Learning to Sit Still
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What a month of doing nothing in particular taught me about focus.
For most of my life, stillness has felt like failure. If I wasn’t producing something, I assumed I was wasting time. This summer I tried an experiment: thirty minutes a day of sitting with a notebook and doing absolutely nothing productive with it.
What actually happened
The first week was uncomfortable. My hands wanted a phone, my mind wanted a task. By the second week, the discomfort turned into something closer to attention. I started noticing the sound of the kettle, the particular grey of a cloudy afternoon, the shape of a thought before I rushed to finish it.
I don’t think stillness makes you more productive, and I’ve stopped trying to sell it to myself that way. It just makes the rest of the day quieter to live in.