I remember one time as a kid, I was home alone, sitting in one part of the apartment.
“All right,” I said to myself. “Time to go sit in the other part of the apartment now. Let’s go.”
But nothing happened.
Because I was at home, and alone, it was a very low-stakes situation. So I just kept sitting there, and observed the strangeness of it.
“Let’s go now,” I said again to myself.
Still nothing. So I sat and waited, knowing that eventually something would happen.
And sure enough, at some point a little later, my body, on its own, without any seeming command from me, got up and moved to the other room.
I’m reading a book now called A Life of One’s Own. It records the experiences of one woman, Marion Milner, who decided to keep a close eye on her own mind, what makes her happy, what she really wants out of life, what she can do to get more of it.
Last night, as I was reading this book, I came across the following passage:
“The function of will might be to stand back, to wait, not to push.”
Milner wrote that for much of her life, she thought there were two possible paths through life. One was the path of the whip, of using her will to force and push herself to move. The other path was a kind of negation of the will, a cow-like acceptance of whatever happens.
But in time, Milner realized there might be a third path. That’s what the quote above is about.
Maybe it’s not about sitting around like a cow… or of whipping yourself until you finally act… but of using the will in some other way, to stand back, to wait.
This reminded me of something else I read recently, about “free won’t.”
You might know about neuroscience experiments that show our actions and choices are detectable in the brain a good fraction of a second before we become consciously aware of them — ie. before we consciously “decide” on them.
This has led some people to conclude there’s no such thing as free will.
What you might not know are some equally interesting neuroscience experiments, in fact by some of the same neuroscientists as above. These other experiments show that in that fraction of a second from the time that our brain decides to do something to the time it actually happens, the conscious mind can veto the decision, and stop it from being carried into action.
Hence, even if we don’t have free will… we might still have “free won’t.”
I don’t know what this all neuroscience really means in practical terms. But the first part, about actions and choices coming from somewhere outside our consciousness, meshes with my life experiences, such as the one I had as a kid, telling myself to move, and having nothing happen.
The second part, about the power of the conscious veto, meshes with what Milner is saying, and some of my other life experiences.
In fact, I wrote an email almost two years ago, back on March 23, 2022, about how I’d started taking 7 minutes to do nothing before I got to work.
My 7-minute productivity hack involved just sitting and staring and allowing myself to get antsy. When the seven minutes were up, I found I was ready and eager to start work, instead of having to force and push myself.
At the time, I didn’t make the leap that this could be more broadly useful. But it’s something I’ve realized over the past few months. I call it Boredom Therapy. Here’s an example session:
1. Say I sit down to read a book like Milner’s. It’s going great for a couple minutes. But suddenly I get the idea, “Let me check my email. Maybe there’s something exciting waiting for me!”
2. If I catch that thought early enough, it’s easy to stop myself, at least once, from going and checking my email. But here’s the crucial part.
At this point, I don’t just force myself to go back to reading, even though my thoughts are clearly elsewhere, and even though the email-checking idea is almost bound to pop up again soon.
Instead, I put the book down, and I just do… nothing. I allow my thoughts to run as they will, and I just sit there.
3. In time, my thoughts get spent, and I get eager to read the book again.
I still wait a moment to make sure this is not a trick my thoughts are playing on me — another form of restlessness.
If it is a little trick, then I just keep waiting and doing nothing. Otherwise, I lift the book off my chest (I tend to read lying on the couch), and I pick up reading where I left off.
I used the example of reading a book to show how I use Boredom Therapy. But Boredom Therapy is just as good for getting work done… or for exercising at the gym (when I think, “I’m not feeling it, let’s go home”)… or, if Milner is right, for living your life in general, the way you want to, and enjoying the process.
I realize this might all sound vague or fluffy or even a little suspicious. After all, you’ve probably never heard of Marion Milner before, and you don’t know why you should listen to her. And as for me, I have a long and public track record of magical, impractical, and even nonsensical thinking.
So let me tell you one last story. It has to do with an A-list copywriter, Gene Schwartz.
Schwartz had enough time in his life to write several books about copywriting, including possibly the greatest book in the field, Breakthrough Advertising.
He was also a published biblical scholar.
And of course, he wrote hundreds of sales letters for himself and for his clients, which paid for his Park Avenue penthouse, his world-class art collection, and his Manhattan millionaire lifestyle.
Schwartz did all this by working just three hours a day.
He famously had a kitchen timer that he set for 33 minutes and 33 seconds. He worked in these half-hour blocks, and then he took a break.
These 33:33 time blocks are what people today tend to focus on. But if you ask me, it’s the wrong thing to focus on.
The right thing is exactly what I’ve been telling you, Boredom Therapy, because Schwartz practiced the same. In his own words:
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I have no goals for the next 33.33 minutes except to work on the copy.
Okay, I don’t have to work on the copy. There is absolutely no necessity for me to work on the copy.
I can sit there. I can stare. I can drink the coffee. I can stare some more, drink some more coffee.
I can do anything in the world except… not get up from the desk, not even write my own name. I just sit there.
Sooner or later, I’ll get bored. My boredom comes in one or two minutes.
Then, I begin looking at the copy. As I look at the copy, I begin paging up and down, and as I do that, something reaches out from that computer and grabs me, and says, “Hey, aren’t I beautiful? Hey, aren’t I powerful? Hey, start with me.”
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By the way, that quote is part of a talk that Schwartz gave at Rodale Press.
To my knowledge, Schwartz’s talk is not available anywhere for free. But it is available as a free bonus if you buy Brian Kurtz’s book Overdeliver, which sells for $12.69 in Kindle format on Amazon.
In fact, this Gene Schwartz talk is part of a dozen bonuses, which sold for hundreds of dollars worth of real value in their time, which Brian has been giving away to buyers of Overdeliver.
If you ask me, it’s the absolute best deal in direct marketing land.
Not because you pay $12.69 to get hundreds of dollars’ worth of books, trainings, and courses.
But because the direct marketing wisdom in these books, trainings, and courses, much of it not available anywhere else, like Schwartz’s talk, has directly been worth tens of thousands of dollars to me so far… and will be worth much more in time, as I continue to revisit, rediscover, and apply the ideas in these free bonuses.
if you want to benefit from this incredible collection also, here’s where to go: