The advantage of doing absolutely nothing

Below is a post that I initially wrote back in 2011 when I hosted this blog on Blogspot. I’ve modified it slightly but you can read the original post here.

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It seems to me that aside from health and happiness the thing people are most often wish they had more of is time. We make lists and check off each “to do”, and we schedule personal dates with friends and family much like business meetings; busily tapping these appointments into our phone calendars.

As the average work day / week encroaches into what was traditionally personal or family time, it seems like we’ve started to adopt behaviors from our work life for our personal lives. I see many friends (especially this week) killing themselves to make the most of their time out of the office; scheduling every minute to run errands, see family and friends, etc…

So here we are on the cusp of the final week of the year. The holiday season is chaotic for many people so I thought it might be a good time to remind everyone to take time to do absolutely nothing.

Have you scheduled yourself into oblivion this week? Is your checklist of errands and commitments so long that you’ll need a vacation once the holidays are done? If so, hit the pause button and take time to do absolutely nothing even if it is just for one afternoon – you just might find that the holiday spirit isn’t quite so elusive if you make time for yourself too.