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How To Do Nothing

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
{I wrote this piece a few years ago, during my final weeks of work before retiring. Just came across it and thought I'd share.}

Not Getting Things Done

I have spent the last week not doing things. I realize that many will think this is a good thing, a thing to look forward to, but I'm here to tell you that while it's not pure hell, it's certainly qualifies as impure heck.

Not doing things is harder than it looks. I'm sure you've all walked past a cubicle or (more likely) an office and, glancing inside, have seen someone not getting things done. And I bet you thought that it was easy. Of *course* it looks easy! The really accomplished professional in any area of inactivity will make it look easy, but don't be fooled. Let the inexperienced amateur try it and he may wind up hurt. Worse, he might end up getting something done.

I can tell you, after weeks of practice, being completely unproductive is not for the faint of heart. It requires long, grueling hours of sitting inert, of random Internet searches and, most difficult of all, of enduring streams of Facebook updates.

Being unproductive requires commitment. You have to show up every day, rain or shine, ready and willing to do nothing. You must be as ready to do nothing at 4:30 as you were when you came in at 8:42.

Sure, there are the easy things, the tricks everyone knows. You can stack coffee cups. Change the color scheme on your desktop (be sure to invent your own at least once). Pull objects from your drawers and arrange them on your desk. Then re-arrange them, and then put half of them back in entirely different drawers. Certainly renaming folders can occupy a fun hour or two. But as the days crawl by these tricks slowly pale.

You find yourself eyeing that spreadsheet. You think about editing that report. You might even long to enter something into a database somewhere. In such situations, stop. Take a deep breath. Take several deep breaths. Then breathe into a paper bag. When you are done hyperventilating (minor medical conditions are a great time suck), see if the following quick fixes help.

1. Update your Facebook profile.
2. Subscribe to several forums. Read everything you have missed.
3. Get a hotmail account and subscribe to several more forums. Make sure you create a signature file and upload an avatar at each of them.
4. Analyze the problem. Spend hours at this. Create a file with all your notes in it. Call this file "file".
5. Go to a meeting. Meetings are great places in which to do nothing.
6. Make a bullet list, it doesn't matter of what. Try out every type of bullet your word processor offers, then see if you can find alternative bullets online.
7. Make a reference sheet that shows every font your computer can print. Do this after you have downloaded a bunch of free fonts.
8. Change your bullet list to numbers, then pare it down until you have exactly seven items.

On a broader front, here are suggestions to help you strategize your unproductivity.

Before you start each day, sleep. After you wake up, make sure you have exactly zero goals. At the end of the day, review what you haven't done, then spend the rest of the evening.

Write a blog. No one will read it, so you can spend hours writing advice to other people, secure in the knowledge that your knowledge is secure.

Enter random words and phrases into search engines. Even after all these years, this is still fun.

Install demo software. Never install free software, for you may be tempted to accomplish something with it some day; only get "evaluation" copies that will stop working after a period of time.

Yes, you can play solitaire or FB games or whatever, but personally I regard these as a cheat. Technically, when you win, you have accomplished something. You could play never to win, but even that is an accomplishment of sorts. Basically, wasting time by playing games is strictly for rookies.

Far better is to research items you never intend to buy. Consider buying a house in Edmonton. What is your ideal computer? Car shopping can be counted on for dozens of hours. Use one of those dummy hotmail accounts and create a massive shopping cart. This will make you feel good and will result in absolutely nothing.


Finally in conclusion, and last of all, never take the lack of production lightly. Those who have mastered the techniques are few. Those who work, look it. Those who don't work, look like those who do. It's a fine line you must never cross. I know. I've been there. I'm still there.
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
I was going to comment that I don't need advice on how to be unproductive, but reading this actually made me feel a little bit productive. That's a bit of an inception moment, isn't it?



(Great little read BTW. Thanks for sharing)
 

Incanus

Auror
I must not have been very busy, because I just came across this. I think that's how it's supposed to work, but I obviously have much to learn in this area.

This is great, Skip. My kind of humor all the way...
 

Aryth

Minstrel
This is great! I started to feel anxious as I was reading it because I'm one of those people who feels like she always has to be productive. It's difficult for me to just sit on the couch at home. Those dishes are so tempting...is that some cat fur on the carpet? Some of those things I definitely did at a past job though, when there was seriously nothing else to do and I was going insane.

Great ideas, fun piece of writing. :)
 
Hah! Working hard to hardly work (or in this case not work at all)

As Aryth said, I'm an "always needs to be productive" kind of person. If I'm not the stress is crazy. Luckily for me, by day job keeps me jumping. I would hate a job where I could manage to do this, it's nothing but a waste of time for every one.

Still, don't be surprised if some bosses out there begin to curse your name, Skip.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
I am not sure what it is like to do nothing on this scale. I do sometimes wonder at my friends who spend so much time on facebook. Generally speaking though, I hate doing nothing. I just want to do more of what I want to do, and not be so often distracted into things that are not really what I want to do, but I do anyway.
 
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