There’s an oppressive weight to unclaimed time, a paradoxical burden of freedom.
I could be writing a book, working out, or earning a dollar, yet all I want is to sit and read. We lionize reading, but when dishes need doing, bills need paying, and self-improvement looms large, it feels downright hedonistic.
I’ve always been an escape artist when it comes to reading. Whether I’m tumbling through a rabbit hole of news links, living vicariously through fiction, or stepping into the shoes of a subject in a biography or business book, reading has been my refuge. But now, in this expanse of unstructured time, it feels almost… indulgent.
Surprisingly, this pressure is normalizing self-care for me. Going for a workout or journaling feels comparatively productive. Sitting on the porch, basking in sunlight, penning morning pages – it feels nice, even if I’m corrupting the practice by using it as the genesis of a blog post. I’m sure I’m not alone in this; every driven individual who’s worked with a coach or therapist has likely been encouraged to spend more time on themselves. We rarely follow the advice we’d give others about the importance of self-care. Now, with this forced slowdown, it’s coming easier. When a ruck or a writing session is the task at hand, I realize it has a natural end that, surprisingly, isn’t that hard to fit into the day.
Finding the time to think again
The nature of creation and expression has been top of mind recently. Ben Brooks wrote about an explosion of creativity after leaving his job. There’s a pent-up output no longer used up in emails, PowerPoint decks, or marketing proposals. As Peter Troob, the author of “Monkey Business, alludes to at the end of his book,
“it took him a few weeks to remember how to use his brain. He didn’t make pitch books anymore. He didn’t have to bribe a bunch of guys at the copy center.”
Rolfe, John. Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle (p. 264). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition.“
I worry a little about how this start to my day might translate if I return to full-time remote employment. It’s easy to transition your day with a meeting, moderate with a deadline, but tough when it’s to work on something important but not urgent. Yet, the latter is what really matters and why we engage in Deep Work. Ritual, habit, and expectation all come into play; the coffee you drink, the email check (please, not this one), or the VPN login that tells your brain it’s time to focus – these were once big parts of the day during the pandemic and in hybrid work. Now, on the pro-leisure circuit, it’s all self-inspired. I do feel like the habits I groove in now will set up my return to work. And I’m feeling ready to get back to it.
An interlude on tools:
The Lamy Safari pen is even better than the Amazon premium one.
I wrote the post, sitting in a swinging chair on my porch, on the Scribe. I had a blank page in front of me, and no way to look at links or get pulled into blogs or social media. It was magical.
However, these tips are too smooth; it’s got the glass feel of an iPad, not the reassuring tooth of the page that’s why you turn to a Scribe or reMarkable. But it got the job done today.
En Fin
In the end, perhaps the oppression of unclaimed time is really an opportunity – a chance to redefine productivity, to find value in stillness, and to rediscover the joy of thinking for thinking’s sake. It’s a paradox worth embracing.
Leveraged Intention 