The Case for 'Wasting' Your Time

Angelina Jolie once described spending an hour slowly moisturising her legs. Most people would call it wasting your time. It's easy to dismiss her lotion trance, but at its core, this sustained period of repetitive, low-stakes activity allows the mind to drift and the nervous system to settle.  The novelist Kate Atkinson has spoken about how, at the start of a new project, she clears out drawers. Not as a productivity hack, but as a way of doing something so mundane that her mind is freed up for the intricate plotlines and complex characters she's known for to take shape.  

Two women at the top of their professions, both with their own version of nothing. And, it seems, both ahead of a trend. 

If you've somehow missed it, rawdogging (a Gen Z trend, obviously), is centred on intentionally doing absolutely nothing: no phones, no music, no podcasts, no distractions. Not reading. Not watching. Not scrolling. Not even listening to something in the background while you switch off. Just nothing. It is a step on from mindless moisturising, but this trend seems to have taken off.  

And while the name is objectively terrible, the idea behind it raises a surprisingly uncomfortable question: when was the last time you did absolutely nothing at all? 

If you're drawing a blank, we have something in common. What actually counts as nothing? Does a book qualify? A crossword? A cup of tea and a cuddle with the dog? Or does 'nothing' mean something far stricter? 

Before on-demand entertainment was a thing, what were we doing in those in-between moments when the television was off, no one else was around, and there was nothing urgent to do? Not nothing, exactly. But perhaps something closer to it than we experience now. 

As a yoga teacher and therapist, I've started thinking about this from a professional perspective too. 

Shavasana, the final few minutes at the end of a yoga class when the movement stops and there is nothing left to do, is often described as the most important posture we practise. In reality, it can also be the most challenging. I see it in small but telling ways: bodies that remain tense when they could soften; eyes that stay open, scanning the ceiling; fingers that fidget; feet that twitch. Occasionally, people don't see the point of even trying to do nothing and just get up and leave. 

The resistance, I suspect, comes from unfamiliarity. We are so unpractised in doing nothing that even a few minutes of stillness can feel like something to endure rather than enjoy, and as we fall further out of practice, we lose the instinct to even know how to access it. 

This unease might help explain why the wellbeing industry still encourages us to do something rather than nothing: booking the class, following the routine, tracking the habit. Even our attempts to slow down can start to resemble another item on the to-do list. 

There’s no denying that the conditions that once made doing nothing possible have been turned on their head. The way we consume content has changed dramatically, with short, fast-moving, endlessly scrollable feeds now the default. Platforms like TikTok have accelerated that shift, making anything longer than a minute feel like a commitment.  

That cultural shift is reflected in the data: research by Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics and author of Attention Span: Finding Focus for a Fulfilling Life, suggests our attention spans on screens have fallen from around two and a half minutes in the early 2000s to well under 60 seconds today, with many of us switching focus in as little as 47 seconds. Where there might once have been space in the day, there is now stimulus, even if that stimulus comes in the form of five-second reels. 

This isn't just an adult problem. Boredom plays an important role in childhood development, giving children space to imagine and create. But I can see how that space is shrinking. I grew up before mobile phones, announcing "I'm bored" several times a day, usually to a parental shrug. That idle space wasn't especially enjoyable, but it existed. I can't remember the last time my own children said it. What we see in adults, the discomfort with stillness, the instinct to reach for distraction, may simply be something learned earlier. 

I have a Yoga Therapy client, a CEO recovering from burnout. During one session she admitted, sheepishly, that her favourite way to unwind was to get into bed and scroll on her phone. She expected disapproval. But she wasn't wrong. For her, it did feel like doing nothing. 

In yogic relaxation practices, I guide attention through the body – right side, left side, up, down – creating a rhythm that helps the mind settle into a deeply relaxed, in-between state. This mirrors aspects of the rapid eye movement patterns we experience in sleep, allowing the body to soften while the mind hovers between wakefulness and rest. 

It’s hard not to notice the parallel. The way we move through a phone – scrolling, swiping, moving up, down, left, right – creates its own rhythm. For a moment, it can feel absorbing, even trance-like. 

But there is a difference. In a guided relaxation, that state is held with intention. When we reach for our phones, we hand that control over to an algorithm. One moment it might be a harmless cat video, the next something far more jarring. We all know how quickly a feed can turn. 

So while a mindless scroll on your device might feel like doing nothing, it’s worth bearing in mind that this version of ‘nothing’ comes with trade-offs. 

As Arthur Brooks, a social scientist who studies happiness and behaviour, puts it, “you need to be bored”. Not as a luxury, but as something essential. When we are not occupied, the brain switches into what neuroscientists call the ‘default mode network’ – a system linked to reflection, memory and meaning-making. 

The problem is that most of us don’t stay there for long. Research shows that we find it surprisingly uncomfortable to sit alone with our thoughts, often choosing almost any distraction instead (in one study, choosing a self-inflicted electric shock rather than sitting alone doing nothing). 

I know that some of my most useful thinking happens when I've stepped away. A crossword I've given up on in the morning resolves itself hours later. A half-finished article unlocks when I'm not thinking about it at all. My brain doesn't stop working when I do. That's all the more reason to give it nothing to do as often as I can. 

That’s why, in my classes, I no longer invite my yogis to focus their mind during Shavasana. Instead, I suggest they let their minds wander. They’re going to anyway, so rather than framing that as failure, I give them permission. It might be the only time all week they’ve had space to think without direction – or to not think at all. 

There’s also a gender context worth exploring here. A review of over 40 studies on “superwoman syndrome” describes a familiar pattern: internalised expectations to manage multiple roles, present strength and prioritise others, often at the expense of our own wellbeing. Alongside that sits what researchers describe as a “rest bias” – the tendency to see rest as something that has to be earned. 

Maybe this is why stepping back can feel uncomfortable – indulgent even. There is always another task waiting, another person needing something, another loose end to tie up – which makes doing nothing harder to embrace. 

Perhaps the aim is not to define 'nothing' too precisely, but to recognise it when it appears. Angelina had her lotion trance. Kate Atkinson has her drawers. Gen Z has rawdogging. The form matters less than the intention behind it. 

In which case it's worth asking: when might you next do absolutely nothing at all? And what might that look like for you?