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The power of doing nothing at all
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Aytekin Tank Follow

Jun 7, 2018 · 7 min read

Originally published on JOTFORM.COM

The old crocodile was .oating at the river’s edge when a younger croc-
odile swam up next to him,

“I’ve heard from many that you’re the 2ercest hunter in

all of the river bottoms. Please, teach me your ways.”

Awoken from a nice long afternoon nap, the old crocodile glanced at the
young crocodile with one of his reptilian eyes, said nothing and then fell
back asleep atop the water.

Feeling frustrated and disrespected, the young crocodile swam oA up-

river to chase after some catBsh, leaving behind a .urry of bubbles. “I’ll
show him”, he thought to himself.

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 Later that day the young crocodile returned to the old crocodile who was
still napping and began to brag to him about his successful hunt,

“I caught two meaty cat2sh today. What have you

caught? Nothing? Perhaps you’re not so 2erce
after all.”

Unphased the old crocodile again looked at the young crocodile, said
nothing, closed his eyes and continued to .oat atop the water as tiny
minnows muched away lightly at the algae on his underbelly.

Again, the young crocodile was angry he couldn’t get a response from
the elder, and he swam oA a second time upstream to see what he could
hunt.

After a few hours of thrashing about he was able to hunt down a small
crane. Smiling, he kept the bird in his jaws and swam back to the old
crocodile, adamant about showing him who the true hunter was.

As the young crocodile rounded the bend, he saw the elder crocodile still
.oating in the same spot near the river’s edge.

However, something had changed — a large wildebeest was enjoying an

afternoon drink just inches near the old crocodile’s head.

In one lightning fast movement, the old crocodile bolted out of the wa-
ter, wrapped his jaws around the great wildebeest and pulled him under
the river.

Awestruck the young crocodile swam up with the tiny bird hanging from
his mouth and watched as the old crocodile enjoyed his 500 lb meal.

The young crocodile asked him, “Please… tell me… how… how did you do
that?”

Through mouthfuls of wildebeest, the old crocodile Bnally responded,

“I did nothing.”

Doing what matters vs. busy-bragging

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 Doing what matters vs. busy-bragging

When I was Brst building JotForm, I was a lot like the young crocodile 
— believing that I always had to be doing something to get results.

Back then, if someone would have told me that I would see greater re-
sults by spending more time doing nothing, I would have rolled my eyes
and continued to chip away at my 16 hour day of work.

I thought that in order to be successful, I had to constantly be building,

working, growing and developing the next thing — whatever that “thing”
was.

All of us have a problem with busyness. But being busy and being suc-
cessful are not one in the same. And, I think if we were to make “doing
nothing” more of a priority, we might Bnd ourselves catching more
wildebeests versus measly catBsh.

It worked for me, and I hope it can work for you, too.

But, doing less or nothing at all is easier said than done, especially in a
society that suAers from extreme busyness. Let’s take a closer look at our
unhealthy obsession with staying busy…

The extreme busyness epidemic.

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 Mankind has struggled with busyness since the beginning of time — or at
least since 425 BC when Homer walked the Earth.

The Odyssey tells the tale of the Lotus-eaters — a strange people that
slothed around all day long eating lotus and doing nothing. And, what
was stranger than Bction was that these people were content with their
lives.

Homer wrote that after some of Odysseus’s crew ate the Lotus-eaters Lo-
tus fruit (say that three times fast), they became like the Lotus-eaters 
— content, relaxed and a bit lethargic.

TerriBed that if all of his men ate the lotus fruit they would be unmoti-
vated to return home, Odysseus ordered the aAected men to be tied to
the ship benches and for the ship to set sail immediately.

It ’s interesting, Odysseus’s reaction to this feeling of “doing noth-

ing” sounds similar to the Corporate CEO, the Startup Founder and
the collegiate football coach we know today — hardcore workaholics that
despise anything that might allude to a sense of complacency.

Though, they of course are just the tip of a much larger societal iceberg
that feels frozen with fear at the thought of doing nothing.

The world as a whole now measures value in terms of busyness versus

quality of work. In many ways, it has become something of a status sym-
bol to be “busy”.

How many times have you heard or had a conversation like this…

“How have you been lately, Mark?”

“Oh man, just insanely busy!”

“That’s awesome to hear man — keep killing it!”

We’ve grown to subconsciously measure a person’s worth based oA how

many hours they work, how much is on their plate and put simply 
— whether or not they are running around like a chicken with their head cut
oG.

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 In Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour Work Week, he pokes fun at this idea by face-
tiously saying that if you want a promotion, you should appear to be
more busy by working longer hours, scrambling around and constantly
answering emails.

But, sooner or later, all of us have to ask ourselves what our mission is 
— is it to be the busiest or is it to make the most impact?

And, what’s fascinating is that when we look at some of the greatest

minds to grace planet Earth, we see an interesting commonality — they
all make time for doing nothing.

The power of doing nothing at all

Making time in your life to do nothing can be challenging — especially
during the work week where we are constantly pummeled and bom-
barded with meetings, notiBcations and an ever growing list of tasks.

Busy founders have started implementing “Think Weeks” into their an-
nual schedules — week long periods they spend re.ecting, reading,
thinking and living outside the all-encapsulating world that is running a
business.

W hile young founders like Skillshare’s Mike Karnjanaprakorn have

adopted this practice, as well as big names like Steve Jobs, Mark

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 Zuckerberg and Tim Ferriss, it was Bill Gates who originally made the
Think Week famous.

For many years while running Microsoft, Gates would retreat into week
long Think Weeks twice a year — not vacations, but actual periods of time
dedicated to doing nothing.

Gates was so adamant about his Think Weeks that family, friends and Mi-
crosoft employees were banned. Today, Gates attributes much of Mi-
crosoft’s success to the big ideas and concepts he stumbled upon while
doing nothing.

On implementing “nothing” time.

You don’t necessarily have to ban family and friends to retreat into a
Think Week, though. Take me as an example.

Every year, I take at least a full week oA from my company and head back
to my hometown to help my parents with the olive harvest.

All thoughts of startup growth or conversion rates slip away when you’re
picking olives. It’s meditative and calming.

I know that olive picking won’t land me at the top of TechCrunch, but it’s
a personal measure of success. And somehow, some of my best ideas

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 come to me during this period.

For someone who can’t take an entire week oA of work once a year to do
nothing, I recommend taking a slightly diAerent approach — embracing
the digital sabbath.

On either Saturday or Sunday, force yourself to step away from all forms
of technology — a practice known as a digital sabbath.

Shut oA your smartphone and hide it in your closet. Powerdown the lap-
top and slide it under your bed. And, try with all your might to refrain
from binge-watching NetOix.

Give your brain space to think by stepping away from the daily grind and
doing nothing. Your mind will have time to stumble upon new ideas and
further process old ones.

You may Bnd the success that results from this practice to be similar to
that of the old crocodile at the beginning of this article.

While we tell ourselves we can achieve more by scrambling, sometimes

it’s better to close our eyes and just .oat.

And, wait, until the wildebeest shows up.

. . .

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this article, feel free

to hit that clap button to help others Ind it.

Say Hi on Twitter or check out what we’re building

at JotForm.

. . .

Originally published at www.jotform.com.

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