I would read an article claiming that most successful people make their beds in the morning and I would instantly decide I was going to do the same. I think I, like so many others, fell into the trap of setting new goals too quickly and without enough thought. Getting up a half hour early to lay out my day’s task in my journal, reading 500 pages every day of a self-improvement book, doing a recommended series of stretches, following a specific skin care routine, drinking turmeric, eating a handful of nuts. In an attempt to manage my goals, I had to take an inventory, and was shocked to find how many things I did each day simply because someone, somewhere, said it would make me a better person. This exchange came back to me while I was researching my book on work ethic and idleness, as did my son’s offhand remark to a friend that his mom “doesn’t actually know how to relax.” In essence, my years of research into society’s obsession with productivity were an attempt to solve a personal problem: my own obsession with goal-setting and to-do lists.

Choosing to relax doesn’t make you lazy.” There was a moment of silence and then my friend responded, “Celeste, you are the most un-lazy person I think I’ve ever met. At one point, while talking to a friend on the phone, I remarked that I was being lazy and not working on my chore list. And if I sat on the couch at the end of a long day and read a book instead of planting bulbs in the garden, or ordered takeout instead of cooking the healthy dinner that I’d planned, I would berate myself. I wasn’t setting one goal, I was setting dozens.

Instead, I added digital tools that promised to help me track my exercise, my water consumption, my sleep, my meditation, birthday cards I needed to send, and just about every aspect of my life that I wanted to improve.

I would make long lists of tasks I wanted to accomplish and I would not stop working, even on weekends, until there were checkmarks in every box.Īs I got older and technology surged forward, I never stopped using my paper planner.

It must have been an amusing sight to see: a short, curly-haired kid lugging a heavy, two-inch think organizer around and furrowing her brow as she consulted it to check her calendar. I still remember the thrill I felt when I bought a Day Runner system in 1982, when I was 12 years old. I really like daily planners and journals.

Celeste headlee do nothing