Description

The Power of Doing Nothing

Could there be power to “doing nothing”?

In this episode of Rhythms of Focus, we untangle the unexpected value of “the visit”—the art of showing up to your work, play, or creative project without any pressure to act. It’s a practice especially vital for adults with ADHD and wandering minds, offering a way to foster agency and mindfulness beyond the rigid mold of traditional productivity.

You’ll learn:

• Why allowing yourself to simply “be” with a task—without expectation—can spark clarity, motivation, and self-understanding.
• How daily visits help you navigate fear, procrastination, and the deeper emotional storms that influence your focus.
• Why embracing thoughtful pauses can nudge your creativity and reveal new paths, even in moments of resistance.

Key Takeaways:

• A “visit” to your work strengthens agency and self-compassion, helping you move at your own rhythm.
• Facing the discomfort of pausing with your project is emotional work—often more powerful than sheer action.
• True progress begins in the quiet moments between doing—where insight and motivation have space to emerge.

This episode features an original piano composition, “Where Did the Table Go?”,

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Keywords

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #EmotionalWork #Agency #DailyVisit #FocusStrategies #CreativePauses #RhythmsOfFocus #PianoMeditation

Transcript

Introduction

 What's the point of doing nothing?

I've recommended this approach that we can make to our work where we can sit with it and even not do a thing. I call this a visit, and so when I make this recommendation, I regularly hear a quite understandable question.

What's the point of doing nothing?

Well, as it turns out quite a lot, and I can get into those reasons, but simply saying that and going through those reasons often isn't enough to make it appealing. In fact, this question, what's the point, can often be a way of avoiding the attempt. It's protecting us from something.

It can even act as a proxy for several quite understandable reasons for avoiding what could be a powerful tool in your life.

A Visit Reviewed

A visit, even more so, a daily visit to some work that you have in front of you, some play that you wanna get into can be an absolute force to be reckoned with -this wonderful unit of work that can guide projects, habits, even developing relationships into fruition at a pace that works for you.

I've described visits in some detail in episode four, but in short, they're about showing up to a thing, whatever that thing is, desired, dreaded, and then fully being there without any obligation to doing any of it.

We could sit there staring out at the garden. Maybe we nudge it here or there. Maybe we get into a flow, or maybe we walk away without having touched it at all.

The important matter is that we're somehow fully there for at least a moment, maybe for a single deep breath.

Allowing ourselves to do nothing is not only important, it's absolutely vital. It supports that sense of agency. It's like the difference between being assigned a book to read in school or choosing to read that same book yourself.

The Complexity of a Visit

While a visit can sound simple, it is by no means simple.

In fact, it can not only be difficult, it can be dangerous and scary. In this question, "what's the point of doing nothing?" There's a clue in fear. Somehow we'd waste our time. The fear of wasting time is one of wasting life- this existentially awful feeling.

What would we gain in taking this chance of being and not necessarily doing?

For example, let's say I'm struggling with a school report. If I simply avoid it, I might fail the class. If...