The Art of Doing Absolutely Nothing
Rest is a skill, and most of us are out of practice.
Doing nothing is not laziness with better branding. It is a practice, and it is one most people have quietly lost.
Doing nothing is not laziness with better branding. It is a skill, and like most skills it degrades when it is not practised.
The case for a blank hour
Rest that restores is rarely the same as rest that distracts. An hour of scrolling leaves most people more agitated than when they started. An hour lying under a tree, in a bath, or on a verandah doing nothing at all tends to do the opposite.
Boredom is where the nervous system catches up.
The practitioners we speak to describe the same pattern. People arrive exhausted from the effort of being efficient, and the prescription is rarely dramatic: sleep, daylight, movement, and periods of the day with no input at all.
How to start
Put it in the calendar, because it will not survive a to-do list otherwise. Twenty minutes, no phone, no podcast. If that feels unbearable, that is useful information.
Boredom is where the nervous system catches up.
The Good State Editors
The Good State is written and edited by a small team in Australia.
