This article was published, in badly mangled form, in The Hindu Open Page. The atrocious editing of my already edited article infuriated me so much that I could not read the published version. I’m never submitting to this execrable publication again. For a professional editor to do this bad a job should be a capital offence.
With that charming introduction, here’s my take on hustle culture:
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Like many people, I went through a phase of planning every minute in my day. Facing my planner, feeling like the queen of the world, I would picture gliding from task to task, spending my commutes journalistically documenting my bus-mates or mentally reviewing last evening’s edifying reading, and transitioning from sleeping to waking and vice versa as efficiently as a robot switching itself on/off. Actual reality routinely quashed my plans, led to burnouts, evoked that saying about ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men,’ and finally taught me the importance of sometimes doing nothing.
‘Do nothing’ might seem a strange prescription in our productivity-obsessed age, where any unoccupied minute seems something to explain away and apologise for, and where ultra-achievers like Mr. Murthy are telling us to work more, not less. But the benefits of sometimes doing nothing are increasingly entering public consciousness. Burnout has reached record levels, and has partly triggered, for instance, the Great Resignation in the U.S. A shift towards the gig economy has exacerbated this problem, with numerous workers worldwide spending many waking hours hustling for work, on top of actually working. Meanwhile, leave policies at many Indian workplaces are so stringent that the prospect of jumping through loopholes, like a circus lion tackling rings of fire, often puts us off from taking a day off even when we really need it. This means that employees routinely under-utilise the days of leave to which they’re entitled, even when these days can be neither rolled over nor converted to cash.
Time off is vital for our wellbeing, and leave policies are a key predictor of employee satisfaction. Globally, many workplaces are recognising ‘mental health days’ as a legitimate reason for leave. On the one hand, ignoring our own bodily signals, which are begging for a break, might set us up for more serious physical or mental health issues down the line. On the other, supporting a healthy work-life balance improves a company’s attractiveness and ability to attract and retain talent. This makes regular doses of ‘doing nothing’ a salutary prescription from the perspective of both employers and employees.
Doing nothing has particular benefits for creative work. Breakthroughs in any field involve creative insights – ranging from dramatic Eureka moments to a quieter series of smaller insights. Whether you’re developing a video-game’s graphics, puzzling over an ongoing conflict with your teenaged child, or deciding how best to deliver a skills-based course in an online format, creative breakthroughs are the instrument of making real progress and achieving your goals. And these breakthroughs often happen when we’re ostensibly ‘doing nothing’ – when our minds are resting, engaged with menial tasks, dreaming or daydreaming, commuting, or exploring a seemingly irrelevant topic. We’ve all experienced this phenomenon of sudden insight, and may find it paradoxical. It isn’t.
Creativity, by definition, involves associating disparate ideas – ideas you wouldn’t normally link. Such linking occurs much more readily when our minds are ‘zoomed out,’ when the details of the problem at hand aren’t preoccupying us.
The brain is a strange organ – it’s never really ‘doing nothing.’ Even when we’re not engaged with a task, the brain is still processing information, regulating a huge number of bodily functions, reinterpreting experiences, and synthesising ideas. This explains why it’s often in moments when we, as individuals, seem to be ‘doing nothing’ that our brain spits out a solution to a problem that’s been occupying us for days, weeks, or months.
Many of the most creative, productive people around the world recognise this truth, and are as rigorous about resting as they are about working. They recognise that regular bouts of ‘doing nothing’ are vital not just to their wellbeing but to their career. Whether it’s bestselling author Robin Sharma’s recommendation to ‘become a professional sleeper,’ or multi-hyphenate Tim Ferriss’s practice of long quarterly retreats, top achievers are carving out and protecting their ‘do nothing’ time. So don’t let anybody shame you for periodically, joyfully doing nothing. Your dog does nothing all day, and isn’t his life much the better for it?
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Amita Basu 