Is Wasting Time a Waste of Time?

If you have an addictive personality, you might want to reconsider reading my article today. Yes, I'm one of those people who can quite easily get on a 'kick' and follow it through to its most absurd conclusions. For instance, a few years ago, someone introduced the brilliant idea of Sudoku puzzles into my world. Generally, I do my best to avoid such games (I get too serious about them) and, for quite a while, I was very successful in turning a blind eye to the phenomenon. Then, one day, my curiosity got the best of me and, wham! I was hooked.

There came a time when I was enjoying one of those long-distance family holiday things, and my partner, Craig was off shopping with his mother, and I actually had nothing to do. It was then that I discovered websudoku.com, an online source for billions (that's right: billions) of free sudoku puzzles.

If you're one of those poor souls who's not familiar with sudoku, it's a simple grid with nine squares, each of which contains nine squares. The object is to fill all 81 squares such that each numeral (1-9) occurs only once in a row of nine squares horizontally and vertically, and only once in each of the nine squares of nine. The puzzle starts with digits in some of the squares, but most of them are empty. There's only one solution to each puzzle. It's quite a brain tease!

Of course, it's the brain tease that's the attraction. After struggling with one of these for a period of time, there's a moment when you realize that it's all coming together, and that you're going to win. It's like solitaire on steroids — a crossword puzzle for illiterates. Even so, does this pastime have any purpose?

I've said it often before: we all have exactly 168 hours in a week — no more, and no less. We can't buy more time, nor can we 'make up for lost time.' The TV announcer says, "Like sand through an hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives." Yet, even an hourglass can be turned upside down to let another batch of sand go through. For us humans, once an hour's gone, it's history. So where do things like sudoku, crossword puzzles, card and video games fit into the grand scheme of things? They're called pastimes, but do we ever really want time to pass? Does it make any sense to have 'too much time on our hands?'

Remember that unstructured time is the key to progress. Your unstructured time represents the space that you've created out of your constant struggle to keep your needs met: a space that's available for focusing on your wants. Being able to work on your wants keeps you moving forward, growing, advancing, creating. Your unstructured time also serves as the critical buffer that enables you to handle crises without adding your own fuel to the fire. Unstructured time gives you the space you require to live life on life's terms.

So what about pastimes? How do they fit into your scheme of things? Do I have to remind you that fun is supposed to be fun? Relaxation serves as a critical component to your mental and emotional health. You deserve the guilty pleasure that goes along with doing something frivolous just for the fun of it! It works just like rest and exercise: accomplishing nothing in itself, it makes other things possible. You need to ask yourself the question, 'How does this fit in with my core values?' When you're feeling worn out, and you've given your needs and wants their due for the day, then a pastime can be even more than a nice diversion: it can be a necessity.

If I might answer the question I posed at the beginning of this essay, I'd have to say, "No, wasting time isn't always a waste of time; sometimes we absolutely need it." For the busy entrepreneur or professional, brief periods of escape can be extremely healthy. Just watch yourself, now: make sure that your means of recreation doesn't gradually become an end in itself. You can't afford to sacrifice what's important to what's fun. That's where the addiction kicks in, and where people start sacrificing their futures to feel good here and now.

I hope you've found this helpful. I've got to finish now. I have a half-finished sudoku waiting for me, and I can't figure out where the '2' goes.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2008 H. Les Brown

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