Boost your productivity by making a habit of doing nothing

Image Letting your mind go for a minute between tasks can help you with everything else you do in a day.(ABC Life: Nathan Nankervis) No matter how efficient you are or how well you plan your day, you’ll still encounter distractions, interruptions or just moments when your mind doesn’t want to get on board with your grand plans for a productive afternoon. Instead of acknowledging the very human tendency for things to go off track, we can instead fall into "productivity guilt." At this point, doing nothing, even for a few minutes, can feel like failure. The problem with measuring our worth by our output is that we feel we can only have a break when we "deserve" one, instead of having one simply because it’s impossible for anyone to be ‘on’ for eight straight hours. Finding ways to be more efficient and effective can improve motivation and provide a sense of meaning in our working lives. But doing nothing and taking pause is often necessary for our focus, energy and wellbeing — and is something we can learn to embrace. Want weekly updates from ABC Life delivered to your inbox? Sign up to our newsletter. The benefits of doing nothing Doing nothing can be misconstrued as laziness, when in practice it serves an important role in helping us recover and reenergise from work stress and fatigue. Particularly for those who define their own work hours, switching off can be challenging . If you work from home or for yourself and there is no physical or psychological separation to signal you are done for the day, it can be all too tempting to check another email, take another call or just keep on chipping away. Working from home might sound ideal but it can also come with its own […]

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