#458: In Praise of Wasting Time

#458: In Praise of Wasting Time

Your time on earth is finite and once you use it up, it's gone forever. Thus on the AoM podcast, we talk a lot about how to maximize your time -- how to use it more effectively to be more productive. But is it possible to be too concerned about managing your time? Should you also make space for chucking out all the to-do lists and schedules and just being kind of idle?

My guest would say yes. His name is Alan Lightman, he’s a physicist and writer, and the author of the book In Praise of Wasting Time. Today on the show Alan forwards the sort of countercultural argument that intentionally wasting time isn't a vice but a virtue. We begin our conversation by discussing what Alan means by wasting time, and then get into how wasting time benefits our psyches, creativity, sense of mental self-reliance, and even, ironically enough, our productivity. We end our conversation discussing the difference between chronos time and kairos time, and how wasting time allows us to spend more time in the latter state.

Get the show notes at aom.is/wastingtime.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Episoder(1159)

The Winter Mindset: How Norwegians Love the Winter (And You Can Too)

The Winter Mindset: How Norwegians Love the Winter (And You Can Too)

When people think about winter, they often focus on the negatives: the cold, the dark, and the seasonal depression the season can bring. But my guest today questions whether winter really has to be so...

11 Des 20241h 1min

Undoing Urgency — How to Stop Drowning in Tasks and Start Living With Purpose

Undoing Urgency — How to Stop Drowning in Tasks and Start Living With Purpose

Feeling overwhelmed by an endless to-do list? Like you're constantly putting out fires but never getting ahead? You're not alone. Many people today feel like they're drowning in urgency — filling ever...

9 Des 202456min

What Sports Betting Is Really Doing to Players, Games, and Fans

What Sports Betting Is Really Doing to Players, Games, and Fans

Sports gambling has exploded in America. You can't watch a game today without being bombarded by ads from betting companies, often co-branded with the major sports leagues themselves. It's a dramatic ...

4 Des 202444min

Achieve Peak Performance by Learning to Shift the Gears of Your Mind

Achieve Peak Performance by Learning to Shift the Gears of Your Mind

The Industrial Revolution changed the nature of work, so that many people labored in factories, continuously performing the same task, at the same pace, for the duration of their shift.Two centuries o...

2 Des 202450min

Flying, Hosting, Regifting, and More — All Your Holiday Etiquette Questions Answered

Flying, Hosting, Regifting, and More — All Your Holiday Etiquette Questions Answered

In an age where a lot of formalized decorum has vanished, the holidays are still a time with rules, traditions, and unspoken expectations. It's also a time of heightened social interactions and increa...

27 Nov 202453min

Rich Mind vs. Poor Mind — A Psychologist’s Guide to Building Wealth

Rich Mind vs. Poor Mind — A Psychologist’s Guide to Building Wealth

Many people think becoming wealthy is all about having the right job, inheritance, or just lucky breaks. And those things can certainly give you a leg up. But according to my guest, the biggest key to...

25 Nov 202440min

Tribal Runners, Weekend Warriors, and Our Changing Relationship to Endurance Sports

Tribal Runners, Weekend Warriors, and Our Changing Relationship to Endurance Sports

Endurance activities, like distance running, have existed since ancient times. But humans' relationship to those pursuits has changed, according to time and place. In the West, we've currently turned ...

20 Nov 202451min

What's Behind the Rise of Parent-Child Estrangement?

What's Behind the Rise of Parent-Child Estrangement?

These days, you hear more and more about parents and adult children being estranged from each other. Some individuals have even decided to go "no contact" with their parents; they don't want anything ...

18 Nov 202456min

Populært innen Fakta

fastlegen
dine-penger-pengeradet
mikkels-paskenotter
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
treningspodden
foreldreradet
jakt-og-fiskepodden
rss-bisarr-historie
rss-kunsten-a-leve
takk-og-lov-med-anine-kierulf
rss-kull
sinnsyn
gravid-uke-for-uke
hagespiren-podcast
tomprat-med-gunnar-tjomlid
rss-sunn-okonomi
hverdagspsyken
rss-bak-luftfarten
fryktlos