Il dolce far niente

We live in a culture that glorifies the grind. Every minute must be optimized, every task meticulously planned, every moment accounted for. We make ourselves feel guilty if we are not actively working towards some pursuit or project at all times, and heaven forbid we do something we want to do when there’s something we could be working on. There is an entire subindustry within the health and wellness space completely dedicated to increasing your productivity and optimizing work output.

But what if I told you that our relentless pursuit of productivity is actually sabotaging our well-being and potential? What if the key to unlocking your best self lies not in doing more, but actually in doing less? The key may just be in piddling around.

Think for a moment about the last time you truly allowed yourself to be idle, to "piddle around" without a specific goal or purpose. Did you feel a pang of guilt, a nagging voice whispering that you should be doing something more "productive"? This feeling is not accidental; it's a symptom of our society's deeply ingrained belief that our worth is directly tied to our output.

Constantly pushing ourselves leads to burnout, anxiety, and a disconnect from our sense of self. When we're always "on," our minds become cluttered with to-do lists and worries, leaving little room for creativity, inspiration, and genuine connection to ourselves and others.

We forget how to simply be. As the great spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle said, “Stress is caused by being ‘here’ but wanting to be ‘there.’”

Think about it: How often do you find yourself thinking about something, whether it’s work or another nagging thought, from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed, only to wonder why you can't sleep at night? We are so consumed with achievement that we neglect the very thing that fuels it: our mental and emotional well-being.

"Piddling around" means wasting time doing something unimportant or unproductive. It implies a lack of focus and a tendency to dawdle or potter around without accomplishing much. The phrase is often used to describe a situation where someone is not working with purpose or achieving anything significant.

Found in the seemingly unimportant, there is inherent value in mindlessness, and idleness isn't the Devil's playground, as we were taught to believe. There is actually psychology to support the need for more idleness and, frankly, boredom in your life.

It’s is obvious when you think about the fact that certain thoughts require more effort than others. Deciding what you want to wear can feel like the hardest decision ever, while choosing something off the menu at dinner feels easy. Maybe your job requires focused, dedicated attention for long periods of time, or maybe your days are full of mindless, mostly automatic behaviors. Either way, you are experiencing the continuum of conscious thought.

I like to think of the spectrum of thought as ranging from “effortful” to “effortless.” Effortful thoughts, as the name implies, are those that require higher levels of concentrated effort. More of your mental energy is centered on one idea, task, problem, etc. Effortless thoughts, on the contrary, require exceedingly less effort. The most effortless thinking, I would argue, is when we sleep.

Sleep is our body's conversation with the subconscious. It is our body's way of processing, repairing, and updating our central data base, and it does so in a seamless, completely automated fashion. In fact, it is when we try to manipulate or interrupt this system that it begins to malfunction. Sleep processing productivity increases exponentially with sleep quality. I could (and probably will) write an entire newsletter on the importance of sleep, but for now it's served its purpose in this conversation.

Piddling is the next step up from sleep; the awake equivalent of what happens when we sleep. It's about embracing the "effortless" side of our minds while engaged in conscious activity.

Aside from sleeping, when we allow the mind to rest or to ease off of effortful thinking, we engage something called the "default mode network." In essence, this is when the brain is subconsciously processing emotions and memories and essentially sorting through your thoughts.

In fact, when the brain is at rest, it's not actually resting at all. It's actively consolidating information, making connections between seemingly unrelated ideas, generating creative insights, and opening space for reflection. Think of it as your brain's background processing system, constantly working to “tidy up” and optimize your mental landscape.

This explains why some of our best ideas come to us in the shower, on a walk, or while we're engaged in some other mindless activity. When we step away from the pressure to "think," our minds are free to wander and make unexpected connections. This isn’t a secret, by the way. History’s greatest thinkers and doers — Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Nikola Tesla, and Ludwig van Beethoven, to name a few — all prioritized allowing the mind to wander and explore as an essential component of the creative process.

Giving the ol’ noggin’ a healthy diet of cognitive experiences builds a strong, healthy mind. Critical thinking and effortful thoughts, the things that really get us working, are the proteins; our mental "meat." What are your values? What are your goals and desires? What do you want to do with your life? Those sorts of things.

Then you have your side dishes of conscious decisions that shape the experience, the choices that bring everything together. Are you going to have mashed potatoes or mac and cheese with your steak? Your decision. Are you going to wear the red dress or the blue one? Not life or death, but alter our experience.

"Piddling" is the pallet cleanser. The refreshment. It is what helps everything work together in synergy; the perfectly paired wine to your meal, or the sorbet intermezzo.

In your daily life, this is gardening, wandering aimlessly around a mall, or sitting in your favorite chair.

Sleep? That's the dessert.

If we spend our lives feeling guilty about being idle, we lead ourselves into our own suffering. The mind needs to rest, just like the body, and regardless of what "hustle culture" says about how to maximize our productivity, the truth is that we operate better when we are rested, plain and simple.

When your mind has the freedom to breathe every now and then, you become more creative, more productive, and less stressed. Mental wandering is essential to boosting and optimizing our cognitive capacity and preserving our sanity. As with anything, there is a balance to be found that is unique to each of us, and finding an even distribution that works in your life is worth experimenting.

Prolonged periods of high mental stimulation is exhausting and leads to burnout. That's the root cause of burnout: extended engagement in excessive cognitive energy (I'm proud of myself for using that many 'e' words). Identifying ways to manage our today daily mental energy expenditure (TDMEE - also just made that up) and spread out our effort more evenly is essential to our well being.

There's nothing wrong with prioritizing things that don't serve an inherent or immediate purpose. The purpose is to let your mind rest and wander freely.

Here are 15 low-stimulation activities to try out:

• Gardening

• Walking (especially nature walks)

• Doodling

• Watching the clouds pass

• Freeform journaling

• Puzzles

• Crafting

• Coloring

• Baking

• Knitting/crocheting

• Cleaning/organization

• Tinkering/Legos

• Fishing

• Calligraphy

• Watching the sunrise/sunset

And look at that - none of those required a screen ;)

Whatever you choose, whatever your outlet, finding regular opportunities to mentally "take a load off" is our most effective prevention for burnout. One way to accomplish this is by embracing leisure. Embrace being lazy. Embrace doing nothing.

There is a lot of talk in the health and wellness space about “mental clarity.” I've even talked about it a few times in this newsletter, but I think the term carries an implication that it is something you "work for" or "learn to do." This active mentality tricks us into thinking more, just about different things.

The illusion is in the effort, here. Mental clarity is very simple: do less. If you want mental clarity, there ya go.

Do less.

Think less, speak less, work less, do less. The noise inside your brain is not calmed by thinking about it more and telling it to shut up, which is sometimes how mental clarity is pitched. Meditation, yoga, breath work, whatever mode you think achieves mental clarity all have one thing in common: the art of doing less. Of embracing…the Great Nothing.

That's the big secret, the big mystical quality of meditation. It's not about how you sit, or what direction your palms are facing, or whether you breathe in through your nose or your mouth, or what frequency you’re listening to in order to cleanse your chakra. It is about allowing yourself to do less, or in another manner of speaking, release more.

At first, it'll be uncomfortable. You'll feel the itch of needing to do something. You'll start to guilt yourself, thinking, "I should be doing work right now." Sit in that moment. Let it wash over you and acknowledge that you are feeling this way. It's completely natural, especially when society falsely equates productivity with value.

The output, though; the product that we "get" when we embrace intentional idleness is infinitely better than the diminishing returns of constant work. We will show up better and restored, primed to think more clearly and creatively, and better equipped to smoothly handle the flow of life.

Doing nothing is not a luxury. It's not a commodity reserved to the few or earned through hard work. Doing nothing is a fundamental need for our sustained health and well-being.

Here is your challenge this week:

Sit down and do nothing. No phone, no journaling or doodling. You can get up and wander if you stay in one room. Stare out the window or at the candle flickering across the room or watch the clock tick, whatever is happening in your immediate surroundings. Turn on a timer. How long do you think you could sit and do nothing before you "just couldn't take it anymore"?

Il dolce far niente.

The sweetness of doing nothing.

Until next time, live uninterrupted.

~Coleman

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the constant pressure to be productive and crave a clearer understanding of how to integrate more balance into your life, I invite you to schedule a Wellness Clarity Session with me. During this session, we'll explore your unique challenges and aspirations, identify actionable steps you can take to prioritize your well-being, and create a personalized plan for cultivating a more fulfilling and balanced life. Click here to book your session and start your journey towards greater mental clarity and well-being.