I’ve been thinking about this problem recently. Who says we need every minute of every day to be productive? Why does every minute of 40 hours a week need to be productive?

When I actually worked in the office pre-pandemic, I had these thoughts. I reflected that my actual at-my-desk productive time during an 8 hour day on the job was actually only about three hours. The rest was spent smoking, using the bathroom, talking, getting coffee, talking about lunch, getting lunch… Yet somehow I was still respected and seen as someone who “got stuff done”. Probably because during my productive times I was actually productive because I had given my brain the space to breath and process.