Chances are, most of the problems in your life and work are due to lack of inactivity. In this article, we will tell you how inactivity works and why you need more of it.
Imagine that you, a productivity fan, one day gain access to a time machine and decide to move a few decades back to the office of one of your old business heroes. Let's call him Tony.
You disguised yourself as a janitor, believing that a few days of observation would be enough to uncover the secret of this CEO's incredible productivity and sober decision-making. You want to learn the habits and practices that have enabled him to forever transform his entire industry.
Once in the office (filled with cigarette smoke, of course), you are a little surprised that it does not look like a human anthill at all. In fact, the people around you do practically nothing. Near your hero's office, his secretary is resting at her desk. Let's call her Gloria. It looks like she's not busy at all. For half an hour, you watch her read, tidy up her desk and chat with the secretaries passing by. They don't look busy either. Confused that Tony is wasting his money on loafers, you decide to stay for a few more hours.
After watching a little longer, you realize that the initial impression was completely wrong. Gloria doesn’t do anything most of the time. But as soon as a request, order or notification comes from Tony, she instantly gets down to business. In a matter of minutes, she answers a call, sends a letter, changes the meeting time in the schedule, or finds the required document. Every time he has a problem, she immediately solves it. Neither Tony nor Gloria create any to-do lists, send tickets, or wait for emails.
This keeps Tony's working day smooth and efficient. Every minute of his time is spent on the most important part of his job - making decisions, and not on trivial inconveniences like waiting in line at the post office.
The time when Gloria is not busy is not wasted. This is idle time: a surplus of resources allowing for responsiveness and flexibility. Idle time is important because it makes Gloria never have a to-do list. She can immediately begin any task that appears. Gloria's goal is to keep Tony busy with the job he wants, not to be as busy as possible.
If you have ever felt stressed, overwhelmed, immersed in static when you want to change, or irritated that you cannot respond to new opportunities, then your life needs more inaction.
In the book " Slack: the Getting Past of Burnout, busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency of“Tom DeMarco says that most people and organizations fail to understand the value of inaction. Although it has been about twenty years since this book was published, its core message is timeless.
Your enemy is the pursuit of maximum efficiency
“You are effective if you do something with the minimum cost. You are productive when you do something right. "
Many organizations are obsessed with efficiency. They want to make sure that every resource is used with maximum efficiency, and that every employee is busy with something every minute. They hire specialists to sniff out the smallest hints of a waste of resources.
Many people are also obsessed with the mirage of absolute efficiency. We schedule every minute of the day, pride ourselves on not taking breaks, and scold ourselves for the shortest moments of distraction. We regard sleep, sickness, and burnout as unacceptable weaknesses, and we idolize those who we think are never exposed to them. However, this point of view does not allow us to understand that productivity and efficiency are not the same thing.
Absolute efficiency is a myth.Back to Gloria and Tony. Imagine Tony decides to give her more work so that she can spend all eight hours of her shift working. Will it be more productive? I don’t think so. Time of inactivity allows her to instantly respond to his requests, thus doing her work productively. If Gloria is busy, Tony will have to wait, which leaves the work he is doing idle. As a result, they will both be less productive.
Every time we eliminate inaction, it leads to an accumulation of cases. DeMarco writes: " From a practical point of view, it is impossible to maintain 100% employment of all employees in an organization without providing some kind of buffering at the desk of each employee. This means that he has an inbox where cases accumulate."
Many of us expect that there should be no inactivity in work, because we perceive it negatively. In a world of obsessive efficiency, inactivity is often perceived as laziness or lack of initiative. However, we know that without time of inactivity, we will not be able to instantly take on new tasks, and if someone insists that this should be done, we will have to quit the previous job. One way or another, something has to be postponed. Increasing employment may well be useless:
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DeMarco defines inaction as “the degree of freedom required to make changes. Inaction is the natural enemy of efficiency, and efficiency is the natural enemy of inaction . " Elsewhere in the book, he writes: "Inaction represents work productivity sacrificed for long-term sustainability . "
To illustrate the concept, DeMarco asks the reader to imagine a "tag" game of fifteen numbered tiles in a box and one empty space that allows you to move one tile at a time. The object of the game is to place the tiles in numerical order. This empty space is analogous to inaction. If you remove it, then the game will become more efficient, but “Something else will disappear. Without empty space, the ability to move tiles will disappear. The arrangement of the tiles is optimal in itself, but if time shows that it is not, you will not be able to change it in any way . "
Having little wiggle room allows us to react to changing conditions, experiment, and do things that might not work.
Idleness consists of redundant resources. It can be time, money, people at work, and even predictions. Inaction is vital because it allows us not to remain locked in our current state without the ability to react or adapt due to lack of resources.
Lack of inaction hurts. Deficiency weighs down our mind and wastes energy that could have been used to better solve the current problem. It amplifies the impact of failures and unintended consequences.
Too long inactivity gets in the way, wastes resources and makes people bored. But in general, the problem of lack of inaction is much more common than the problem of excess. If, when planning a project, you devote too much time to inactivity, and the project ends earlier than planned, then in the free time you will hardly just sit out your pants. You will probably decide to recover from a previous project that required more effort than expected, or work on projects that are currently paused. Perhaps you will analyze why the project was so successful and draw conclusions for the future. Or maybe idle time will be your reward for quality work! You deserve a break.
Inaction also allows us to cope with the inevitable blows and surprises in life. If every hour is scheduled on our schedule, we won't be able to slow down to recover from a cold, get a little distracted by learning a new skill, or spend a couple of hours on technical difficulties.
In general, you need more inactivity than you expect. Unless you have a lot of experience, then your estimates of the duration or complexity of tasks will always be too low. Most of us perceive the best-case scenarios as the most likely to come true, but this is rarely the case.
You also need to carefully monitor how quickly you spend the resource of inactivity in order to replenish it in time. For example, you might check your calendar once a week to make sure there are still empty boxes for each day and that appointments are not taking up your idle time. Think about the types of inaction that matter most to you, and monitor them regularly. If you see the idle resource is running out, take action.
From time to time, you may need to opt out of inaction to take advantage of the restrictions. Lack of inactivity for a short time or in a specific area can force you to be more resourceful. If you are having trouble finding an ingenious solution, try deliberately reducing inactivity. For example, set aside five minutes to brainstorm ideas, or ask yourself what happens if your budget drops 90%.
However, more often than not it is very important to protect your inaction. It's best to always try to use it, otherwise other people will try to steal it. Set clear boundaries for your work and keep track of tasks that may increase in volume.
Inaction and change
In the past, people and organizations could sometimes get by with little or no inaction, at least for a while. Today, when inaction becomes more and more necessary for survival, we are increasingly trying to get rid of it for the sake of efficiency. To survive, constant changes and transformations are required, for which " a resource is needed, the deficit of which is now greater than ever. This resource, which is the catalytic ingredient of change, is inaction . " DeMarco writes:
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Only when you're 0% busy can you take a step back and get a more comprehensive view of your work. Inaction allows us to think ahead. To understand if we are on the right trajectory. Reflect on unnoticed problems. Ponder information. Decide if we choose the right compromises. Do things that don't scale and may not be profitable for a long time. Avoid bad deals.
Inaction and productivity
The irony is that in the long run, with inaction, we achieve much more. We are more productive when we don't strive to be productive all the time.
DeMarco says that the amount of work each person does in an organization is never static: “Everything changes every day. This leads to a new uneven load, some people have additional work (their buffer increases), others decrease, because someone in front of them in the chain generates their part of the work more slowly . " Lack of inaction is exhausting. Sooner or later, we will inevitably need additional resources that need to be taken from somewhere.
If we calmly perceive that from time to time we are busy at 0%, then this means that we think about whether we are doing what we need to. This is the exact opposite of how we grab onto the first task that comes across so that no one suspects us of being lazy. The expectation that “always busy means being productive” creates pressure, we have to constantly look busy and have a buffer of tasks. If we see that our buffer is decreasing, and we want to stay busy, then the only possible solution is to work slower.
Attempts to eliminate inactivity result in longer work times. There is never free time, because you always fill it.
Amos Tversky once said that the secret to good research is to always be a little underutilized; if you cannot spend hours inactive, then you will be wasting years. These hours are spent figuring out if you are heading in the right direction.
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