Inertia of Activity

How do you feel when you are busy? Not so busy that you don’t feel like you will ever catch up, but just busy enough. If you are like me, you feel energized, stimulated, motivated, engaged and ready to take on the next challenge.

How do you feel when you have finished your to-do list and have taken the day (or the weekend) off to lounge around? Maybe you binge-watched Netflix, floated around YouTube, got lost in social media, took a nap, or read a book. Do you feel relaxed, well-rested, and ready for a new challenge? I have found that reactions to days off vary, but that I end up restless, bored and anxious but unable or unwilling to settle into a fun or productive activity after engaging in a truly lazy day.

Inertia of Activity

I call this the inertia of activity. In physics, inertia is the tendency of an object in motion to remain in motion or an object at rest to remain at rest until an external force produces a change. In human behavior, inertia of activity has more to do with habits and motivation. Once a habit of inactivity is developed, it can be hard to break – even when the habit is not beneficial or is not bringing joy and fulfillment to the individual.

I can fall into this habit in a matter of hours! When I start my day with social media, TV or other mind-numbing activities, it takes a powerful force of will on my part to salvage my day and re-direct it in a more productive, positive and entertaining direction.

Getting out of your state of inactivity and back into productivity will take something different for each of us. The external force in your case of inertia of activity might be your parents yelling at you to get up, your professor threatening to fail you in her class, or your roommate making so much noise that you can’t stand to be in your room anymore. Perhaps relying on others to push you out of your state of inactivity has worked in the past – your family has been there to keep you on track. Now that you are on your own at college though, what is your plan to overcome the inertia of activity?

Finding Balance

It isn’t healthy for any of us to be productive and working hard all the time. Nor is it healthy for us to live lives of leisure and indolence. Finding the balance between activity and inactivity, work and play, exertion and recovery, inhale and exhale and learning to shift between the two states at will is a crucial skill.

Try following these steps to help yourself gain balance:

1) Know thyself – How do you feel when you are too busy, bored or engaged? Pay attention to your emotions and physical state as you move through your day and through these levels of activity. When you are too busy, you might feel stressed or overwhelmed. Your heart rate might rise and you might feel unable to focus. In a state of boredom, you might feel tired, restless or irritable. When you are engaged, you might feel a sense of flow – an unawareness of the passing of time because you are immersed in what you are doing. You might also feel calm and energized and have a deep sense of satisfaction. The more aware you are of your own responses and needs, the better you will be able to recognize when you need to make a change.

2) Work on transitions – Given the inertia of activity, it can be hard to move from boredom into engagement or from engagement to frenzied activity. Building natural bridges from one state into another into your day can help ease those transitions. You could use mealtimes, your class schedule, your work schedule, the time your favorite TV show is on or any other natural break in your day to build these bridges and signal to yourself that it is time to switch gears. Anchoring a transition to something else which is already happening, makes it easier to remember and a more natural part of your day. The more predictable your bridges from one day to the next are, the better you will be able to navigate those transitions.

3) Give yourself a break – Even after you have built natural transitions into your day, you might need to be gentle with yourself as you move from one state to the next. Maybe you need to give yourself 30 minutes after an overwhelming morning of lectures (too busy) to check your social media accounts and meet friends for lunch (relaxed/bored) before you tackle a challenging assignment for one of your classes (engaged). Listen to your mind and your body. If the transition you had in mind isn’t working for you, change it.

4) Plan ahead – It is easier to make a shift in your activity level if you have a crystal clear idea of what you are going to do next. When it’s time to call it quits on school work for the day, what are you going to do next? When it’s time to get back to work after a day off, which assignment do you need to work on first and what exactly do you need to do? Having a concrete to-do list which spells out exactly what you need to do after you make a transition eases the burden for your already stressed brain. Now you only have to deal with convincing yourself to get started rather than figuring out what it is you need to do while you are still preoccupied with the last thing you were doing.

5) Evaluate – If you are consistently feeling overwhelmed or bored by your daily schedule, evaluate what you are doing with your time and what changes you can make to increase the amount of time you spend feeling engaged. There will be periods of our lives when we can’t do much to ease the feeling of being too busy – finals week anyone? But being too busy for months or years on end is sure to lead to burn out and unhappiness. What are you doing which is not bringing you joy and is not leading your any closer to your vision for your future? Is what you are doing making you feel bored or overwhelmed? Can you stop doing it and replace it with something more in line with your values and your vision?

Coaching can teach you to marshal the force of will you need to create positive inertia in you day. Through the coaching process, you will develop enough self-awareness to recognize when you need to rest and recover and when you need to start moving again. You will also adopt an attitude of responsibility for yourself, your actions and inactions, and your inertia. Self-awareness and responsibility breed the empowerment which you need to change your own state of mind and to break out of the doldrums of inactivity.

Have you been caught in the clutches of the inertia of activity? Do you have the skills to move beyond those periods of inactivity? Would you like to learn those skills and be more empowered to make a difference in your own life? Give coaching a try and watch your world change.