
The psychological importance of wasting time - prostoalex
https://qz.com/970924/the-psychological-importance-of-wasting-time/
======
spaginal
Just in my own experience, after having started a very small company several
years ago that is moderately successful for me, nothing Hacker News would care
about in the million and billion scheme, but it pays my mortgage and gives me
a comfortable life, I found that you will naturally fall into wasting time
during work to relax if you ignore it at the expense of said work.

Granted, this time doesn't offer much benefit in the course of the working
day, personally I'd find if I started work early, that sometimes the meat of
my day really wouldn't be productive until later, even though I had been at
work for several hours before productivity really took off.

When I had my second son and my wife stayed home for three months, I found
myself spending most mornings going to the park with my children and wife and
just enjoying the first part of my day with them. Each day I did this I came
into work in the afternoon with a lot more energy and focus and finished the
same amount of work, or more, plus I was able to enjoy my family and felt more
fulfilled overall.

If I had started my day rolling groggily into the shop with coffee in hand and
heroically pounding away, it would have taken me those same hours just to wind
up into productivity, and my day would feel more tiring and unfulfilling in
the end.

Honestly, 7 years in now, I've found I have a natural rhythm to my day, hours
I'm focused, hours I'm tired, hours I just don't care and want to do something
else, and if I try to work outside of this rhythm, it doesn't make me any more
productive, just busy on my own time and needlessly braggadocios towards
others when I can say I "worked" 16 hours yesterday when really only 5 hours
had anything get done.

This is my own experience though, and to each their own. I tried all the
productivity hacking and life hacking and it seemed for me, at the end of the
day, that finding time to not work did more to help my work than working for
the sake of work.

~~~
djtriptych
I think the real test is if you're willing to let your _employees_ adopt the
same sort of schedule. I've yet to find an employer who is comfortable with
this sort of schedule (I only expect 4-5 productive hours in the day) even if
some enlightened managers will recognize that reality privately.

Would you allow high-value employees to put in high-quality 4 hour workdays?
Why or why not?

~~~
drvdevd
This is an important point. I would personally allow it, because I believe the
fundamental premise to be true. In my experience, too much time in the
"standard work day" is wasted on looking like you're working, at all levels of
the hierarchy of most businesses.

OTOH, I would demand _some_ sort of measurable feedback and/or self evaluation
from employees to determine which schedule works best for them.

Maybe that's just too much overhead for a larger team, though. Perhaps at a
certain point in size, the productivity gains VS overhead of "managing" more
flexible schedules, become minimal.

~~~
RealityVoid
I don't think this works, because, frankly, in a team, the usually is a guy
who picks up other people's slack and, because he's that good, he really works
8h of the day. The bigger the company, the more true this is because it grings
up inefficiencies that need to be filled with personell time.

------
abalashov
It's harder to follow this advice when you're self-employed—in the
bootstrapped, struggle-with-bills, glorified one-man-show sense, not the
funded-with-plenty-of-runway sense. In addition to the guilt and social
pressure to "look busy", there's the knowledge that making rent really is tied
to how much you work. That leaves one feeling not only guilty for doing not-
work in the abstract, diffuse sense related to societal messaging, but indeed,
it feels _financially irresponsible_ and often _financially deleterious_.

It's not that grinding away at the PC makes one any more productive than folk
who follow the article's advice. It's just an even bigger weight on one's
shoulders. Instead of feeling like you owe society, your coworkers or your
employer something, you think about owing people paychecks that don't bounce
and owing the bank account balances that aren't negative.

Seeing past that and becoming aware that taking a walk now and again won't
change any of that in the big picture, because the big picture depends on the
more cosmological success or failure of your business model to grow/scale, is
hard when life is that kind of constant struggle. And then you constantly feel
like a moral failure—I mean a real piece of shit, not just a slacker getting
away with slacking—when you binge-watch something on Netflix or cruise HN or
YouTube because you're constantly burned out.

~~~
spaginal
I thought so too. Ego plays a huge part in this when it comes to business.
Working less can help you with working more meaningfully in a small business
in my own personal experience. For others it may not.

The thing that helped me with my small business, is the age old wisdom, the
less I spent, the less I had to earn for the business and the more I could
keep for myself. Instead of burning money on things that didn't help the
business, or provided very small benefit financially but added more hours to
grind out, I killed those things off and buried them.

Changed my life with owning a small business for myself. It went from spending
money like it was going out of style to gain a few more on top, working insane
hours everyday, literally almost killing myself with neglect to my health and
sleep, to enjoyment again and restoring my health.

Frankly, some businesses and ideas won't scale, no matter how hard you try,
and they won't exit for millions or billions at an IPO, but it doesn't make
them failures if they give you the ability to provide for your home and find
time to do other things that might down the road.

Just my two cents. I've been in your shoes as have most here. Starting a
business is one of the most insane experiences I think anyone can go through.

~~~
abalashov
_Frankly, some businesses and ideas won 't scale, no matter how hard you try,
and they won't exit for millions or billions at an IPO, but it doesn't make
them failures if they give you the ability to provide for your home and find
time to do other things that might down the road. _

Oh, I agree with that. My business aspirations aren't much higher. But
sometimes even getting to that point is a challenge. As you say, high personal
or business expenses can be a major reason for that.

------
zeta0134
This is one of the main reasons I've stopped taking lunch at my desk. I cheat
a bit, eat my lunch right before my long break while I'm getting to a stopping
point, then put on my headphones, leave my desk, and wander around our campus
for an hour on foot.

The music relaxes me and doesn't let me focus on any surrounding snippets of
conversation, and I just let my mind wander along with my feet as I traverse
our campus with no particular destination. (Our "office building" was
originally an old mall, so it's huge and spacious.) This is surprisingly
refreshing, and I usually find that I arrive at my desk energized mentally by
the end of the hour.

~~~
cmarschner
I've always found the habit of eating at one's desk almost insulting.

It is not about the annoyances that at-the-desk-eaters create for their
immediate surroundings. Eating creates noise and smell pollution. I don't want
to smell your tacos, and I don't want to hear the scratching of a spoon in an
empty joghurt cup.

It is also not the thought about hygienic implications. Lots of the food
consumed at desks is finger food. I've grown up getting taught to wash hands
before eating and to use knife and spoon. The thought that someone changes
between food and operating the keyboard, a piece that has been proven to be
dirtier than toilet seats, is unsettling.

No, it is the fact that the person sees eating as a mindless task that can be
done _while working_ that bothers me most. As if it was filling up gas at the
pump. No, eating to me has two dimensions that these cultureless creatures
spurn: that food is, next to breathing and sleeping, one of the most important
things that keep you alive. You liteeally are what you eat. Your body tells
you very directly what it needs and how much. But you got to listen to it
while you're eating. It is already a series of sensations that require being
mindful. Just think of the texture, smell, and taste of a leaf of basil. Of
olive oil. Of fresh fish. Wonderful.

The other side is that eating is a social endeavour. It is an opportunity to
bond and build empathy. It's an opportunity to relax and get good ideas as a
team. Also to exchange information. I would say those of our team that go out
for lunch regularly are more successful than the ones who don't.

So, I think eating at the desk while working is wrong in many dimensions.
Taking a walk is definitely a good idea, too.

~~~
dualogy
> _I don 't want to hear the scratching of a spoon in an empty joghurt cup_

Well sheesh where did you grow up, Silenceville? Peaceful Springs? ;)

> _Your body tells you very directly what it needs and how much._

True in the case of severe deficiencies. Otherwise it'll at best signal "give
me all the essential aminos and" (depending on mitochondrial preference /
adaptation) "fatty acids / glucose you have, in whatever hopefully digestable
format".. =)

> _But you got to listen to it while you 're eating. It is already a series of
> sensations that require being mindful. Just think of the texture, smell, and
> taste of a leaf of basil. Of olive oil._

All these "sensations" are pure acculturation. The only signal I get from "a
leaf of basil" (any leaf, really) or any vegetable oil is rejection. We're not
born with any taste, just with a sucking reflex, the rest is shaped by our
moms and the others around us. You _can_ of course enjoy this situation
mindfully and perceptably, more power to you! =)

~~~
Broken_Hippo
> I don't want to hear the scratching of a spoon in an empty joghurt cup

This sort of thing is rage inducing in some folks - there is a neurological
thing that makes folks become angry at certain sounds, to the point of wearing
earplugs at dinner. Eating is a common trigger sound, as is yawning and other
such sounds.

~~~
NickNameNick
I can't stand the sounds of other people eating when I'm not.

I suspect it's something my mother induced in me. She had the same problem if
anyone else at the table, was eating with their mouth open, or otherwise
noisily. It doesn't bother me at the dinner table or when I'm eating. But in
any other context, any crunching/chewing/sucking noise just grabs my full
attention and disgusts me.

------
moxious
This is very oddly framed. If the time is psychologically useful, then it
isn't wasted. Some people need more, and some people need less relaxation
time. I think the author's real issue is with the psychology of trapping
yourself into feeling you must work at every moment and feeling guilty if you
don't.

The trouble with that in turn is that it's a person's habit or emotional
orientation, and likely doesn't change just by being given evidence that
you're more productive if you give yourself a break sometimes. Habits don't
respond to evidence because they're pattern continuations, not logical
choices.

~~~
qntty
I've definitely developed habits that were based on mistaken beliefs, then
changed them fairly easily when my beliefs changed. I don't think it's crazy
to think that someone who is obsessed with optimizing every second of life
could change their tune when they start to think of "down time" as productive.

~~~
philipov
People respond more strongly to the framing of an argument than to its logical
content (case in point: GP), and so I would argue that choosing the frame of
the oppressor (e.g. it is wasted time) actually reinforces the belief and is
counterproductive to changing the habit. It would be better to attack the
frame directly by challenging the notion that it's wasted time, instead of
parroting it.

~~~
kmonad
What is GP? Why do you use an undefined acronym for your case in point?

~~~
labster
Grandparent post: the post two levels up.

------
andrewchambers
Too often wasting time in an endless youtube/HN/reddit loop takes away from a
real break you could be enjoying fully instead of being in guilty limbo.

Everyone needs breaks, so factor these into your plan and commit to them
fully, planned breaks can be enjoyed without guilt.

~~~
spcelzrd
For the typical office worker, much of the day is spent pretending to work.

------
ssivark
The notion of measuring one's quality of life by "productivity" seems very
strange. When one is focused on micro-optimizing what one does, it is
difficult to dwell on the bigger and more important questions (such as what
life goals might be worthy of pursuit). On the basis of the obliquity
principle [1] most metrics that we try to optimize for are probably
corollaries of a life well lived.

Further, the irony of articles that try to justify "downtime" as an enabler
for better productivity is very funny.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obliquity_(book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obliquity_\(book\))

~~~
NickNameNick
At least measuring productivity makes some sense.

A lot of people seem to measure busyness, or even the appearance of busyness
as a proxy, but business without achievement is not productivity.

------
simplydt
There is a big difference between wasting time and doing nothing or resting.

I think the title is quite misleading as I doubt the majority of time wasting
as it happens in the modern world has any good psychological implications:

A while back I wrote a post analysing Coldplay, Minecraft and my own previous
start up in relation to "doing nothing", someone might find it useful:
[http://unratedtogm.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/doing-nothing-
will...](http://unratedtogm.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/doing-nothing-will-make-
you-more.html?m=1)

------
atemerev
I wonder how people in the US are still struggling with this obvious notion
that having a good rest is important, not only for the "quality of life",
whatever it is, but for the quality of work itself. Here in Europe, this is
regarded as self-evident.

------
orschiro
Decluttering is the keyword for me. Rethinking what I am consuming, how and
what the effects of its consumption are, i.e. what do I do with what I
consume? Do I share it? Do I digest it? Do I make something based on it?

------
mark_l_watson
I believe that I have elevated wasting time to an art form. For decades I only
worked 4 days a week, even for large corporations, and spent my extra day off
on my sailboat or at the beach. I am fairly busy right now, but I am still
taking two short hikes today, morning and late afternoon with two groups of
friends.

A recent book I bought written by Cal Newport "Deep Work" inspires me to keep
my habits, with some refinements.

I pay a price for taking lots of time off: "leaving money on the table." For
me it is worth it.

------
stevenkovar
Spending time on fun or interesting things is a good way to zero out your
'stressbox' and can be (I'd say _should_ be) just as deliberate a daily habit
as zeroing out your email inbox.

------
real-hacker
Maybe it is not wasting time that is fulfilling, it is adjusting the rhythm
that is fulfilling. I think it's more about allocating enough time for both
left brain/right brain, or id/ego.

------
hartator
I would said depend wasting time on what right? And still we are here
commenting on HN. :)

------
gosheroo
Is it even possible to waste time? Consider _meditation_. Widely considered to
be a valuable and healthy activity, it literally consists of doing nothing.

~~~
wtetzner
Maybe doing something that's actively harmful could be considered wasting
time?

~~~
gosheroo
I don't think anyone intends anything harmful. People do harmful things
because they are mistaken about stuff, including about what is good. But
mistakes are a normal part of discovering the way forward, so, no, not a
waste.

