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Spend Exactly None Of Your Time Killing Time

   By
   [52]Chris Thompson
   PublishedJanuary 25, 2019
   We may earn a commission from links on this page.
   Image for article titled Spend Exactly None Of Your Time Killing Time
   Illustration: Chelsea Beck (GMG)

   Here’s a good resolution, if you’re the sort of person who resolves to
   do good and healthy things and then maintains any hope of actually
   doing them: Resolve to divide your waking hours exactly and only
   between doing things you should be doing, and doing things you want to
   be doing.
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   When you are not doing something you should be doing—straightening up
   around the house, taking out the garbage, walking the dog, your job—you
   should always and only be doing something you actively want to be
   doing, like reading a book, or playing video games, or pursuing a
   hobby. Conversely, when you are not doing something you want to be
   doing, you should always and only be doing something you should be
   doing. This is a good resolution because it’s not aimed at some
   specific result that deviates a whole lot from who you are already,
   like overhauling your diet or your sleep regimen or whatever. No
   overhaul required, here. You already do plenty of what you’re supposed
   to do, and plenty of what you want to do. Resolve to stop doing
   anything else.
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   But I already do this, you are saying, as you sit at your desk, not
   working, procrastinating, avoiding work by dicking around on the
   internet and winding up on a dumb-ass late-January blog about, of all
   things, self-improvement. No! Right now, you are not following this
   very good advice. You are not doing what you should be doing—unless
   what you should be doing is reading blogs—nor are you doing what you
   really want to be doing, which is parasailing or skiing or hunting
   moose in [60]ye olde cowboy game. You are killing time, waiting for
   either the energy for work or the consequences of not doing work to
   give your life some feeble structure. Stop it! Killing time is the very
   habit we are trying to address, here. There’s barely enough time as it
   is.

   Along the way you will need to hone your sense of what things you
   should be doing. You know the most obvious ones—they’re occupying the
   margins of your consciousness all the time, bearing down on you and
   poisoning the time you spend not doing them. Chores, assignments,
   projects, bills, phone calls, repairs, and so forth. The list is a
   little bit longer than that, which is both good news and bad news. It’s
   bad news because it includes things like talking to your folks on the
   telephone, or listening patiently while your spouse rants about their
   day, or brushing your teeth—things you put off doing nearly as much as
   work but which, I’m afraid, must be done. But it’s also good news,
   because by acknowledging that those are responsibilities, you have also
   earned the right to take some satisfaction from having fulfilled them.
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   Sometimes you have the bandwidth and energy to address your attention
   to the things you should be doing, and other times the thought of
   getting your car inspected or working out or washing a sinkful of
   dishes fills you with a sudden urge to throw yourself down a well. When
   you have the energy to do the things you should do, do them, or keep
   doing them. When you don’t—and this is crucial—go ahead and give
   yourself permission to set them aside for another time. But—and this is
   also crucial, because it is the lesson of this damn blog—when you give
   yourself permission not to do the things you should be doing, please
   spend the resulting block of free time doing something good and cool,
   something you genuinely want to do.

   You will also need to hone your sense of what it is you want to be
   doing. Today, the thing I most want to be doing in all the universe is
   riding Splash Mountain. That activity, I am afraid to say, is
   completely out of the question, in no small part because I am supposed
   to be doing the thing I least want to do in all the universe, which is
   working. Since I would certainly rather die than actually work, I’m
   going to do something else. But what? It helps to start all the way out
   at riding Splash Mountain, because understanding want in terms of
   genuine desire keeps you from slipping into the shitty headspace of
   just measuring activities against the dread and misery of work. In
   almost all cases I would rather be watching Law & Order reruns than
   doing chores, but that doesn’t mean I really want to be watching Law &
   Order reruns. In the endless list of things I could conceivably do with
   a day, watching Law & Order reruns is probably closer to doing chores
   than it is to riding Splash Mountain. In fact, I often default to
   watching Law & Order reruns because some part of my brain recognizes
   that it keeps me anchored in place near the chores, and isn’t so joyful
   that I can be said to be really enjoying myself, which is clearly
   something I don’t deserve.
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   So it is with scanning headlines or surfing Instagram or refreshing
   Twitter, the grey shit you do compulsively when you are
   procrastinating. Yes, you would rather be doing those things than
   painting your living room—anything, including bleeding from the
   eyeballs, is better than painting—but that doesn’t necessarily mean
   they’re worth a shit. If you’re not going to paint the living room,
   that’s fine! But now use the time on something good! In my case, if I
   start all the way out at riding Splash Mountain and work backward from
   there, long before I get to watching Law & Order reruns, I will arrive
   at things like bowling or going to the movies or hunting moose in ye
   olde cowboy game. Those are things I find myself wanting to do, but
   rarely give myself permission to do. Ask yourself, “What are some
   activities that would be genuinely fun?” Make a list! Cross off the
   stuff you know you can’t do, and then pick and do one of the ones you
   can. Go to the zoo. Watch a horror flick. Try out a new bar. Read a few
   chapters of a good book.

   It can feel reckless and irresponsible to spend your day bowling or
   baking or hunting moose in ye olde cowboy game, but a big chunk of the
   guilt associated with these activities stems from not really giving
   yourself permission to do them, at least in part because too much of
   your average day is already given over to tweeting at Jonathan Chait.
   But it’s healthy and productive to do cool and fun things that enrich
   your life! The solution, here, is to buy yourself the time to do the
   really interesting things by first being honest with yourself about all
   the sweaty hours you waste tweeting at Jonathan Chait. You are a
   successful and prolific time-killer because you’ve got a selection of
   ways of doing it that are marginally less dreary and more stimulating
   than folding laundry or managing spreadsheets, and some inherited
   puritanical impulse that tells you you’re still close to upright so
   long as you’re not actually enjoying yourself. Bullshit! When you are
   not doing what you are supposed to do, do something you genuinely want
   to do. That’s the rule.
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   Of course, there will be any number of times when you are prevented
   from doing any of the things you want to be doing. The rule is also
   this: When you cannot do what you genuinely want to do, do what you are
   supposed to do. Here is a good life hack: when you lack the bandwidth
   to take on an important chore or duty, you probably still have the
   bandwidth to make a list of all your important chores and duties. Do
   that! This counts as a thing you should be doing, because often enough
   in making the list you will hit on something that requires little
   enough of you that you can take it on right away, without too much
   suffering. And even if you don’t, the making of the list will bring you
   a little closer to addressing yourself to the items on it, and that’s
   enough of a positive step that when the time comes for you to do
   something you want to do, you will feel the satisfaction of having
   earned it, through work. That’s what’s missing from the shame-soaked
   hours spent avoiding and procrastinating: the feeling that you deserve
   to have a good time, and the permission to have one.

   Of course, you will probably fall short of dividing your time exactly
   equally between responsibilities and pursuits. Don’t think of that as
   failure. When you remember this wise practice, when it occurs to you,
   treat it as a rule and follow it. Ah, right, I said I wasn’t gonna sit
   here stewing in my anxiety all afternoon, so instead I’m going to go
   see [62]Into the Spider-Verse. Good plan! You are going to end the day
   with something to show for it, and that’s the whole idea.

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