4 tips from design thinkers on ‘doing nothing’
As work productivity gets better, the same can’t be said about breaks.
The world celebrates as Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink inks its first set of deals with a major transportation carrier on an experimental free WiFi. As a LinkedIn netizen observed, accessible inflight Internet would become a massive gamechanger for travellers to do more up in the air, such as continuing where they last left off on one of their streaming providers, or continuing working for business travelers.
And yet, I still couldn’t help feeling a sense of loss. A loss of an Internet-free and distraction-free world. A world of doing nothing. Such talk could be seen as heresy by business executives and technologists in certain work cultures and demographics where being busy is carried around like a badge of honour. Unfortunately, sometimes even UX designers are pressured to do more in fear of being perceived as incompetent, adopting an unhealthy imposter syndrome.
The modern world has put aside wasteful hours of contemplation and meandering, expecting all of its working professionals to be highly efficient at the work they produce. It has gone into a hyperdrive mode of doing more with less time. Checking emails. Chatting on multiple platforms. Attending a virtual concert in the metaverse whilst having a meal with the family. The list goes on, doesn’t it, especially when it comes to infinite scrolling?
Work has also become more accessible over the decades. Gone are the days when work can be left at the workplace. Before the 90s, you would safely say that you could leave your work at your office without being reprimanded. With the advent of the portable computer in 1990, workers were now able to take certain pieces of work back to their homes. In 2000, the Internet made retrieving work data ever more convenient. In 2010, workers could now access their emails and even work packages on their mobile devices. Suddenly, work is apparent beyond office hours, even for commuters as Internet connectivity improves over time. In 2020, the notion of “work from anywhere” has taken hold as even meetings and workshops can be conducted virtually anywhere, even from your home. We have accelerated from a manufacturing era into a knowledge-based economy.
The same could be said for the work of designers based on their need for connectivity and collaboration. Design tools such as Sketch and Figma are now on cloud-based platforms. Usability testing has gone remote and unmoderated, where end-users can interact with prototypes without guidance. Project management tools such as JIRA were cross-product in nature, as users were able to update their backlogs directly on a web and mobile application. Calendars can also now be synced seamlessly, with AI bots providing the additional assistance to curate and manage the slack of the designer’s schedule. And now digital whiteboards, such as Miro and Figjam, have provided easy access to a digital post-it. In fact, Apple is placing its future bets on going digital with creativity with the release of its very own whiteboard tool — Freeform. We as designers have trimmed the fat and become highly productive in the 21st century, particularly in 2021.
At the same time, 2021 has also brought about the Great Resignation, when a huge number of capable workers, including designers, have begun to leave the workforce. Although the Great Resignation can be considered a wicked problem for various factors, a visible symptom was an increased level of mental exhaustion in the workforce, leading to burnouts. Whether it was due to living in shared places with the family and kids, or due to an increase in virtual meetings with no breaks, work and living in the new borderless environment exacerbated the effects of doing too much and dealing with new changes rapidly.
Research is now calling for balance between work and rest, self-care, and personal fulfillment. In fact, American neuroscientist, Marcus Raichle, points us to the default mode network (DMN) of the brain, which comes about through a decreased focus on activities and goals or through low-cognitive demands, but helps to maintain brain health. In other words, doing nothing has its own benefits. Seemingly paradoxical in nature, taking a mental break may actually result in better creativity, decision-making, and, over time, better productivity. Isn’t that crucial for some professionals, like designers?
Once again, allow me to clarify that doing nothing doesn’t mean emptying of the mind. Instead, doing nothing, which originates from a Dutch movement known as Niksen, is the creation of a stress-free, relaxed, exploratory, playful, and humorous mode and environment.
Here are some ways to help you as a designer achieve doing nothing:
1. Set up the environment to allow your mind to declutter. More than just going bare and minimal, placing the right objects in the space you create is essential to easing your mind. Removing the TV and other electronic devices may seem like the obvious thing to do, but the lure and attention these devices give can be powerful enough to tempt us to succumb to using them just a little more. Conversely, you might also like to implore positive “nudges” that attract you towards the other direction. Perhaps all it takes is to create a little nook: a corner or recess that offers seclusion or security. Place a few objects that help your mind wander, such as photos of scenic places. Your window can also be a tool for gazing into the distance, or into the horizon. A beautiful and sculptural object may also offer the niks on occasion. As Don Norman would have expanded in his book, Emotional Design, rather than going into an analytical and utilitarian inspection, this visceral design solicits an emotional response similar to an artwork in a museum.
2. Set aside a block of time during work hours to do nothing, and be very intentional about it. Dan Pink, in his book, When, shares that most people experience energy peaks in the morning. By mid to late afternoon, that energy declines to a trough before it recovers again in the early evening. What this shows is that your work effort is never linear nor constant, so you are kidding yourself to think that a break is not needed for any part of the day. Pink continues to expand on what makes a good break. One of them is to be fully detached, which is to release not only your body, but your mind as well. And above all, not on social media. All it takes is a few minutes of intentionally designed breaks.
3. Saying “no” and reorganizing priorities. If breaks and doing nothing is beneficial, then guarding it to prevent anything else from overtaking it is important. This is a very tall order because saying no to other important things, like work, is actually very hard. Beyond your inner reasoning, saying yes is fundamentally due to our human nature as sociable beings. We like to be liked. As a result, unless you have a mechanism of saying no, you are compelled to go with a default “yes”, evaporating any form of valuable niksen. One way of achieving this is what Nieuwhof calls “categorical decisions,” which is to categorize the various decisions you are making, and conscientiously define what you want to do and not do. Wearing the UX researcher hat, one may go about organizing a closed card-sorting exercise in one’s life. It might also be worthwhile to get your loved ones to provide feedback after the card sort is done. It may be important for your accountability partner to know the value of doing nothing too.
4. Saying “no” to yourself. Perfectionism is a double-edged sword for designers. On the one hand, it brings about excellence. On the other hand, it creates an unrealistic expectation of oneself, ultimately robbing away any free time with the possible scenario of plowing through endless tasks. This is the moment where the phrase “Good Enough for Now” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans comes into play. Subdue the imposter syndrome by accepting the current limits and being grateful for the present moment. Set a limit on what needs to be done within a clear time frame and with achievable goals. Once the time limit is over, it’s worth every minute to savour the moment of pause before moving on.
As the world resumes the normalcy of life, I find myself sitting at the airport, getting ready to travel once again. However, rather than pushing ahead with the hustle of technology and creeping work, I am looking forward to doing nothing up in the air for a little while longer.
.Further reading:
Atlassian. A 2020 retrospective on the History of Work — Infographics. Online.
Raichle, Marcus. The Brain’s Default Mode Network. Missouri: Annual Review Neuroscience, 2015. Online.
Mecking, Olga. Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing. Netherlands: Kosmos Uitgevers, 2020. Print.
Norman, Don. Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books, 2004. Print.
Pink, Daniel. When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. United Kingdom: Canongate Books, 2018. Print.
Nieuwhof, Carey. At Your Best: How to Get Time, Energy, and Priorities Working in Your Favor. United States: WaterBrooks, 2021. Print
Burnett, Bill; Evans, Dave. Designing Your New Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work. New York: Vintage Books, 2020, 2021. Print.
