Reclaiming Your Junk Time
Published on August 20, 2023
Beau Miles is a junk evangelist. He teaches you there is more you can do with junk than you realize. He’s made films on a junk office, paddle, wine, gifts, and even picking up junk.
Maybe his most revelatory film about junk is one where he runs a marathon at 1 mile an hour for 24 hours and he makes things, does odd jobs, and fixes stuff in between. It makes you realize how much you can get done in the day. If you focus on tasks usually relegated to “junk time,” you realize how important those tasks are.
People never think about the time that isn’t work but not leisure either. This is my definition of junk time. You can do a lot with your junk time, but if you don’t have a plan for it, it gets wasted.
Where does the junk time go?
If you use the analogy of your time like a big jar:
- Big projects and responsibilities are big rocks.
- Tasks and chores are small rocks.
- Sand is junk time filling all the space in between.
A lot of junk time comes from situations where you are waiting. It is waiting to get somewhere, finish something, start something else, or waiting for other people to do the same. Junk time is all around us but never acknowledged.
It is cliche to say that the phone is a black hole for attention. Apps like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube take all the time you want to give them. Any moment you aren’t focused, they make it easy and stimulating to focus on them. Not only do these apps make it easy to sacrifice our junk time, but they reward us for doing it. This creates a feedback loop capturing more and more of our junk time.
The problem with losing this time is that wasted time adds up, both over a day and a life. Luckily, if you’re conscious of it, there are ways to take back your junk time.
How to reclaim your junk time
If you don’t want your junk time wasted, what is the alternative? Two options:
- Have less of it by spending more time working on non-junk time things (like work and leisure). There’s lots of writing about maximizing both, so I won’t focus on this one.
- Create a system for your junk time better.
Creating a system for utilizing junk time is a 4-step process:
- Have an overarching goal for your time like getting smarter or being present.
- Remove any preconceived notion of what progress toward that goal looks like. Get rid of the idea that progress needs large amounts of time and effort to happen. You can make progress on your goal beyond “work.”
- Decide on a way to make progress on your goal in your junk time. Making a bit of progress with your junk time is a positive.
- Give yourself the tools to make progress. Use tools to make the starting cost as low as possible. For example, if you decide progress is writing more, get a notebook and pen you can take wherever. If it is being present, build the skill to meditate in a short amount of time.
How pros use their junk time
As Beau Miles shows, beautiful things can come from junk. Here are more examples of good things coming from junk time:
- Ed Sheeran wrote the mega-hit “Love Yourself” on the tour bus after a concert.
- Devon Rodriguez went viral for his doodles of people on the subway.
- Ted Gioia became well-read by reading when he woke up, at lunch, at dinner, and before sleep throughout his entire life.
- Sasha Chapin made a bunch of connections with people by being extroverted and chatting with seemingly random people.
- Lauren Berlant is “one of the most esteemed and influential literary and cultural critics in the United States” and recommends writing anytime, anywhere.
- Meditation brings people contentment and you can do it anytime, anywhere as well.
Every second counts
Why does utilizing your junk time matter? Because every second counts. This doesn’t mean you need to be grinding 24/7 like you are a LinkedIn influencer in search of a bag. It means you should think about how you spend your time and use it wisely.
An episode from the second season of The Bear (spoilers for S2 E7) provides an example of this. One of the characters learns when someone doesn’t do their job in the restaurant, it causes knock-on effects that compound for everyone else. Every second counts as an individual because every second counts as an organization trying to provide the best experience possible.
He also learns that every second counts because it should matter how you spend your time as an individual. If you’ve decided to try to succeed at something, what’s the point in not going all the way?
Eventually, towards the end of the episode, he meets the head chef peeling mushrooms, a task she could leave it for an underling. She does it because it is “time well spent.” The character realizes an important life lesson, that every second counts for himself as an individual, and spending it well is all you can ask for.
When you make use of your junk time, you are creating time well spent. That’s the best use of time you can ask for.
Let me know what you think onTwitter.