One Thing at a Time

niksen, doing nothing, laziness, productivity, and creativity

one tree at a time?

I am a good multitasker. This was a useful skill during my career and as a mother, but my daughters are grown now and I am no longer teaching. I now have the luxury of doing one thing at a time, far more often than in the past. Still, I sometimes need to remind myself to focus on just one thing. I am just eating breakfast now. I am just listening to a novel now. I am just observing nature now. I am walking in the woods and not thinking about what I will do next, nor am I listening to something or talking to someone. I leave my phone in my pocket; I have brought it along only in case I want to take a photo of something that I find intriguing. I am just walking in the woods now.

I do have commitments, places to be and times to be there. But I have enough time that is mine to manage to allow me the luxury of slowing down from the pace that was needed when working full time. I could easily over-commit, filling my time to the point of needing to rush from one activity to the next. I could create a life where I need to drink my morning coffee while getting dressed and brush my teeth in the shower. I never liked living that way and always tried to be up early enough to have more relaxed mornings, yet I always rushed in the end to get out the door on time for work. Given my loathing of that way of starting my day, why would I create that lifestyle now?

I experienced a lot of daily stress during the years when my daughter Colleen was living with anorexia, and there were seventeen of those years. I sometimes wondered how my health and longevity might be adversely affected by all that stress and frequent sleeplessness. So, I am delighted to create a life that is stress-free now.

I have petitioned a court in Seattle to have a guardian and a conservator assigned to help my brother with the many important tasks that are so difficult for me to do from the opposite coast. My relationship with him has deteriorated because of his dementia and his accompanying refusal to accept help from anyone. While this situation both saddens me and is currently time-consuming, I can still choose to do one thing at a time.

This doing of just one thing might be considered a spiritual practice, but it is different than meditation. It encourages presence, attention, and calm, but it is not as disciplined as mindfulness. The Dutch term niksen comes to mind. Niksen translates as to do nothing, which is different than doing one thing at a time but closely related. Niksen, a relatively new concept in the Netherlands, refers to deliberately doing “something without any purpose or goal of productivity.”

 Ironically, doing nothing can boost productivity. And it can lead to creativity. The idea for this post came to me while doing nothing yesterday. Or was I doing one thing at a time, in this case gazing out the window on a beautiful morning after reading the news? I chose to skip my online yoga class to just look out the window and see what would come next. Was I being lazy? Sometimes, a voice in my head asks that question when I opt not to get down on the mat at the prescribed hour for a class. But choosing to relax rather than to get busy is different from being lazy.

Setting judgment aside may be the hardest part if you are very used to being busy all the time. Most of us are not brand new to this concept. Have you ever sat on a beach with a book by your side and just watched the waves ebb and flow for an hour or more? Have you ever watched a sunset from beginning to end without talking to the person beside you? You know how to do this. Is there a time in your typical day when you might build it in as a practice? Or might you want to start by doing one active thing at a time (i.e., just walking or just listening)? You may find yourself feeling more motivated to do the things on your list, after allowing yourself ample time to do nothing. You may find that you sleep better after finding more time to relax during your day. You may even feel more content. I know I do.