Daydreaming in Your Chair Is One of The Most Productive Things You Can Do

Why and how to leverage the incredible power of leisure

The bright semi-orange of the sun is dipping on the horizon, the sky’s simmering with a red tint, and the spotted mongrel is making its evening prowls.

As I sink back deeper, my chair wails in protest, but I pay no heed. The warm light spilling out from my room’s windows recede, the shadows get longer, and the mongrel’s yawning.

But ensconced in the soft late evening darkness, the free-flowing thoughts, and my creaky chair, I don’t want to budge.

Mind like undisturbed pond water, anxiety at bay, stress evaporating like burning camphor, and my mental energy reservoir refilling fast, I can’t help but wonder — How can anything be more productive than this?

Turns out, there aren’t many things.

The Miraculous Power of Doing Nothing

In our hyper-connected and incredibly busy lives, doing nothing in solitude is viewed as a luxurious indulgence.

“Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.”

— George MacDonald

But this couldn’t be further from the truth — doing nothing is one of the best things you can do.

Be it just lying on the bed staring at the rotating fan blades or strolling on the terrace marveling at the stars, leisure can be incredibly beneficial.

It allows your brain’s batteries to recharge, alleviates stress, gives you time to reflect, lets your thoughts flow freely, allows you to enjoy the present, and promotes creativity.

I want to especially stress on the last one—quite a few of my viral articles are the brainchildren of leisure, either on the toilet seat or while sunk in my chair. Heck! Archimedes himself conceived his famous principle in a public bath.

The science is also clear on this. Virtually every subject in a 3-day randomized study on leisure recorded reduced stress and heart rate levels. And this study found a curvilinear relationship where productivity increased with leisure up to an optimum point.

The combined effect is a significant boost in not only your productivity but also your mental well-being.

4 Ways to Add More Leisure Into Your Life

Before we go ahead, let’s first define leisure — it is any light activity (even doing nothing) that puts you in a relaxed mood and state of mind.

For me, reading fiction, lightly conversing with my brother, strolling in the night, listening to chill pop, and sinking back into my chair, and observing through the window are leisure activities.

Once you’ve decided yours, here are 4 ways to pepper them into your life:

• Sandwich Short Bursts of Work with Leisure. As I work a full-time job and write only on the weekends, I batch write my drafts. I listen to chill pop, start my first draft, see it to its end, take a one-hour break, get to the second one, take a break in the middle, and finish it. This keeps me focused and prevents burnout.
• Reward Yourself with Leisure After a Certain Amount of Work. Sometimes, if I am in the mood, I get 2 drafts done in a single sitting. And I pamper myself with an extended break — only after 2 or 3 hours do I come back to work on anything else. This is a nice way to leverage your brain’s reward system as well.
• Reserve a Chunk of Your Day Solely for Leisure. Since I work out and edit in the mornings, my weekday evenings after I wrap up work are solely for leisure — the guitar, conversing, reading, bird-watching, or just lazing. I’d say reserve your “leisure chunk” at the end of your day, as it will help you sleep better.
• Don’t Skimp on Your Leisure. Often, I just want to keep reading, staring, or listening to music. And I don’t cut short myself on such occasions. What naturally follows a longer-than-usual leisure session is a highly focused, more productive-than-usual work session.

Final Thoughts

Work hard, play harder, and leisure hardest. Yes, that’s grammatically incorrect, but let’s digress. The point I hope I drove across is the necessity of leisure.

By working like a horse, you might get more done in the short term. But in the long term, it’ll be a triple whammy — your physical health, productivity, and mental well-being gone to the dogs.

Sustained and effective productivity >> alternating short-term overwork and burnout.

“Forty-hour workweeks are a relic of the Industrial Age. Knowledge workers function like athletes — train and sprint, then rest and reassess.”

— Naval Ravikant

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