Today I joined a breakfast buddy for the most important meal of the day. Classy venue, it even had its own branded reed infuser in the bathroom. That’s my new gauge of a classy venue.
As is customary, we asked each other what we had done the previous day. This was in spite of seeing each other for dinner and beverages the night before. That was a group setting so we were chatting about other things and our day’s activities hadn’t come up.
For various reasons, the couch and I had became even more closely acquainted yesterday. When asked what I had done, my reply was something along the lines of “nothing particularly productive, except relaxing. I did a very good job of that.” I like to be a high achiever, even when I’m relaxing.
We were at breakfast for roughly three hours. Over the course of this, we discussed quite a few things from bombing in Syria, politics, Einstein and a biography, minimalism, food, the design / decoration of my new place, our upcoming holiday to Hawaii, propaganda, Cher, books and haircuts. There were probably other things too. This is another reason why a long breakfast is a good one.
In this discussion, I referred to quite a few things that I had seen, read or heard while I had been horizontally re-familiarising myself with my furniture. It was pointed out by my Breakfast Buddy that I had actually had quite a productive day when taken in this context. This proves a few things beyond my having an effective short-term memory:
- relaxing and productivity are not mutually exclusive; in fact, I was multi-tasking. No wonder I was tired;
- productivity does not mean that I need to exert myself or tick things from a mental or physical list;
- it is possible to be productive and only move my eyes and occasionally, my hands if I need to turn a page or change screens;
- the various online and electronic tools are my new equivalent of the World Book Encyclopedias of my youth;
- my Breakfast Buddy has a more generous definition of productivity than mine.
I’m a bit concerned about this definition of productivity for me. If I took to this wholeheartedly (since really, why wouldn’t I?), I’d learn a lot without ever leaving my couch again. It would be a very slippery slope.
With so much available online now, I think keeping movement (beyond just moving my eyes and occasionally a hand or finger) as one of my indicators of productivity, while I’m still able, is necessary for my definition of productivity. I mean movement beyond taking that slippery slope since that really would require no exertion once I started.
It is too fine a line between couch productivity and couch potato for me!
Now I feel like some chips…
* Thanks to Flume for the title to this post. If you haven’t heard his before, listen to him on Soundcloud. He’s an Australian instrumentalist, DJ, producer and an all round talented, award-winning young guy from the Northern Beaches. Very cool sounds.