Why You Need to Embrace Your Inner Kindergartner
Remember how amazing the kindergarten years were? I don't know about you, but back when I attended North Forestville Elementary our teachers gave us a 30 to 60 minute block of free time that allowed our creativity to run amuck. We could play in the fake kitchen, read in the reading corner, or play with blocks. Since this was over 30 years ago, I don’t remember much more than that, but my point is, we had a dedicated time to do as we pleased. This was our time to be ourselves without much direction and it balanced out the day, leaving us feeling refreshed and ready for the next activity.
The importance of playing around
All of these kindergarten memories were kicked back up after I read a Productivityist email from Mike Vardy with the subject line “Why You Need to Fool Around.”
In the newsletter, Vardy emphasizes the importance of adults introducing play time into their everyday lives and he provided a few interesting articles to back his argument up.
Personally, I couldn’t agree more. While it may seem counter-intuitive, allowing yourself some time to goof off can actually make you more productive.
You know those “ah-ha!” moments you have? It’s no coincidence that most of them happen in the shower or while you’re driving your car to work. Your brain needs time to do something else, to be distracted, and get refreshed.
If you need further proof, I found this case study to be very persuasive:
“Instead of staggering employees’ coffee breaks as it [Bank of America] had previously, it aligned their breaks to allow more chatter. The result, Bank of America told MIT a few months later: productivity gains worth about $15 million a year.” (Mining Human Behavior At MIT)
Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of dollars. Who said play time doesn’t pay off?
Scheduling time for play
So, my suggestion—no, my entreaty—to you is to find a time of day where you can be free to do whatever you want (within reason!). It can be 15 minutes or an hour—depending on your schedule—where you let creativity run amuck.
I started getting up about 30-45 minutes earlier in the day just so I could incorporate some play time in my life. I'm a night-owl by nature so this is a pretty big deal. I'm also more of a kinetic-doer at night (cleaning the kitchen, sorting papers from the day, etc.) and more of a thinker (writing a blog post, reading or studying spiritual matters, etc.) in the morning. Morning is when it's quiet and I feel like I'm up before the rest of the world, so it’s the perfect time for me—and my schedule—to sneak in some play time. I schedule time on the weekends for refreshment and when I have nothing planned I try to avoid filling the time with work but doing something relaxing like painting or coloring in my adult coloring book.
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| Here’s one of my masterpieces |
Even though the days spent playing in fake kitchens may be gone, it’s important to let our workaholic-selves sit down and let our inner kindergartener out to play. We might find our lives a bit more productive and a lot more fulfilled as a result! What do you like to do to “play”?
