23 Ways to be Unproductive — and Why

Productivity has become a religion.

There are enough articles online hyping up the powers and perils of productivity to comprise its very own Bible. Followed swiftly by a sequel, several digital platforms with bi-monthly updates and a newsletter. “Be productive” is the new “be kind to thy neighbour” (because there is no greater act of kindness than your neighbour knowing they live next door to one of the top ten app developers). In fact, productivity has been so overtly emphasised that it’s no longer just a concept, nor even a religion. It has become a cult.

And the internet is riddled with productivity “gurus” (cough, cult leaders), ramming the idea that If You Want To Be a Respected Human Being Then You Better Sweat Your Ass Off For Thirty Hours a Day Doing Something That Society Deems as Valuable. They all end with falsely motivational messages like, “because if you really cared about your existence then you’d find a way to survive on two hours sleep and a chewy vitamin.”

Ugh, right?

They sell you that whole “if you love me, you’d do it” manipulative spiel, under the premise that “if you loved yourself, you’d inflict pain upon yourself in this subtle yet super damaging mindset and framework of living that we’ve all suddenly fallen so prey to.” And for some reason, we bite. We buy into it. We listen to it. And then, as expected, we burn out. We crash and plummet and spiral. We stress the f out.

I think we’re in desperate need of an unproductive day, don’t you? Here are 23 ways to be super unproductive, and why that’s good for your soul.

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1. Play on your phone. Open up all your favourite social media apps and get scrolling. Watch people slice up sand on Instagram. Start a Twitter thread comparing jars of chocolate spread to Pete Davidson outfits. Snapchat your entire day. Read through every one of your aunt’s Facebook posts since 2009 (and comment on every horse picture you find). Mindless scrolling, in certain doses, can be good for you. Science says so (intentional mindlessness, they call it).
2. Waste your money. Buy something stupid, something you don’t need, something just for the sake of buying it. Stop treating money like it’s sacred. We always seem to be clinging on to it, saving it for a rainy day. Well look outside, my friend. It’s England. It hasn’t stopped raining since Noah built that ark and teased the sky. Spend your cash — on something you want, not need. Your happiness is just as important as your mortgage.
3. Overthink for ten minutes. That thing that’s been bothering you for a week now? Sit down with that thought and think about. Run through all the Bad Things it might lead to. Let yourself worry and panic and stress, and then? Then move on. Now that you’ve overthought, you’ve inadvertently prepped yourself for any crappy outcomes that might arise. You’ve prepared for the worst. Now get back to hoping for the best.
4. Make a mess. Ruffle up your bed sheets. Get bread crumbs all over the counter. Clip your nails and flick them onto the carpet. Splatter paint up the walls. Go to a Rage Room. Smash plates. Dip your fingers in candle wax and pick it off right there on the kitchen table. Do some colouring with kids. Eat with your mouth open. Empty your wardrobe. Break up with your boyfriend. Call your uncle out on his misogyny. Make a mess, it’s therapeutic. We exist inside a chaotic cosmos, so join in. There’s no “right way” to do it. We spend too much time tidying up after ourselves these days, anyway.
5. Start a group chat. You will never know time to deplete quicker than spending ten minutes (which rapidly becomes an entire afternoon) chattering away on Whatsapp with your pals. Forget the to-do list today. Send photos of your cropped cardigans, your Spanish stickers, your grilled shrimp. Talk about polygamy and curly hair and jealousy. Connect with people around the world whilst stewing in your bed. You don’t even have to be vertical.
6. Paint your nails. This is the best way to halt productivity. There is literally nothing in this world you can get busy doing whilst your nails are wet. Trust me.
7. Go for a super long stroll. I’m taking 2 miles per hour. Take half the morning slowly sauntering to the end of your road. Forget about exercise, about speed, about burning calories. Not everything has to result in something, you know?
8. Call in sick. Honestly, do it. You never do it. But you should. And don’t feel guilty about it, whether you have a cold or period pains or you actually feel perfectly healthy, but you just fancy a film day. Don’t you dare feel bad about that. You deserve to call in sick BECAUSE YOU ARE SICK OF BEING TREATED LIKE A MACHINE. Right?
9. Listen to music on your commute. Not a podcast. Not a non-fiction audiobook. Not a meditative track. You don’t have to learn something in every second you exist. Strut along to Flo Rida. Play the Twilight soundtrack. Record yourself reading All the Bright Places out loud and listen to it on your walk. Let passersby watch as you sob and stroll, simultaneously (seriously though, that book is emotional trauma printed and bound). Why learn, when you can just feel?
10. Message your ex. Okay, hear me out here. Say hi, say thank you, say something nice about that nice thing they did for you once. Ask them what they liked most about you, and tell them the same. Ask them what they disliked most, and don’t get angry about it. Accept it and move on. (“Yeah, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t such a fan of when you slept with other people you know?” That’s a pretty fair point, don’t you think?).
11. Cut out all fruit and veg for a day. Forget trying to slip in a chunk of celery or sucking on a beetroot. Sack them off for a full day and instead, focus on eating what brings you joy. Emotional health is just as important, you know.
12. Have five portions of sugar and fat instead. Order a curry for breakfast. Have a stack of Biscoff waffles for dinner. And dessert. Brush your teeth with sugar cubes. Do what I did as a kid at my dad’s for the weekend: eat entire blocks of cheddar cheese as a snack, then wash it down with a swig of malt vinegar.
13. Binge watch something you’ve already binge watched. I am. I’m re-watching Vampire Diaries for the third time, beginning on season 7 (of 8. It’s where my best pal is up to and I like to do everything that she does). This isn’t a waste of time. It means I can mindlessly watch it, it doesn’t matter if I miss bits. It means I can spot things I didn’t notice before. It means I get to exercise my heart, because I already know how much I love it. Sometimes it’s okay to want to relive that love a little.
14. Play with your eyelashes. It’s one of my most longstanding habits. Sitting there, lying there, leaning against a vending machine on a train platform somewhere and fingering my lashes. Sometimes they’re sharp (solidified eyeliner), sometimes they’re wet (excessive crying) and always they relax me. My friends used to tease me about it in school, sitting opposite me pulling faces until I finally zoned back into real life to catch them. But I rarely did. This mindless movement lobbed me into a faraway dimension. I like to go there from time to time.
15. Binge eat. As somebody who has had binge eating disorder, this might be a little precarious, I understand. But what I mean is: sack off “regular” portion sizes (they’re a myth). Today, eat exactly what you what in whatever quantity you desire. No plates, no cutlery, just your bare paws and your open mouth. Snack away, my friend.
16. Don’t journal for a full day. I know, blank pages — especially amidst full ones — suck ass. But you can always come back to it tomorrow. Today though, I want you to slip that velvet lined bad boy under your pillowcase. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have this day to look back on. Screw Future You and your nostalgia. These moments are for living in right now. Forget sharing your feelings with a journal. Just feel them, instead.
17. List everything you hate about your passion. In big block letters, using a Sharpie, on an A3 piece of paper. Scribble down why it makes you sad. Doodle weapons you could use to kill your hobby were it a human person. Note down things that can often go wrong. And like before, with your overthinking exercise, move on once you’re done. You’ve got it out your system. You’ve jotted down all the crap things. Now you can figure out how to alleviate them.
18. List everything you hate about yourself. And do the same as over (minus the weapons, maybe).
19. Do nothing. You’re allowed only to breathe and to exist. That’s it. Find somewhere to park your ass comfortably for twenty minutes and do nothing. It’s an art form. God didn’t have a to-do list to return to whilst creating the Earth. The universe did a whole lot of nothing before she did a big bang. Animals do nothing. Amoebas do nothing. Even the moon does nothing (though she happens to be everything). We don’t have to be doing something to be worthy of existing. Get back to nature. Do as nature does. Don’t overthink this. Don’t do anything.
20. Play on the toilet. Watch Tiktok videos for seventeen minutes. Re-download Cooking Mama onto your phone. Count the half empty bottles of shampoo lining your bathtub. Name each of the pubes. Watch as your cat scales the wall, tearing strips of wallpaper off with her as she dismounts (no? Just mine?). Sure, you might get piles but at least whilst you’re in there, door shut and locked, you won’t get human interaction. Worth the risk, I think.
21. Pee in the bath. It’s just a tiny ocean. If fish can do it, so can you. Why endure the frantic dart across to the loo, naked and chilly and dripping everywhere, when you can just pee where you’re sat? It’s not an opportunity we get very often. Embrace it.
22. Don’t shower. You don’t need to shower every day. This is a myth. Shower when you’re dirty — or don’t. It’s your call. No pressure. Own that stench, you stinky son of a sewer.
23. Forgive yourself. This isn’t very productive because it in no way resolves for whatever crap you got up to in the past. The mistakes were still made. The scars are still there. Your regrets won’t dissolve now that you’ve amended your relationship with yourself. But. Grudges are Ziploc ties, binding the past to your future. Forgiveness severs that. It gives your future a chance. So forgive yourself, be kind to yourself, go easy on yourself. Give yourself a break, my love. You did what you thought best at the time.

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Maybe nothing on this list adds any value to your day. But I think, I think, that’s the point? When did our days suddenly become measured, not by time but by this undefinable, completely subjective currency we call Value? Why are we adding a price-tag to our lifetime? Surely it’s enough simply to be alive?

We exist. I think, I think, that’s probably the best thing we’ll ever do. The rest is just a bonus. So take today, perhaps tomorrow, maybe even your entire life and strip back any “productive plans” you’ve got pencilled in. Try some of the 23 things above on for size. And discover your own. Just do things for the sake of doing them because you want to, because you enjoy doing it, whether or not it bags you a promotion or impresses that girl you fancy. Just do the Weird Crap™ that you love, simply because you love it.

Simply because you exist.

Because I think, I think, it’s more than enough just to be alive.

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Oh hey, whilst you’re here: why not put the “em” into your “emails” and lob your name onto my mailing list for weekly em-bellishments on my rose-tinted, crumb-coated lens of life. It’s the equivalent of the reduced section in the supermarket (low value Weird Crap™ that you didn’t know you needed).