Can you sit quietly in a room alone? According to many ideas in the book “Unlimited Memory“, it’s a great thing to do.
They start with a quote from Blaise Pascal that brought the title of this post:
“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.”
Related was a quote from Pythagoras, who said:
“Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.”
It kind of led to this main point by author Kevin Horsley, who shared:
Stop overwhelming yourself by continually changing the channels of your mind. Sharpen your intellect by making it a habit to do one thing at a time. Rediscover the value of consecutive tasking, instead of settling for the diluted quality that comes from simultaneous tasking. Exceptional work is always associated with periods of deep concentration. Nothing excellent ever comes from a scattered effort. When you are “all there,” your brain power and resources will be all there, too.
While I’m not great about specifically “sitting quietly in a room”, I try to make time to just get away and think. The idea of a “clarity break” is something that resonates with me, and it’s something I try to get away and do at least once a week or so. This post from a few years ago unpacks how I do that.
Even if you’ve never done it on purpose, you’ve seen the benefits of it when you get a great idea while you’re in the shower or out for a walk. It can be pretty awesome.
One way or another, sitting quietly with no interruptions can have huge advantages. You can stare out the window, sit quietly in a room, go outside for a clarity break, or do one of a hundred different things.
Do you ever intentionally take time to do nothing? How does that work for you?
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