewhat mindless task.

To me, “doing nothing” is taking time away from activities that force you to think about anything. Anything more or less mindless is doing nothing, and I find doing nothing to be an amazing use of my time.