Go Outside and Do Nothing for Five Minutes

Step outside. Don’t bring your phone, a task, or a reason. Just stand or sit there and look at the sky for five minutes. Watch a cloud move, if there are any. If there aren’t, watch the nothing where a cloud would be.

This will feel pointless almost immediately, which is exactly the symptom this practice is treating. Five unstructured minutes with no output attached to them will set off a quiet little alarm in your brain that says you should be doing something. Let the alarm ring. Don’t answer it.

Clouds have been doing this exact nothing for your entire life and somehow seem fine about it. You can borrow five minutes of their pace before you go back to yours.

#MindfulMonday