Month #9: Doing nothing every day

A Year of Monthly Challenges

In June, I blocked off 15 minutes on my calendar each day to do absolutely nothing. I would move around the scheduled block depending on what was convenient that day, but I never deleted it.

During the week, this usually meant escaping to one of the phone booths at my office with only a few sticky notes and a pen — no phone or computer.

After trying some different times of day, I found that my favorite was mid-afternoon. By that time, I had dragged myself out of the morning swamp of emails, finished a few meetings and eaten lunch; This was a great time to pause, reprioritize and take control of the rest of the day. I saw it as a chance to course-correct after a hectic morning.

The original objective was to let my mind wander, but it’s only natural that while immersed in the context of work, my mind would mostly wander to work-related things. Still, it was a chance to get out of the weeds for a moment and think about higher level context. I found it to be an extremely productive use of 15 minutes.

On the weekends, I had a chance to apply that energy to broader subjects. Rather than focusing on daily work-related tasks, I would often think about longer term goals and personal trends. This wasn’t systematic by any means. I just thought about whatever was on my mind — A lot of the time it was a random external thing. Sometimes it wasn’t much of anything. But taking the time to stop and think always felt like a “reset.”

Month #10: Getting back on track

On the subject of course-correcting, it’s time to refocus. I couldn’t decide what to do for my challenge this month, and I think that my lack of inspiration was rooted in habit-overload. I’ve been trying out so many new habits, but feeling like I‘ve let some of the most critical ones slip through the cracks.

This month, I’m going to revisit a few of my previous challenges — ones that were the most relevant and achievable— and try to reintegrate and solidify them as part of my ongoing daily routine. These are:

• Wake up early — I always feel rushed in the morning, and miss the feeling of having a head start on my day.
• Stretch every day — I’ve been feeling stiff and sore from playing soccer, and remember feeling a lot lighter on my feet when I was stretching daily.
• Kick my sweet tooth — Passing the jar of Reese’s cups in my office is a daily challenge for me. Overindulging makes me feel like I’m counteracting all of my other health goals.

All three of these habits relate to feeling more energetic and more mobile, factors that affect quality-of-life in the long term. My goal this month is to get to a place where these three habits become defaults, and don’t require extra energy or self-control to accomplish.

Next blog entry to be posted on August 1st