#483 Do Nothing Days

Neil Pasricha

It’s like a mirage.

You see that distant Do Nothing day coming up on the horizon of your kitchen calendar. You stare at its white squarey blankess beckoning you closer and closer and closer. Time moves forward, days march on, and still nothing gets planned on that beautifully perfect patch of nothingness. No homework, no dinner dates, no sports practices, no visiting mates. It’s just you and you sharing a nice peaceful moment of alone time.

When you’re lucky enough to score a Do Nothing day, do yourself a favor and do nothing. Give your brain a break and slip into easy bliss of lying in crumpled sheets, taking a long bath, and ordering out for dinner. Ditch the guilt while you swing in a hammock, cuddle with your cat, or curl up on the couch in front of the TV.

Once in a while it’s good to enjoy a completely unproductive daydreamy day with a slow smile and no worries.

You earned it.

AWESOME!

Thank you for making The Book of Awesome a #1 bestseller!

Sign up to receive a daily dose of awesome in your email.

— Email message —

“as soon as i saw there was the book of awesome i knew it would be the go to gift for all my friends (especially those slightly pessimistic ones) my little bit of awesome?  (Besides working close enough to lake michigan that i can spend lunch there) After a night out with friends or at the bar, you are sound asleep when suddenly you bolt upright and panic! did you grab your credit card from the bar tab? did you leave you camera on the counter? is your cellphone still in a cab someplace? you scramble out of bed and check your pants pockets, your hoodie, a purse until you find all of your belongings and can sink back into a stress free sleep. awesome!” – jess
Photo from: here and here

60 thoughts to “#483 Do Nothing Days”

  1. Yes yes yes yes yessssss! I love being busy and hanging out with people and doing things … but little can beat a good, well-deserved chunk of alone / do-nothing time. I sooo wish I had a hammock.

    Jess, I loved your awesome thing — made me laugh! It also made me think of last year; my roommates and I had gotten into the habit of, after we have been out all night, immediately changing into PJs and tossing all our smoke-filled clothes into the washer. So, as was custom, I tossed mine in and collapsed into bed. After probably an hour of intense sleep, I sat bolt-upright in a panic: I LEFT MY PHONE IN MY POCKET DIDN’T I?!?! I ran and dug through the wet clothes stuck to the sides of the washer bin to find out … no. I didn’t, in fact, leave my phone in my pocket. PHEW! Hahaha :D

    1. Ha, Laura I can imagine your panic in that situation. It’s terrifying!

      And so awesome when you realize you haven’t made that mistake.

    2. I use to wake up in panic a lot when I lived alone. Did I lock the door? Are my windows closed? Did I lock my car? Did I lock my keys in my car? One time I did go check to see if my car was locked, and I locked myself out….and my daughter in. She was barely one year old. I had to wake up a neighbor to break into my apartment for me.

    3. I remember being extremely stressed out before a flight. I was running short on time, I couldn’t find my wallet, and my printer was out of ink so I couldn’t prink my boarding pass. While I’m frantically trying to gather everything up I’m on the phone with my mom trying to sort everything out.

      At one point in the conversation I realized I was missing something else. After using a few choice words I told my mom “I gotta go now. I can’t find my phone either.” I promptly hung up and tossed my phone on the bed.

      After I realized what I just did things started getting a little better.

      1. i love those do nothin day i rember just last summer when it was just the right tempture and the wind was just right where on that day i just layed in my grass and soked in the sun

  4. I don’t have a do nothing day for another 2 months. But then I have a whole month of them! Can’t wait!

    1. Ahhh! Two months?! Well, I guess that will make your Month o’ Nothing seem all that more amazing! :D

  7. this is a great suggestion, a do nothing day…especially on a sunny summer day :)

  9. Thank you for this one, I love it! Mine are so few and far between (with small kids they get filled regardless), but all the more appreciated when they do come.

  10. love this post and love those kind of days. this website just gets me perfectly and i love that :)

  11. I love this one.
    It’s ‘awesome’ how doing nothing for even 5 minutes, can bring a quiet mind. Noooo distractions, no phone, no TV, just ‘nothing’. I get some of my best blog ideas that way!

  12. I just came off a two week staycation, filled with a lot of these glorious “do nothing” days. It was a shock to my system returning to work yesterday. Sigh. But there’s the weekend….

  13. Yes, “do nothing” days are awesome!! I haven’t had one in awhile, but you’ve reminded me about how great they are. I need to set aside some time to have one soon!

  14. after my exams I probably had too many of these days. but well – I deserved it! :D

  15. Yes! I have one of these planned for a week from today, day after my last exam of high school! I cannot wait, cause it’s gonna be AWESOME! :)

  16. I have my calender marked with this kind of day, but I do the “Do “nothing” day” by daydreaming while listening to a song by Norah Jones- wake me up!
    I guess that’s a fabulous day!

  17. I had a do nothing day a couple weekends ago. It was soooooooooo awesome. I stayed in my PJ’s, watched tv, ordered pizza, and took naps. I don’t see another do nothing day coming up anytime soon, now. Glad I got to enjoy it while I could. I admit, though, sometimes I do get a little bored on my do nothing days and I have to do something…. then, they are no longer my do nothing days.

  19. Well, being the meat in the “sandwich” generation right now, I can only settle for “do something different”. But sometimes that’s refreshing enough.

  20. I wish I knew what this Do-Nothing-Day is that you speak of. To me, you are speaking in a foreign language. It sounds like I need to evaluate where my time is spent…another nice post! Keep em comin

  21. Ha! What do ya know Neil? That’s exactly what happened to me today. I just happened to have today off. I stumbled out of bed – late, wandered over to the computer, scrolled down my favorites to (1000 Awesome Things) and I saw this! Ironic & Awesome!

  24. “Do Nothing Days” sounds delightful….I haven’t had one of those in years and now when I try to have one, I panic and schedule in friends I haven’t seen in awhile or start making a list of the things that I need to catch up on. However, after reading this lovely description – I think I am going to have to resist anxiety and tasks alike and pencil one in!

  28. Though these days come fairly often for me, I still cherish each and every one of them and never take them for granted. Especially when I have a week that’s jammed pack with sooooo many things.

    Awesome.

  30. There’s a very catchy and delightful song by Peter Mayer on his album Novelties (you can get it in iTunes) called Jama Day. I highly recommend it:

    You sleep till afternoon
    Make some chocolate-chip pancakes
    Wake up with Einstein’s hairdo
    Let it stay that way all day
    You can be an unclean slob
    Skip the shower, skip the shave
    As if you don’t have a job
    Not even a resume

    Chorus:
    On Jama Day (on Jama Day)
    On Jama Day (on Jama Day)
    On Jama Day (on Jama Day)
    On Jama Day (on Jama Day)

    People without inhibitions
    Have an extra piece of cake
    Pajamas have no restrictions
    Thanks to the elastic waist
    Save the town from the outlaws
    On the reruns of ‘Gunsmoke’
    With remote controls you draw
    From the pockets of your robe

    [Chorus]

    Wear your Scooby-Doo pants
    and Sponge-Bob socks
    When you’re walking to the mailbox
    Raising questions about your mental state
    It helps to keep unwanted guests away

    Read a book by Dr. Suess
    Play canasta, play ping-pong
    Make a list of things to do
    Then do none of them at all

    [Chorus 3x]

  31. I’ve never followed up with any sort of blog that someone has told me about and I’m not much of a blog-commenter, but the other day, something happened and it made me think of this blog and the ‘1000 Awesome Things’ book that a good friend of mine told me about. I have only checked up on this website a few times, but each time I do it makes me laugh in some way. Like today, I had one of those ‘do-nothing’ days. I just got finished with a 19 unit semester of college where I was also working part time and now I just had my first day where I literally didn’t have to do anything. It was great. Now back to my ‘awesome’ thing. I went to an Old Navy store about a week ago and bought a new pair of jeans. It was the same exact style of jeans I had bought from there before so I decided to just grab the same size, style and everything and just get on my way. This last Sunday, I wore the pants for the first time and they were too big. That was the first awesome part. I had to buy a size smaller in pants which was great. So when I headed to the store to return them, turns out, the pants had gone on sale. In my mind I first thought, ‘well, this stinks, I paid more for the pants a few days ago when I could have waited a few days then paid less.’ To my good fortune, they still comply with the fact that they are on sale and I got some money back when I wasn’t even expecting it! It was great and made me think of ‘1000 Awesome Things’.

  33. Absolute magic. How do you come up with these stuff? This might actually be the first blog that I subscribe to, which means a lot because I never subscribe to anything.

  35. My husband calls these “pants optional” days. He usually spends the entire day playing computer games.

  36. I had one of these today and it was brilliant. This is such an awesome idea for a blog!

  37. Oh those blank squares on the calendar, so hard to find at times. And we need to make the most of these “do nothing” days and turn them into memory days that last forever, whenever we can. Thanks Neil! :)

  38. As much as I enjoy the busy hustle and bustle of the social life of an university student, what I enjoy most in the entire world is waking up and realising, I have the day off. I love it when I can pull off sleeping until noon or even catching an entire season of a show I have been too busy with school/work to bother watching. Sitting on the couch eatting chips or whatever I can find in the fridge and declare to both my room mate and myself that I will do the grocery shopping tomorrow. But what I love most about lazy days…. is when I awaken and realise I had a list of things I have to get done before a late night shift and then decide they are not needing to be done today and decide to do them tomorrow. I love nothing more than taking a nice walk alone in the park or just sitting enjoying my favourite flick but to say the very least I can agree with the complete bliss of a lazy do nothing day!

  41. I have 1 of these most weekends. Although i probably SHOULDN’T have one tomorrow because i’ve got homework… curse being in year 9. So i contented myself with a Do-Nothing-Second-Half-Of-The-Afternoon. good enough?

  45. I had a Do Nothing Day today…I stumbled upon this blog and spent a lot of my day getting all the way here! I smiled to myself as I read through hundreds of posts. Thanks for making my day (and most likely my week since I have a lot more posts to go)!

  46. I wish i could have Do Nothig days but alas, i have to wake up at five-thirty every morning for school. this is not awesome, but theres always the weekend right?

  48. My most favorite thing in the world is a day to sleep in, eat, sleep more, watch tv or movies and go back to sleep. Maybe a hike or walk in there as well.

Comments are closed.