If it was up to me I'd do nothing at all, all day

[Naer]

serious, that nagging voice in my head that shames me for wanting to do nothing keeps me from doing so



just grow with my reptiles, amphibians, and trees

I think I'm the only one

 

[pmv]

Are you talking about right now, and today in particular, or about life in general?

Strikes me sometimes there'a a paradox about motivation. People often seem to be motivated to do things as part of a plan to get to a point where they no longer have to do anything.

 

[highland145]

 

[Fritzo]

I'm in a different boat- I try to do NOTHING but my brain won't stop trying to make my body do SOMETHING, I then get up and start to do SOMETHING. I then get angry because I want to do NOTHING, and half-ass whatever I forced myself to do.

 

[chitwood]

well you don't need a million dollars to do nothin, man.

Hell take a look at my cousin. He's broke, don't do shit.

 

[Kaido]

serious, that nagging voice in my head that shames me for wanting to do nothing keeps me from doing so

So this is actually my current area of focus, as I've been working on figuring out a holistic approach to managing my life for a long time now. I've finally cracked the code & am working on documenting everything up at the moment. Let me share some introductory material with you. First of all, this is how I define productivity, in this order:

1. Work
2. Personal pursuits
3. Guilt-free unstructured time

We all have different problems that we have to deal with in life. Some we share (eat, sleep, exercise, etc.) and some are different (work, parent, student, health conditions, etc.). The key to living a productive life is simply to stay on top of your responsibilities, but that's not the entire story because of the nature of how time really works. The theory is that time is constant, but time operates off our perception, which is why time flies when you're having fun, but it drags when you're stuck in a boring class or project at work or meeting that seems like it will never end. You've probably experienced this at some point in your life, such as if you got home from school, watched TV & played video games, and then all of a sudden it's dark out & your homework wasn't done. So the order of the items above is important: work first, play later, and that ensures that you are staying on top of your commitments in a responsible manner.

However, all work & no play makes Jack a dull boy! Particularly if work isn't your primary source of satisfaction in life, you need to have some personal pursuits to give you some fulfillment, whether they're hobbies or personal projects or a side gig or whatever. So when you take a look at personal productivity in that order: get your work done first, then work on your personal pursuits, and then enjoy some free time, then things start to make sense. When you goof up the order of that formula or when you leave things out, things start to get wonky: if you goof off all day, then you're going to drop the ball on you responsibilities. If you goof off before you work, then you're now using your enjoyment activities as avoidance behavior, and in order to enjoy them, you have to put yourself into denial-mode so that you're not thinking about them, which causes stress & anxiety. If you don't have any personal pursuits, then you're probably going to be left feeling pretty unfulfilled. It's a fairly simple formula, but I've had major struggles with it myself over the years, simply because it's hard to motivate yourself to do stuff.

So that's where the solution comes in: the problem has been identified (we need a work/life balance), the formula has been defined (work first, then work on personal pursuits, then goof-off). The solution is to remove yourself from having to remember to do stuff & to also remove willpower from the equation, so that you don't have to motivate yourself every single day. You need an easier, more sustainable approach than that! Thus the answer is to create a "personal productivity system" (or PPS, for short), which enables you to fulfill that initial personal productivity blueprint of "work first, then work on personal pursuits, then play later & enjoy it guilt-free".

I believe I've succeed in creating a very accessible, powerful PPS system that enables you to take good intentions & actually convert them into reality. I'll have to make a separate post at some point once I've completed the documentation. I think that having a PPS is a huge game-changer for a lot of people (myself included) because we all see & are interested & understand all kinds of good things in life, like we should be exercising, eating better, chipping away on our hobbies, working on fun projects, actually putting those into play - consistently - is much harder than just knowing about it & understanding how to do it. The majority of us have probably owned exercise machines that eventually turned into dust-collecting laundry-hanging systems, for example...good intentions, but without a support system to enable consistent follow-through, you end up relying on your fickle daily willpower & end up not being as consistent as you like across everything across the board, which is why I've been pursuing the creation of a PPS - to help transform those intentions into reality & to feel good about whatever I'm doing, whether it's working on work, working on a personal pursuit, or simply enjoying some unplugged time from being productive.

Anyway. I feel ya.

 

[nakedfrog]

Are you employed, Mr. Naer?

 

[IronWing]

Are you employed, Mr. Naer?

Doing nothing at work pays better. OP, you should look into it.

 

[deadlyapp]

I'm mostly perplexed by the amount of footwear on the bookshelf.

 

[BoomerD]

Describes my life....I'm retired...I do nothing all day...unless, for some odd reason, I decide to do SOMETHING (or your mom)...then, once I get that out of my system...I go back to doing nothing.

 

[Mai72]

My buddy has a $1m dollar home built with an indoor movie theater. How cool is that? He's also 42, and does nothing all day but watch movies. He's also seriously overweight, and eats fast food everyday. He also has health issues. I don't know. Is that a life that I would want, or a life that would excite me? HELL NO! What do you like to do OP? Get into that and do more of it. We only get one shot at life. It's going to be over soon enough. If sitting around all day excites you, then do it. Just don't complain about the rich, or about society, or that your life sucks. You made your bed.

I'm looking to purchase a condo in Vietnam. That's my destination. But, to get to my goal it's going to take work. As the saying goes "no pressure, no diamonds." The good things in life take work, unless you hit the lottery or are born into a wealthy family. Even then, it's not an easy ride. Wealthy kids tend to be involved in drugs, and many overdose. Lottery winners tend to blow their money.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Downtime is great, but, uptime is important too.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Another poster child for UBI...

 

[snoopy7548]

Are you talking about right now, and today in particular, or about life in general?

Strikes me sometimes there'a a paradox about motivation. People often seem to be motivated to do things as part of a plan to get to a point where they no longer have to do anything.

Came here to post pretty much this. I don't want to do nothing all day; I just want to have option of doing nothing all day. There are tons of things I want to do, but I'm stuck in an office.

 

[dasherHampton]

You're the bizarro Nick Saban.

I read somewhere years ago that he discovered at an early age that he would never accomplish what he wanted to in life because he liked to do nothing too much. He was a natural time waster.

So he started scheduling his entire day, every day of the week, from start of "work" to bedtime. And he left himself one hour of the day, from 5 AM to 6 AM, for nothing. During that hour he could do whatever he wanted to, guilt free, and when it was up it was time to get things done.

He did ok on that plan.

 

[GrumpyMan]

Can you still get 15% off Geico Insurance for doing nothing all day?

 

[ultimatebob]

Hey now, the Office Space guy didn't literally do NOTHING in his downtime. He fished and watched Kung Fu movies with his cute girlfriend.

Years ago, he could have probably made a living just by fishing. Maybe that's how the movie should have ended... with him on a boat with a fishing pole. It's more fun than construction, anyway.

 

[dainthomas]

Hey now, the Office Space guy didn't literally do NOTHING in his downtime. He fished and watched Kung Fu movies with his cute girlfriend.

Years ago, he could have probably made a living just by fishing. Maybe that's how the movie should have ended... with him on a boat with a fishing pole. It's more fun than construction, anyway.

I'll work construction if it means I can date Jennifer Aniston.

 

[BD231]

You know me to well SeriousSloth

Who messed up my plants, just fess up !

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

However, all work & no play makes Jack a dull boy! Particularly if work isn't your primary source of satisfaction in life, you need to have some personal pursuits to give you some fulfillment, whether they're hobbies or personal projects or a side gig or whatever. So when you take a look at personal productivity in that order: get your work done first, then work on your personal pursuits, and then enjoy some free time, then things start to make sense. When you goof up the order of that formula or when you leave things out, things start to get wonky: if you goof off all day, then you're going to drop the ball on you responsibilities. If you goof off before you work, then you're now using your enjoyment activities as avoidance behavior, and in order to enjoy them, you have to put yourself into denial-mode so that you're not thinking about them, which causes stress & anxiety. If you don't have any personal pursuits, then you're probably going to be left feeling pretty unfulfilled. It's a fairly simple formula, but I've had major struggles with it myself over the years, simply because it's hard to motivate yourself to do stuff.

So that's where the solution comes in: the problem has been identified (we need a work/life balance), the formula has been defined (work first, then work on personal pursuits, then goof-off). The solution is to remove yourself from having to remember to do stuff & to also remove willpower from the equation, so that you don't have to motivate yourself every single day. You need an easier, more sustainable approach than that! Thus the answer is to create a "personal productivity system" (or PPS, for short), which enables you to fulfill that initial personal productivity blueprint of "work first, then work on personal pursuits, then play later & enjoy it guilt-free".

I believe I've succeed in creating a very accessible, powerful PPS system that enables you to take good intentions & actually convert them into reality. I'll have to make a separate post at some point once I've completed the documentation. I think that having a PPS is a huge game-changer for a lot of people (myself included) because we all see & are interested & understand all kinds of good things in life, like we should be exercising, eating better, chipping away on our hobbies, working on fun projects, actually putting those into play - consistently - is much harder than just knowing about it & understanding how to do it. The majority of us have probably owned exercise machines that eventually turned into dust-collecting laundry-hanging systems, for example...good intentions, but without a support system to enable consistent follow-through, you end up relying on your fickle daily willpower & end up not being as consistent as you like across everything across the board, which is why I've been pursuing the creation of a PPS - to help transform those intentions into reality & to feel good about whatever I'm doing, whether it's working on work, working on a personal pursuit, or simply enjoying some unplugged time from being productive.

Anyway. I feel ya.

Some good points here. What I've found that can often help me (but not always because laziness can sometimes take over) is to make an actual check-box list of shit that needs to get done.

When I have a list - it looks like a goal list - or more simply a tasklist. Maybe i'ts just my competitive nature, but I can often get into the mode of "More checked boxes is a higher score in a videogame" and cross out tons left and right.

Instead - what you normally have are emails... annoying emails that you have to read and determine what the problem is to begin with, then research and reply with solutions. You look at your inbox and you just say... ehh... it can wait.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

My buddy has a $1m dollar home built with an indoor movie theater. How cool is that? He's also 42, and does nothing all day but watch movies. He's also seriously overweight, and eats fast food everyday. He also has health issues. I don't know. Is that a life that I would want, or a life that would excite me? HELL NO! What do you like to do OP? Get into that and do more of it. We only get one shot at life. It's going to be over soon enough. If sitting around all day excites you, then do it. Just don't complain about the rich, or about society, or that your life sucks. You made your bed.

There is a restaurant in my area (and plenty of other areas) that are built on having lots of beers - both on tap, in bottle, etc...

Anyhow, if you drink 200 beers, you get a plate on the wall. There is a dude that has had SEVENTY SEVEN fucking plates.

ON TOP OF THAT - In order to get a plate (as I said) you must have 200 beers (each of the 200 also being different beers) - but also you can only have 3 beers that count per day. That means regardless of if you go to the restaurant and have 5 beers, only 3 will count.

That means this dude has literally had at least 15,400 beers there (minimum) - and has been to the restaurant at least 5,134 times.

I want to do that for the rest of my life.....

But you know... women... jobs... money...

 

[nakedfrog]

There is a restaurant in my area (and plenty of other areas) that are built on having lots of beers - both on tap, in bottle, etc...

Anyhow, if you drink 200 beers, you get a plate on the wall. There is a dude that has had SEVENTY SEVEN fucking plates.

ON TOP OF THAT - In order to get a plate (as I said) you must have 200 beers (each of the 200 also being different beers) - but also you can only have 3 beers that count per day. That means regardless of if you go to the restaurant and have 5 beers, only 3 will count.

That means this dude has literally had at least 15,400 beers there (minimum) - and has been to the restaurant at least 5,134 times.

I want to do that for the rest of my life.....

But you know... women... jobs... money...

If he went every day, wouldn't that take 19+ years? Maybe they changed qualifications somewhere along the line.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's kinda what I do on my days off. It's nice, but at same time I always feel bad because I feel I should be doing something more productive. Summer is coming, so I will be more productive then. Got a few projects I want to hash out.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

If he went every day, wouldn't that take 19+ years? Maybe they changed qualifications somewhere along the line.

Good question, maybe they did change stuff from when they originally opened. But looks like he has been there since 2006 - so... he definitely has 13 years under his belt at least

 

[snoopy7548]

That's kinda what I do on my days off. It's nice, but at same time I always feel bad because I feel I should be doing something more productive. Summer is coming, so I will be more productive then. Got a few projects I want to hash out.

You and Mayne should get together and start a pot-growing business.