The Counterintuitive Art of Doing Less: A Productivity Love Letter
Permit me to start with a small confession: sometimes, I am the laziest person on Earth. “Lazy” in the sense that I will spend half a Saturday morning lying on my floor, listlessly contemplating the metaphysics of dust bunnies, rather than diving into a new coding project, side hustle, or any of the other “productive” tasks that society begs us to do.
This may come as a surprise to those who know me, or anyone who read this post on this very blog. But here’s the odd twist: that deliberate, idle space is exactly what lets me do some of my best work. Yes, you read that right—not doing things can be the most powerful productivity hack of all.
The Tyranny of “More, More, More”
Everywhere you look—Twitter, LinkedIn, those suspiciously curated Instagram reels—it’s hustle, hustle, hustle. We see bullet points of power routines: 5 a.m. wake-ups, triple-shot espressos, reading four business books a week, all while training for a marathon. Productivity culture has become an arms race of “Look how many things I can cram into my daily schedule.” Which is fine, if that’s your jam. But for many of us, it leads to inevitable burnout, or a low-level hum of anxiety that never quite dissipates.
I used to binge all that advice — Pomodoro timers, color-coded bullet journals, elaborate goals broken down into micro-tasks. I’d boast about how many hours I could chain together in deep focus, ignoring meals and blinking. Then eventually, I’d crash and realize I’d spent half my “productive” time absentmindedly spinning in mental circles because I’d never actually paused.
The Surprising Power of Doing Less
Imagine clearing your schedule entirely for a day. No to-do list, no Slack, no email, no illusions of “I’m going to knock out this entire backlog.” Just… nothing. For the first hour, you might feel a smoldering panic—What if I’m wasting precious time? But then, once that wave passes, you might discover your brain gradually gravitating toward the problem you’ve been avoiding. Suddenly, your mind starts connecting dots, forming solutions. And all because you weren’t forcing yourself to fill every minute with “productive” tasks.
This approach is basically the anti-hustle. Instead of meticulously breaking tasks into 25-minute sprints, you give yourself the wide, open field of time in which your brain can wander. At first, it may wander to memes or random thoughts. But soon enough, it homes in on the big project or puzzle—because it’s the most interesting thing left to do. Boom. Inspiration strikes, and you get more done in an afternoon than you might have in an entire week of staccato, forced micro-work sessions.
Counterintuitive? Absolutely. Effective? Very Much.
I’m not proposing that you become a full-time layabout, ignoring real deadlines or letting your phone ring off the hook. The point is to punctuate your life with true downtime — unstructured space where you’re not supposed to be anywhere or do anything. Let the boredom seep in, and watch as your mind rebels by actually tackling that tough coding problem, that strategic plan, or any of a thousand “hard things” you were avoiding.
This is basically the same principle as forced boredom or “closing all distractions until not doing the difficult task is more painful than doing it.” Except we’re going a step further: no tasks, no plan, no timers. Just an empty vacuum your brain finds so unbearable, it eventually chooses to solve something real.
But What About Deadlines and Real Life?
Look, I’m not denying that many of us have actual constraints — bosses with expectations, families, crises that pop up mid-afternoon. I’m also not suggesting you ditch every meeting forever. But see if you can carve out even a tiny chunk of “white space” in your day or week—an hour or two of unplanned time where you genuinely have no tasks lined up. Let yourself be “bored,” and trust your subconscious to start tinkering on the real priority.
You might be surprised how many things your brain solves for you when it has the freedom to roam.
A Balancing Act: Doing Less, Doing Better
Of course, we can still adopt some structure when needed. If you thrive on time blocking or Pomodoro bursts, great — just don’t force these methods into every corner of your existence. The real trick is discovering where to apply “less is more.” For me, it’s that chunk of idle time each week where no one can pin me down.
At risk of sounding like a productivity hustler, I like to run a half-marathon as a treat, with nothing but my heart-rate tracker and some white noise for company. For you, maybe it’s a daily walk in which you forbid yourself from checking your phone. Or an evening off—phone in airplane mode, no chores allowed. Whatever you find most tolerable.
Final Thoughts: Dare to Be Unbusy
In a world that worships hustle, it can feel downright criminal to stop and do nothing. People might ask, “Aren’t you behind on your backlog?” or “Don’t you have that big code review to finalize?” But ironically, stepping back might be the only way to see the bigger picture—and to let those quiet, brilliant ideas come forth.
So the next time you’re suffocating under to-do lists and “productivity hacks,” try the radical approach: do less. Build in deliberate boredom, unscheduled time, the dreaded blank in your calendar. Let your mind roam, and watch how it eventually yearns to tackle that big project anyway—leading to a deeper, more genuine form of productivity that’s as surprising as it is liberating.
Remember: sometimes, not working at full throttle is the best way to produce your finest work. Go forth, block off a chunk of your calendar for “nothing,” and discover the sweet relief of letting your brain fill that empty space with something truly valuable.
© Alexander Cannon – All disclaimers disclaimable, the author assures you he could become productive at any moment.
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