I wrote this post four years ago.
On Friday evening I set aside an hour for wasting time. I read some of Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s God: An Anatomy. I have no reason to read this book for my job or for parenting or for TREE. I’m just curious. One of the footnotes led me to an article on thetorah.com on story about Balaam the prophet that was painted on an ancient wall.
None of this is obviously useful to my life. But it will be useful somehow. It was fun because I’m kind of a nerd about religion. It made my brain buzz in a good way.
I could have spent my time scrolling a social media feed. Sometimes I do. And that’s fine, I guess. But the thing about the reading I did is that it was driven by my curiosity. When I’m on the socials, it’s driven by someone else’s algorithm. And those algorithms almost always leave me feeling flat or angry.
I want to get better at wasting time. I want to be in control of it. I want social media algorithms to have less influence on me.
This is how I would like to waste my time:
With friends and family
Reading books
Hiking, running, jumping, climbing
Drawing
Listening to music
I want the good brain buzz.
I feel a change coming on. Is it just me or are you feeling it too?
UPDATE:
I wrote this post on Saturday. I’m writing this update on Tuesday night. The first change I’ve made – don’t laugh – is I’ve stopped taking my phone into the bathroom with me. What I told myself was that I would read something useful on the can. The reality was I scrolled through something useless. It’s a good change, and easy. I’m liking it.
2026 UPDATE:
Stopping taking my phone into the bathroom was one of the best things I ever did for myself. I recommend it. It does come into the bathroom with me now that I don’t care about the socials but usually I’m looking at a book or an interesting article.
—Jeff
My productive time wasting typically involves looking for new books. Have I read all the ones I have? No. But I don’t ever want that to be a problem.
Grow slowly
Skyler