Busy Doing Nothing

permission to embrace idleness

“We labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because to us it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think.” — Nietzsche

Fall is on summer's doorstep, and just like the changing season, my habit of busyness needs to fade away. Over the past few months, I've taken on extra work, filling my calendar yet yearning for spaciousness. The familiar compulsion to always be busy has taken hold of me.

It's the feeling of "I should be working." Recently, I caught myself mindlessly scrolling through social media when I could have simply stood up and walked away. My work was done, yet I remained at my desk out of habit, filling time rather than allowing myself to rest.

It hit me then—weeks ago, I had consciously decided to pause and take on less client work for a couple of months.

Yet, I failed to grant myself permission to truly embrace idleness. Instead of savouring the free time I had created, I fell back into the trap of pointless busyness. A surge of embarrassment washed over me—what was I doing? This wasn't how I wanted to spend my day. This feeling served as a powerful reminder: merely clearing your schedule isn't enough—you must consciously choose to rest or focus.

Time I could have devoted to thinking, learning, and simply being was squandered on trivial matters that don't align with my life's direction. By constantly staying busy, I lost sight of the bigger picture, missing out on the meaningful choices that require space and reflection to emerge.

Beyond needing rest, I decided to take on less client work this fall to focus on bigger life goals. I realized I needed time to reassess my path and determine my next steps. Although I had been working on this sporadically in brief 30-minute sessions, I recognized the need for more dedicated time and space to truly reflect and plan.

This coming week, I am stopping to think, and I hope reading this nudges you to do the same. I'm going to focus on giving myself permission to concentrate on fewer things and be okay with not doing it all. Because the truth is, thinking takes energy and effort. If I'm only focused on the next thing and acting, I'm behaving in a short-sighted manner. I'll look up a year from now and wonder why I did what I did. I want to be clear—it doesn't mean I'm not working. It simply means I'm choosing to do less busywork, say no more often, and likely sit in the discomfort of FOMO. It means structuring space to think into my week and resisting actions that give a dopamine hit but do nothing for me long-term.

If you're stressing about productivity, I want you to know this: you're likely already more productive than you think. As a society, we tend to value action over contemplation, and rarely reward those who take time to think deeply.

But constantly acting without reflection becomes exhausting and unfulfilling. We act, we work, we stay busy—often because it's easier than pausing to think. Nietzsche’s words echo this truth: it's not just about the necessity of our work, but about our need to avoid the discomfort of slowing down. But without that space to think, we lose out on the deeper, more intentional choices that shape our lives.

Maybe the hardest work is to simply stop and think.

Hey, you made it to the end! I have a little secret for you. I've been grappling with this nagging feeling to "do more" this week. So, I dusted off my copy of Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. That's where the Nietzsche quote came from. I'll be leafing through this book again as it helps me focus on what truly matters. I highly recommend it.