Well, the holiday is now over and we’re all back at our desks, facing a depressing pile of work that somehow, disappointingly, didn’t magically disappear while we were off eating turkey. So I seriously doubt I’m the only person who was a bit slow in digging in this morning. On mornings like this, email, web surfing, and some good, old-fashioned daydreaming are powerful temptations. Anything to avoid the overwhelming reality of the bigger or less fun work tasks in front of us.
But according to a recent study by Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert (author of Stumbling on Happiness) and doctoral student Matthew A. Killingsworth, succumbing to that impulse to daydream—even if it’s a dream about a very hot date on a tropical island somewhere—will not help. In fact, it apparently makes us less happy than if we were two elbows deep in that unpleasant work pile in front of us.
The study used an iPhone application to ask people, at random points during the day, what they were doing, what they were thinking about, and asked them to rate their level of happiness. In general, the study found that almost regardless of the activity they’re doing, people’s minds tend to wander a lot. At any given time, 30-47% of the population is apparently not thinking about the activity they’re involved in. It also found that in general, people who actually were focused on the task at hand were happier than those whose minds were wandering.
Not surprisingly, people whose daydreaming thoughts were about unpleasant things were more unhappy than those dreaming about happy things. It’s just that even the happy daydreamers—while happier than the overall average for the entire group—were not as happy as those whose thoughts had not wandered.
John Tierney of the New York Times concluded that the study supported the Buddhist idea (and the theme of popular books like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow) of the importance of being present in the moment.
I certainly think that’s a part of the equation. Perhaps even a big part. I’ve said and written many times that being completely present in any given moment is the key to feeling really and truly alive—which is why adventure holds such an appeal for many people. It forces us to pay attention to what we’re doing. Daydream while you’re navigating a narrow mountain cliff ledge and you’re likely to fall to your death. Even if the cliff edge is only metaphorical, and there’s no actual physical danger involved.
But I think another piece of it has to do with some combination of Puritan work ethic guilt and the frustration of holding patterns. From what I could find on Gilbert’s study (I don’t subscribe to Science, so I couldn’t read the report itself, so maybe some reader out there who does can check me on this point…), it wasn’t clear whether the volunteers reported their feelings while they actually daydreaming, or only 15 minutes after the fact. Queried 15 minutes after daydreaming, study subjects whose minds had been wandering felt uniformly less happy than those whose minds had been focused on the task at hand, even if the task was an unpleasant one. Daydreaming earlier in the day also tended to make subjects unhappier later in the day So, the conclusion went, daydreaming makes you less happy.
The happiness that comes with being in the moment is undoubtedly a part of the puzzle. But daydreaming, by the way, is also a form of procrastination. Time spent daydreaming is time “wasted”—and we’re aware of that, even as we’re doing the daydreaming. The pile in front of us gets no smaller while we’re off dreaming about Bora Bora, and when we return, it’s not only just as big, we also then have less time in the day with which to do something about it. Consequently, daydreaming about even really terrific things tends to cause a big post-dreaming hangover. We’re annoyed with ourselves for wasting the time, more pressured about what still remains to be done, and (if we have the normal dosage of western civilization Calvinistic work ethic guilt in us), beating ourselves up for being such unproductive slugs. So of course we’re less happy 15 minutes after the daydream is over, or when we’re forced to confront our wandering behavior! We’ve just spent however many minutes in an unproductive holding pattern, in a culture that values all-action-all-the-time productivity.
If this sounds familiar to you, don’t feel bad. You have company. It sounds familiar to me, too. And, I’d wager, a lot of other people. (Almost half the subject in the Harvard study, after all, were daydreaming at any given moment.)
But as I work my way around, today, to the really tough work tasks on my desk, already appalled at how much of my day has slipped through my fingers, I have three thoughts to offer on the subject.
First … I actually do think that humans are built for work. We’re happiest when we’re doing something. In addition, being in the moment, regardless of the activity, does tend to make us happier … and more aware of being alive. It also pushes off a lot of the worries that intrude when we begin to think about the future. Life is generally more manageable in the present. (The one exception I can think of to that is when you’re struggling with waves of loneliness or grief, when all you have is the hope that the darkness and pain will lessen with time.) So it’s worth working on trying to get our minds and activities in sync and minimizing time spent “woolgathering,” as my grandfather used to call it.
Second … awareness is half the battle. I actually learned long ago that procrastination always makes me feel worse, and accomplishes little. I have a friend who sometimes resorts to setting a kitchen timer for 15 minutes and demands that she focus on her work for that long, with the carrot of allowing herself some mind-wandering time after that, in an effort to get the inertia of the day rolling. Not that awareness of the problem keeps me from procrastinating at all—it just helps me procrastinate less, and dig into real work faster than I otherwise might.
And third … having said all that, daydreaming is not always “wasted” time. Over the years, I’ve come to accept that my mind has a pattern of behavior that can only be forced so much. Sometimes, I’m just avoiding an unpleasant writing task. But sometimes, my mind wanders because it needs to. And some of my best answers and story angle inspirations have come during times when I’m not actively focused on trying to solve that problem. Indeed, some of my best ideas have come while sitting out in the sun, just listening to the birds and appreciating the pleasures of the day, thinking about nothing in particular at all.
Knowing all that also helps me reduce my guilt at my mind-wanderings, which then makes me less unhappy, which is always a good thing.
So if you’re procrastinating your post-holiday work by reading this … don’t beat yourself up about it. Just accept the time as spent (hopefully enjoyably or well spent!) and, with whatever time is left in the day, do your best to be present and productive wherever you are. Even if you only manage to do it in 15-minute intervals.
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