Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

5 Minutes Of Doing Nothing

When was the last time, that you were doing absolutely nothing for five minutes?

We are living in a society of hyper-activity. Especially since the introduction of things like social media, Youtube, games, and television, most people have unlearned how to do nothing for a while.

I am a horrible example of this myself.

Whenever I have nothing specific to do, I will take out my phone. Or, I will take a book and read. Or, I will find whatever activity that comes into my mind.

If I find absolutely nothing to do, I get nervous. I start walking back and forth aimlessly, with no particular reason.

I become uncomfortable so quickly, that I will surely find ‘something’ to do right away.

This behavior is torture for our brain.

We are overloading our brain with stimuli, without giving it the space to process the information, which it has been taking in.

In order to process existing information, our brain needs to be in a state of unfocus on a regular basis.

In this state of unfocus, our thoughts are wandering aimlessly from one thing to the other. Instead of focusing on something specific, we are allowing our mind to drift off, daydream and wander off to wherever it wants to go.

This is the realm of our subconsciousness.

As Dr. Srini Pillay writes:

“In unfocus, when you’re thinking less, the brain is more dynamic and active than ever. In fact, it consumes huge amounts of energy continuously”.

This is because your brain is now in a state where it processes all these different things, which you have learned throughout your day.

I think it is funny.

Most of us are trying so hard to focus harder and harder. We are trying our best to reduce those times, during which our minds are drifting off, to the absolute minimum.

Turns out, these phases of daydreaming and mind wandering, are one of the most important keys to our creativity.

Purposefully using unfocus

I’m not much of a math and science guy. I spent most of my time in school daydreaming and managed to turn it into a living — George Lucas

Of course, there is a good reason why our society is constantly emphasizing the value of deep focus. All meaningful work requires periods of long, uninterrupted focus.

It is during these times, that we are doing our best active kind of thinking. In the optimal case, we are entering flow state and consequently focus 100% of our attention on this one specific thing.

This is how all of our hands-on kind of work gets done.

But it is not how we come up with our best ideas.

Our best ideas, are coming from the realm of our subconsciousness. They are results of these ‘Eureka!’ moments, which we experience occasionally… when we least expect them.

All of us have had this kind of experience before.

An idea just pops up in our heads seemingly out of nowhere. It happens while we are on a walk, taking a shower, or washing the dishes.

These Eureka moments seem to happen in a random fashion. But they are really not random. They are the results of longer periods of time, during which our subconsciousness has been processing any particular issue.

If you are like most people, you are probably not purposefully making use of these subconscious processes.

1. You are not giving your subconscious mind the space it needs to do its thing
2. You are not conscious of a decent rhythm between periods of focus and unfocus
3. You are not programming your subconscious mind to process any specific issue

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

1. Space

In order for your subconscious mind to do its work, you need to give it the space it needs. That means, there need to be plenty of periods, where you are not actively focused on something.

This could be one of two things:

1. Any kind of activity that is automatic and doesn’t require a lot of energy (walking in a park, doing house chores etc.)
2. Periods of simply doing nothing. For example, simply sitting on a park bench and doing nothing besides enjoying the sun and the fresh air.

If you want to be serious about using the power of your subconscious mind, then you should deliberately schedule periods like this into your daily schedule.

Under normal circumstances, they are not exactly ‘first priority’ activities.

That’s why you need to make the active decision that you are going to make space for them.

2. Rhythm

It is not enough to just have occasional periods where you are allowing yourself to be in a state of unfocus. If you are not giving your brain enough of these periods, then it will forcefully take them.

This means that while you are trying to focus on your work, your brain will start making you to daydream and mind wander.

I doubt that this is what you want.

That’s why you need to bring a proper rhythm between periods of focus, and periods of unfocus into your life.

Dr. Srini Pillay recommends that for every 45 minutes, you should give yourself at least 15 minutes of unfocus. I myself have a similar rhythm. I work in 90 minute peridos, and then give myself at least 30 minutes of quiet time.

But that is not enough.

In addition to the break times which you have throughout your day, you should also plan in plenty of unfocused time during your spare time.

That means not filling up all of your spare time with activities that require you to spend a lot active attention. But to also give yourself some low intensive periods, where your subconsciousness has time to do its thing.

3. Programming your subconscious mind

Of course, you can’t actively control what your subconscious mind is processing. Nobody can do that.

But you know one thing as a fact:

Your subconscious mind is always processing your past experiences and the things that are on your mind.

This means that if today you are thinking actively about how to solve a specific problem, and after that you are taking several periods of quiet time, then your subconsciousness is probably working on exactly that problem.

However, here’s the catch:

Say that you are working on a problem. After that, you are watching a series on Netflix. Then what happens?

Right, there is a good chance that your subconscious mind is processing all the stuff that happened in that series, instead of processing the problem that you are trying to solve.

Do you get the point?

You don’t only need to bring your attention to the right things during your working times. You also need to make sure, that your mind is not distracted with other, pointless things.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t have a life outside of your work. What it does mean is that you need to avoid feeding your brain with all sorts of trashy information, which will keep it busy.

All this requires is a little bit of common sense.

It just requires an answer to the question:

Which activities are generally good for you in the sense that they are fulfilling, while also being intellectually-, and creatively stimulating?

Conclusion:

In our current society, being busy seems to be the standard that we all aspire to. We think that by filling our calendars with activity, we are performing at the maximum of our potential.

Often, the opposite is true.

We should focus on finishing one- or a few meaningful tasks every single day. During this time, it is necessary to be highly focused and to maintain your attention on the activity at hand.

But after that, we should give our subconscious mind the space it needs. We need to bring more quiet time into our lives, in order to give our brain the space to process all the things it has learned.

Unfortunately, few of us follow these principles.

The result is that most people are constantly so drained both intellectually and physically, that they can hardly sustain any concentration at all.

Ask yourself this question:

Can you honestly say for yourself, that you can sustain four hours of highly concentrated work every single day? That is work, during which you are 100% focused on the task.

If your answer to that question is no, then the answer is not to try harder. The answer is to bring more periods of quietness and unfocused mind wandering into your life.

To be more productive, you need to do less.

Don’t make your calendar crowded with activity. Focus on a few meaningful activities, and do them well.

The rest of your time, focus on activities that refresh your mind and allow your brain to rest.

Let your subconsciousness do all the work.

Activities that promote mind-wandering, such as reading literature, going for a walk, exercising, or listening to music, are hugely restorative. — Daniel Levitin, Cognitive Psycholgist

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