I bet that, on average, you spend at least 1-2 hours every day waiting for something. Time passes by when you stay in a traffic jam, wait for your friend at a cafe, or just waiting when your meal is done while cooking.
It's the time when it's tough to do some deep work. You can't really concentrate on something important, as those waiting times are often unpredictable in their duration.
But what if you could do something valuable within those 1-2 or sometimes more hours every day? Just imagine, by the time you are 60, you'd spend full 5 years in this transitional waiting state. Would you like to hack it and use it to your advantage? Let's explore how.
In my tragicomedy "Waiting for Godot," I write about the world which waits for someone so important that it makes the decisions of people who live in that world paralyzed. However, there might be no meaning in that waiting, and the world could have continued living as it was before. It probably shouldn't pay so much attention to that abstract person Godot, which might be read as a personification of some excellent human power, teacher, or God.
The book, of course, touches more topics, but I wanted to use it as an example of what a prominent place the process of waiting takes in our lives.
Let's do a quick exercise.
First, write down the most time-consuming waiting activities you had in the last few days?
Great, now let's see what out of this was predictable in length and didn't require your full attention. For example, when you wait for delivery, you might be excited or nervous, checking whether the delivery guy is here. You pick up your phone every other minute and open Instagram to kill the waiting time. However, you might know that he will not come sooner than 10AM. So why would you want to have your morning ruined by these chaotic movements when you can't find your place.
Waiting is like a special modus of being when time flies differently. It might be unpleasant and long, so we try to "kill" this time by doing some things that are not really good for our wellbeing, like checking social media, watching funny videos, or overeating. We often excuse that because we consider it a waiting time, so it has no inherent value anyway.
However, I think we have the power to change that attitude. From now, I encourage you to notice when you are caught by this particular "waiting time" and think of what you can that will be helpful for you later.
Maybe instead of scrolling social media, you'd do a quick workout, read that work-related article you always postponed, or simply call your mother.
Imagine how many great small things can be done within those random chunks of time.
What could be your activities in the times of waiting?