How To Waste Time Properly
Have a Break, Have a Distraction
Not all consumptions are bad. Working your way through your entire waking hours is impossible. Everyone needs a break.
But how do you do them right?
It’s not unusual to open up FaceBook or YouTube and notice that you’ve eaten half of your day consuming media. That has happened to me, and I regret every bit of it.
Have you experienced being snatched? I have. Twice in my life. Two times where my phone was stolen from my pocket while I was on my daily commute. Once you notice that something’s missing, you get a shot of adrenaline and you enter rage mode. You want to kill the bastard who got your phone or wallet.
It sucks.
But why do we let it happen to us every day with our distractions? Time is more valuable than money, but we give it away like it’s nothing.
Back in the Philippines, I bought my power rack for my powerlifting routine. This saves me time from driving back and forth to the local gym. It’s a lifetime investment that I can use until I get old and pass it down to my kids.
When you lift weights, you’re not supposed to pump rep after rep with no rest between. The rest helps you recuperate and prepares you for the next set. Breaks energize you.
But they’re different from distractions.
You don’t allow distractions in the middle of a rest break. I rarely see someone in the gym watch a movie between his sets. Breaks would take a minute to five minutes depending on how heavy you’re lifting.
Here are three tips to help you take better breaks during work or life in general.
1. Schedule Intentional Breaks and Distractions
Use the Pomodoro technique. For every twenty-five minutes of work, take five minutes of break. You don’t have to wait for exhaustion before taking a step out of work. If you need a longer work time, scale it up to fifty-five minutes of action with ten minutes of break.
I also schedule distraction time during my most unproductive part of the day — for me, it’s after lunch. This way I am not guilty of consuming social media and watching during this time.
One way to disconnect from the trance of YouTube and FaceBook is having a pattern disruption. I set a manual alarm clock to go off after the distraction time is up. This way it’ll wake me up mentally when the time is over. I position the alarm clock far away, and this will force me to stand up and disrupt my consumption. It jolts my mind and body.
2. Low Stimulation Breaks
This concept comes from my gym time breaks.
When I’m in the middle of working, break time should consist of low stimulation activities. There’s no browsing of the internet or watching. It should be physical activities that recharge my body and mind.
I do push-ups, walk up to the bathroom, or stare out into a view. Staring far away into the distance helps our eyes get back into its normal state. Being in front of a screen, either phone or laptop strains the eyes because we’re not meant to focus on something close for hours.
3. Cheat Days
I got this from my Slow Carb Diet.
I need to have a day where I go all in with my consumptions. Me and my wife schedule this during Saturday afternoons. We go hard on Netflix series and documentaries. We watch in bed until our head hurts.
This overdrives our head to a point where we get sick of it. After watching six hours, I never want to watch another episode of Riverdale. By the end of the marathon, the thought of watching another episode makes me sick. I feed the beast until it pukes.
Take a break and enjoy every second you get from it. Make them intentional and don’t slip into compulsive consumption.
Talk to you soon my friend.
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