These days I’m super busy.
And not the productive kind of busy, but they "spinning top in mud" busy. They type of busy where at the end of the day you wonder where the time went, and what have you done.
After work, I just don’t have the energy to do anything else. All I want to do I veg out and watch some YouTube or scroll through my social media feed.
Knowing that I haven’t produced anything, just feels draining. Emotionally and physically.
The will-power required to move me to do something else is just not there. If it wasn’t for the fact that I used intention and if-then planning, I wouldn’t be typing this right now.
But there is another effect of all this busyness — there is no chance to think, rethink or reflect.
Engaging this System 2 level behaviour can lead to great improvements to our learning and our ability to perform similar tasks afterwards. Not only that, but it also improves our belief that we can do the task better. Reflection is even better than repetition — that is redoing the task over and over. (You can read a paper on this here.)
It doesn’t help that we as humans are hardwired to act, even if the chances of success are improved by doing nothing at all.
But I continue to try to find time to just relax and reflect. To meditate and be mindful. It is difficult, but I tell myself that it will be worth it.
Now if only people would leave me alone.