Efficiency is just a waste of time
BURTON W. COLE, Editor
By Burton W. Cole
Wasting time actually isn’t.
I discovered that gem while scrolling through news feeds when I was supposed to be finishing a project, pulling a cake out of the oven before it caught fire or paying attention to the road or something.
In the article for Quartz, writer Olivia Goldhill quoted workplace behavior psychologist Michael Guttridge as saying, “Wasting time is about recharging your battery and de-cluttering.”
The end result of setting aside time for totally unproductive activity actually makes a person more productive overall, according to the expert.
The next time the boss gets on your case on trumped up charges of “slacking off,” you let that ignoramus know that you are, in fact, prepping to be the most efficient worker on the force. In fact, if you “slacked off” any more effectively, you’d be promoted to boss yourself.
As the great philosophers the Funkle Brothers, Si and Gar, lyricized, “Slow down, you move too fast, got to make the morning last ... Ba da-da da-da da-da, feeling groovy.”
(Sorry, kids. Only old dudes like me will catch that reference. The rest of you will react with the sound of silence.)
Or, as the great philosopher Mark Twain and others put it, “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well.”
Others often have noticed my proficiency in wasting time. But they usually take note of it with disdain, as if wasting time was a bad thing.
If they hadn’t been so busy NOT wasting time, they could have been as rich and as famous and as intelligent and as superbly good looking as I am.
OK, so maybe wasting time doesn’t make a guy any of those things. But it does make me inordinately happy as I lounge in my recliner, daydreaming that those things.
I was the kid who sat in school daydreaming while staring out the window at nothing in particular. The teachers thought I was wasting time.
It turns out that all those hours “wasting time” honed the very skills I needed to write books. I’ve had several published now because I wasted time.
Can you imagine how much more I could accomplish if my boss didn’t frown so much every time I crawl under my desk with a pillow and a stack of comic books? He has no appreciation of the art and skill I invest in wasting time. For his benefit, naturally.
“But we have deadlines,” he whines.
The great time-wasting philosopher Rita Mae Brown observed, “If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done.”
Time-waster Auguste Rodin said, “Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.”
The great philosopher Marthe Troly-Curtain added, “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
So there! Na-na-na, boo-boo!
Here to sum it up, if I can pull him away from staring at the fish pond, is the great philosopher Jerome K. Jerome: “Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn’t a finger-mark on it. I take great pride in my work; I take it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do.”
If you have — it kind of defeats the purpose — etch onto your calendar or scribble it on your to-do list. But whatever you do, don’t forget to waste time. We’ll all be better for it. Right, boss? Boss?
Waste more time by writing Burt at news@falmouthoutlook.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.