When You Don’t Know What to Do, Stare at Your Wall

I know, the title of the article may sound absurd, yet I’m sure that doing nothing and simply staring at your wall can be a beneficial activity.

That’s what have replaced watching videos or scrolling endlessly on my phone when I don’t know what to do.

Let me tell you why.

The Concept of Basic Action

To begin with, we need to understand the concept of basic action. A basic action is something you do when you want to pass the time, or just relax without worrying. For example, if you’re in the metro and you’ve got nothing to do, I’m sure the basic action you take is to pull out your phone and check the social networks.

Depending on the context, there are different basic actions. For example, some people will play sports when they’re bored if possible, others will read if they have a book to spare. As you can see, there are basic actions more beneficial than others.

Now I’d like to propose a new basic action: doing nothing, just staring at your wall or at anything you have around you. We’re always doing something, anywhere, we’re constantly connected, we’ve lost the ability to do nothing. It’s a skill we have to develop, and trust me, it’s hard not to pull out your phone when you’re waiting for something.

And I’ll explain how doing nothing can be beneficial, or at least more beneficial than just scrolling on your phone.

How Doing Nothing Can Be Benefitial

Nowadays, doing nothing is seen a luxury. We often associate productivity with constant action and busyness. However, there is immense value in embracing moments of stillness and letting the mind wander aimlessly.

First, you make better decisions when you’re disconnected from external stimulis. Indeed, it’s very easy to be influenced these days. There are ads everywhere, screens, phenomenal amounts of useless information on social networks, and so on… There’s nothing like getting back to yourself to make decisions, whether they’re important or not. You’re also more focused and more sure of what you’re looking for when the only action you’re doing is thinking.

It also helps you avoid succumbing to instant gratification/pleasure and reconsider your priorities. What better way to start the day than spending an hour scrolling on your phone instead of getting out of bed? Well, do nothing for a few minutes, think about the day ahead, what you need to do, and then take action. Doing nothing is one way to avoid doing things that are bad for you. Typically in this example, if I spend an hour scrolling on my phone before getting up, I almost consider the day wasted, or at least I feel a very unpleasant sense of guilt.

On top of that, given how hard it is to do nothing, it’s a huge mental boost to spend time simply fixing your wall. It’s as much an exercise as the cold shower. In fact, it’s exactly the same, because the difficulty lies in the first step, getting under the shower or waiting for a few minutes doing nothing. But once you’ve got past that, the feeling of satisfaction is great.

Finally, it also teaches you to be patient, and to enjoy the present moment. Yes, as soon as we talk about “enjoying the moment”, we fall into the cliché of personal development, yet it’s quite true that it’s something beneficial. For example, I used to think only of productivity, and I spent all my time working. Now, I don’t worry about it, and there are days when I do something else, without considering the time wasted. After all, it doesn’t matter if my tasks for the day haven’t all been completed, I just have to reschedule.

It’s a vision that’s hard to develop, but one that avoids falling into what I’d call “toxic productivity”. You don’t have to fall into procrastination either, you just have to find a balance and be aware of what you’re doing at the time you’re doing it. There’s a difference between watching a YouTube video because you’ve made a conscious decision to do so rather than because you don’t want to do a task that requires more work.

Getting Into the Habit of Doing Nothing

It’s really hard to get into the habit of doing nothing. But as any habit or any change you want to make, start small. As a certain book would say, improve by 1% every day and let the power of compounding do the work.

Start with doing nothing for just 1 minute. Just find 1 minute in your day when you put any distraction on the side. 3 days later, do this for 1 minutes and 30 seconds. 1 week later, do this for 2 minutes. Etc… Or you can speed up the process if you want, and increase of 1 minute each day. But it’s harder of course.

Well, after a year, don’t spend your day doing nothing. There’s a limit. Remember the concept of basic action, the action you take when you have nothing to do. The long-term objective is simply to replace a negative basic action with this one. But doing only basic actions is not good if you want to progress towards your goals, so as doing nothing is a basic action, don’t spend too much time doing it. Just find a balance between doing productive things and doing basic actions (though some basic actions can be considered productive).

Final Note

I never thought I’d write an article explaining that it’s good to do nothing. It just goes to show that the way we see things can change over time!

If there’s one thing to take away from this article, it’s that we mustn’t fall into unhealthy productivity, and that setting aside a few minutes a day to do nothing helps prevent this and put things into perspective.

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