--- title: Why Doing Nothing Is One of the Most Important Things to Do description: We would do well to think about idleness a more, and rather differently from how we do. canonical: https://time.com/5300633/doing-nothing-work-vacation-time-history-leisure/ author: Brian O’Connor article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-06-15T12:00:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:49:03.815Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why Doing Nothing Is One of the Most Important Things You Can Do og:description: And not just by taking paid vacation time og:url: https://time.com/5300633/doing-nothing-work-vacation-time-history-leisure/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2763c9b205ff86b3/698932394ee262f42e31201e/doing-nothing-freedom.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: Doing Nothing Freedom og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Doing Nothing Is One of the Most Important Things You Can Do twitter:description: And not just by taking paid vacation time twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2763c9b205ff86b3/698932394ee262f42e31201e/doing-nothing-freedom.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Doing Nothing Is One of the Most Important Things You Can Do > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: Entitled People Are Often Disappointed [Watch (HLS stream): Entitled People Are Often Disappointed](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/eea0eIq1.m3u8) (0:41)  _Published 2016-09-22. The next time you’re feeling bummed out or angry at the world, ask yourself if you’ve really been dealt a poor hand—or if, just maybe, you were expecting too much._ by [Brian O’Connor](https://time.com/author/brian-oconnor/) ## Brian O’Connor Jun 15, 2018 12:00 PM UTC  Man, sitting on camping chair, reading paper on sand bank. Automn /winter. Man, sitting on camping chair, reading paper on sand bank. Automn /winter. Muriel de Seze—Getty Images by [Brian O’Connor](https://time.com/author/brian-oconnor/) ## Brian O’Connor Jun 15, 2018 12:00 PM UTC From the age of Enlightenment onward, philosophers, political leaders and moral authorities of many kinds have tried to convince us that [work](http://time.com/money/5297588/stop-getting-distracted-business-leaders/) is one of the most important opportunities for freedom. Through work, we can become a somebody, relish the esteem we gain, structure our lives and, while we are at it, contribute nobly to the common good. This is a strange brew of ideas, but one that has seeped deeper into our psyche than we may realize. We develop a craving for recognition that is rarely satisfied. We need to be seen and admired, pushed along by a [narcissism](http://time.com/4777469/narcissist-signs/) that doesn’t really believe in itself, but doesn’t know how to stop. We depend on the approval of strangers with needs of their own. Self-satisfaction proves elusive. If we are lucky enough to accomplish one thing, another seemingly compelling challenge — or even just an after-hours email — steps in to give us a new worry. The ever-tightening connection between our work and our personal identity constricts even more. We come to believe that being idle at all is, somehow, the antithesis of freedom. But we would do well to think about idleness more, and rather differently from how we do. [Leisure](http://time.com/73622/too-busy-7-ways-to-increase-leisure-time-according-to-science/) today is, for many people, a glimpse at what it would be like to do nothing for more than a few hours. It is — or at least it used to be — downtime, lazing away, forgetting the bothers of the workplace. We use our allowance of paid vacation to recharge the batteries, address some level of emotional well-being… and gear up for a return to work. Leisure, in this way, is incorporated into the world of work. It is not a subversion of it. And this is how many want it to be. Doing nothing at all, the thought goes, is good up to a point. But over-doing nothing is boring. In that light, modern work practices look just right. They respect, one might naively think, our natural moderate desire for idleness — [paid vacation time](http://time.com/money/5012509/dream-job-10000-month-cancun-vacation/) — and the deeper need to keep ourselves busy. It was not always this way. In 1963, the German writer Heinrich Böll published a fictional story of a visitor to a small fishing village somewhere in the West of Europe. His visitor carries with him the full conviction of the work ethic. Spotting an apparently lazy local fisherman resting in his boat, the visitor asks impatiently why the man doesn’t spend more time fishing, catching more, eventually building a lucrative multi-vessel business. With that effort, he could hope to work his way towards time away from work. It falls to the simple but not so naive fisherman to point out the irony of that recommendation. With no pressure to make something of himself, the fisherman is free — enviably so. He has what many seek: his own idle time. He has it by default. His circumstances may have been remarkably fortunate, yet Böll’s story captures a recognizable time when work was considered a necessary evil, second in value to other goods like friendship, rest and community. It may be unrealistic to believe we could return to a world like that. And there are dangers of wishful thinking in believing such a world was ever successful in meeting the fundamental range of human needs — our emotional, material and intellectual needs. Our unqualified belief in progress especially affords it little credibility. There is nothing commendable about leaving all work to others, or in pretending that no level of work is essential to survival. Economic precariousness is not just dangerous to one’s health but also psychologically draining. (It is telling that a common perception of people out of work or down on their luck — that they are lazy — is infected with the supposed moral virtue of busyness.) In society today, we cannot forget these facts — and realize that it will be difficult to decouple ourselves from our deep socialization as useful workers. Great philosophers have argued that we have nothing to learn from ways of life that exists outside the busy world of western civilization. But if we have some hunch that the world we have today demands too much effort in return for too little happiness, we could do worse than to see what we can learn from those other forms of living. The potential in idleness for greater freedom seems worth the exploration. Or at least an attempt to think about what prevents us from truly doing nothing right now. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5300633/doing-nothing-work-vacation-time-history-leisure/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5300633/doing-nothing-work-vacation-time-history-leisure/"},"headline":"Why Doing Nothing Is One of the Most Important Things You Can Do","datePublished":"2018-06-15T12:00:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:49:03.815Z","description":"And not just by taking paid vacation time","url":"https://time.com/5300633/doing-nothing-work-vacation-time-history-leisure/","keywords":["society","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2763c9b205ff86b3/698932394ee262f42e31201e/doing-nothing-freedom.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian O’Connor","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-oconnor/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2763c9b205ff86b3/698932394ee262f42e31201e/doing-nothing-freedom.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Doing Nothing Freedom","caption":"Doing Nothing Freedom","creditText":"Muriel de Seze—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/society/","name":"society"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5300633/doing-nothing-work-vacation-time-history-leisure/","name":"Why Doing Nothing Is One of the Most Important Things You Can Do"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Entitled People Are Often Disappointed","description":"The next time you’re feeling bummed out or angry at the world, ask yourself if you’ve really been dealt a poor hand—or if, just maybe, you were expecting too much.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/eea0eIq1/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-09-22T21:07:30.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/eea0eIq1.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5300633/doing-nothing-work-vacation-time-history-leisure/","duration":"PT41S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5300633/doing-nothing-work-vacation-time-history-leisure/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```