Wasting Time or Resting?

How do you waste the most time every day?

-WordPress Prompt

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I wanted to talk about this idea of wasting time and how I feel that it is related to Toxic Productivity. In general, when people talk about wasting their time they talk about the things that they are spending their time on that are not considered productive by society. But is this a good way to measure the value of our time?

There is a ton of research to support the idea that a person needs to adequately rest in order to maintain adequate work productivity [1-7] All of this research demonstrates that workers are more productive when they are given frequent resting periods during their work shift. Despite the large body of research supporting the importance of resting, it is still regarded negatively in our society.

When I encounter writing prompts that ask me: “How do you waste the most time every day?”; I bristle. I want to reword the question to: “How do you spend most of your rest time every day?” Because I don’t waste my time when I am choosing not to be productive. I am choosing to rest which is an important part of being healthy and productive.

So, how do I spend most of my rest time every day? It largely depends on how many spoons I have that day and what kind of resting I need. When I am in need of physical resting then I spend my time in bed watching others playing video games as my first choice for entertainment. When I am in need of social and emotional resting, I tend to play a single player video game, read, write or do some art. This one varies a lot depending on the emotions that I am feeling and what work I need to do in order to give those emotions space. When I’m feeling overwhelmed or over stimulated I like to cuddle with May and wrap up in my weighted robe.

But for me, spending time with other people tends to be the thing that gives me the most spoons back. Thus I tend to engage in activities that allow me to be social with others without investing a large amount of energy. This is probably why watching other people playing video games is such a favorite way for me to rest. It allows me to hang out with other people while enjoying an activity that I really love without having to invest the energy that playing the game myself would require. It also allows me to put more effort into interacting with the people I am hanging out with.

This is one of the biggest reasons that I love live streams. I love hanging out in other people’s streams and chatting with them while they play the game. I love playing video games while I chat with other people. Twitch has become one of my favorite resting places. There are so many people there to chat with that I am always able to find streams to hang out in. I am blessed with a wonderful group of people that come and hang out in my own stream so that I can regularly chat with them.

It makes me sad to think that people consider this time that I am spending on Twitch as a waste of time because it doesn’t meet society’s standards for productivity. I challenge society to reconsider these kinds of activities. Let’s start seeing the value in resting. When we allow ourselves to rest we are allowing ourselves to reach our full potential. It is only when we engage in regular resting that we can become highly productive people.

Well, that’s about it for my rambling today. Thanks for coming and spending some time with me. If you like my rambling then click on that like button. It really does help! Until we talk again, you take care of yourselves!

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