5 Reasons Why You Need To Waste Time

It was a Sunday night and I was sitting on the couch with my laptop, frantically writing out a briefing document that was due to a client the next day. I’d given myself a deadline of 10pm to down tools and we were half way through the televised screening of Spiderman 3 that was on in the background so I knew I was running out of time.

‘Finished!’ I said gleefully at 9.57pm. I snapped my laptop shut and went to put it on my desk in my office.

I’d had an extremely productive day. I went to the gym in the morning, did three loads of washing and cleaned the bathroom. I’d made a batch of homemade mayonnaise, some yogurt, a quiche and a lasagne for some quick meals for the coming week. I’d even managed to meet a mate for a beer down at the pub. It was a perfect Sunday.

I returned from my office with a crochet design I’d hit a major wall with and I was about to settle down on the couch and work out the problem (crochet design problems usually require a calculator, lots of counting and lots of cussing) when Mr Smaggle took the project out of my hands.

‘Absolutely not.’ He said. ‘You’re going to sit on this couch and watch the rest of this movie that you aren’t particularly interested in because you haven’t stopped all day and you need to do nothing for a while.’ 

I suggested that we watch an episode of Black Mirror instead (something we actually want to want to watch) but he said no. I was to sit on the couch and be slightly bored, doing nothing (he took my phone away too) until I got tired and went to bed.

So I did and it was lovely. Well not lovely because I really hate sitting idle but it felt good to not to be overly stimulated. I got sleepy in about ten minutes and took myself off to bed a full hour before my usual bedtime and I slept like a log. Ordinarily I would have been up hours past my bedtime trying to sort out my design problem but by wasting just ten minutes, I was able to get to bed on time and I fell asleep immediately.

I’m not in the habit of encouraging people to waste time, in fact I spend most of time trying to get people to do the opposite of that but sometimes there’s an ugly truth in a beautiful myth. Maybe we need to waste time. I hated even typing that, but I’m coming to realise that we need boredom. We need stillness. We need to not be constantly moving, consuming and seeking out the next thrill.

Here are a few reasons why wasting time might actually be awesome.

1. Socialising is not relaxing

Not even for extroverts. I identify as an extrovert but even I need recovery time from social events. If Mr Smaggle is away for the weekend, I make sure to plan catch ups with my friends because if I’m alone for too long, I get flat and sad. Having said that if I’ve spent the whole weekend with other people and I don’t get a chance to waste some time doing nothing, I’m not going to be well rested for the coming week. Have you even been away for a weekend with mates, felt totally depleted although you did nothing but relax and chill out the whole time? If you have a free evening, resist the temptation to book it out with socialisation.

2. You don’t get good ideas if you’re constantly busy 

Do you get excellent ideas when you’re in the shower? Me too. Research shows that you’re more likely to spark brilliant ideas when you’re doing something monotonous, receptive or boring. One of the reasons why these moments often happen in the shower is because it’s one of the few times in the day when we’re actually bored. Isn’t that scary? Think about it… the rest of the time we’re listening to podcasts, in the car, chatting to people, working, watching TV, checking our phones. The shower is the one place where most stimuli is removed and when that stimuli is removed, our brains actually start working the way they’re supposed to. A great way to recreate this is to go for a walk without your phone. No music, no podcast, just walking around outside. You don’t have to do it for long, 20 minutes will do it, but it will kick your brain into that wonderful juicy, creative place where it rarely goes on its own.

3. You need sleep AND rest 

If you’re constantly tired and you can’t figure out why (because you get a full 8 hours of sleep most nights) you may not be resting enough. If you’re getting up every day hitting the gym, working all day, shopping, cooking, pottering around the house, and keeping your children fed and watered before falling into bed again, you definitely need more rest. Rest means sitting still, having a cup of tea and just being for a few moments without doing anything else. It’s basically being purposefully unproductive. Try doing it for at least 20 minutes a day this week and see if that makes a difference.

4. Entertainment isn’t relaxing  

You can’t be entertained and bored at the same time. It’s not how it works. When I need to relax, I often fall into the trap of binge watching a really good TV show but you know as well as I do how un-relaxing some TV shows can be. Have you watched Breaking Bad? Case in point. Entertainment is great and I’m the first to admit that I get my full subscriptions worth out of Netflix each month but it’s not relaxing and nor do I think it’s time wasting. Time wasting is different, it’s navel gazing, not doing anything in particular. I plan my days down to the last second and most of the time this works brilliantly for me but sometimes I’ll find myself wandering into a shop on my way back from the post office or pulling some weeds out of the garden without firing up a podcast on my phone and it’s LOVELY. It’s the emptiness and the nothingness that makes these activities so replenishing. Watching TV is a great way to unwind and relax but it’s not necessarily the same thing as doing nothing in particular.

5. A lot of funny shit happens when you allow yourself to get bored 

When Mr Smaggle and I first moved into a our new house about a month ago we had no electricity for a few hours on our first night and all of our electronics were flat because we’d been using them all day. Out of desperation I came up with a game called Forks or Fawkes where you say ‘Forks’ to another person and they have to guess if you’re saying eating with forks or Fawkes the bird from Harry Potter. I’ve taught heaps of people this game now (in-fact my cousin figured out a way for us to play it via text message) and it’s such a weird and fun way to pass the time. Hint: It’s difficult to play this with kids because it’s honour system game and they tend to lie.

When was the last time you wasted time? What did you do?

P.S Also you should totally sign up for my newsletter. It’s full of cool stuff.
P.P.S Don’t forget Crochet Coach has a free trial offer period at the moment so make sure you sign up!