Confusing motion for progress.

Let me tell you the story of Buck Baker. A true story. He had done all the things he was supposed to do. He graduated from Columbia University, then from Harvard Business School. He joined the ranks of a Fortune 500 company. He put in the long workdays he believed were expected of him. Ninety hours per week, even on vacations and holidays, never left the office before his boss. Sometimes it felt as though he never left the office at all. 

Baker slept with his phone next to his pillow. Sleep was an inconvenience. He responded to email first thing. Sometimes during the night if he stirred, and continuously throughout the day. Baker believed he epitomised efficiency. He travelled so much for work that he earned the highest frequent flyer status on United. He gained so many frequent flyer points that the level didn't even have a name. He was also on the board of six companies across four continents.

Once - after surgery - he insisted on returning to the office the following day against his doctor's orders. He had to leave a board meeting three times to throw up in the bathroom. When he returned, a colleague said he looked green. Still, he powered through. He had come to believe that hard work is the key to everything you want in life. It was his mindset. Your work ethic was evidence of your character, and he had taken this to the next level. 

He didn't just think that working endless hours would lead to success. To him, it was success. If you didn't stay late at work; if you don't respond immediately; if you're not perennially available; you must not have a very important job. 

Baker assumed that in the end, his long hours would pay off. Then one day, he woke up to find himself working for a bankrupt company. The company was AIG. The year was 2008 his stock had fallen 97%.

All the late nights at the office. All the countless redeye flights to China and Europe. All the missed celebrations, weddings, parties, birthdays had been for nothing. He had given himself no time to think of diversifying his interests or his accumulated wealth - it was all in AIG. In the months after the financial crisis hit, Baker couldn't get out of bed. He started having night sweats. His vision blurred. He couldn't see clearly for months. He was floundering, lost; he was sick with stress.

Baker had constructed a life without any idleness. His relentless drive for efficiency - as he had come to understand it - became his enemy.

Many of life's problems come from a lack of idleness. Once you find yourself overworked and overwhelmed, descending into procrastination despite wanting to change, hamstrung and unable to respond to new opportunities: you need more idleness in your life.

Contrast Baker with Tony McNamara. A CEO with a reputation for incredible productivity. Well known as a wise decision-maker, his office would surprise you. It is far from a hive of activity. The people around him appear to be doing very little. Outside his office, his secretary seldom seems busy at all. An observer might ask why Tony would squander money on idle staff. 

But with more observation, you would realise your initial impression is wrong. His staff indeed do nothing some of the time. But once a request, instruction, or alert comes from Tony, they leap into action. Without delay: key calls made. Emails sent. Appointments rescheduled. Documents found and data collated for presentation. Any time he has a problem, his staff solve it right away. There is no to-do list. No ticket system.

As a result, Tony's day is smooth and efficient. Tony embodies long-term efficiency. His time overwhelmingly goes on the essential part of his work: making decisions. Not on dealing with trivial inconveniences. His high work efficiency means his life can be more diversified. Tony has a diversified portfolio. Broad interests. Deep relationships with people not related to work that he prioritises.

All that time his staff spend doing nothing isn't wasted time. It's idleness: excess capacity allowing for responsiveness and flexibility. The idle time is crucial because it means there is never a backlog of tasks to complete. They can always deal with anything new straight away. Their role is to ensure Tony is only as busy as he should be. Not to be as busy as humanly possible.

Many people and organisations obsess over the concept of efficiency. They seek to make every resource as utilised as possible. Entire business models are based upon advising other businesses on how to squeeze every drop of free time out of every resource. Zero idleness is the goal.

Many of us are wholly occupied with the misconception of total efficiency. We schedule every minute of our day. We pride ourselves on continuous work and chastise ourselves for the smallest infraction. Sleep, sickness, and burnout are considered a weakness by another name. We idolise those who never seem to succumb to them. But this view fails to recognise that efficiency and effectiveness are not the same.

Idleness is the degree of freedom required to effect change. Idleness represents operational capacity sacrificed in the interests of long-term health.

Idleness allows us to handle the inevitable surprises and volatility of life. If each moment of our existence is scheduled, we can't slow down to recover from minor obstacles or significant hurdles. Only when we are zero per cent busy can we step back and look at the bigger picture of what we are doing. Idleness allows us to think ahead. To think long-term and to consider whether we are on the right trajectory. To contemplate unseen problems and to mull over information. To avoid poor decisions and bad investments.

We almost always achieve far more in the long run when we have idleness. We are more productive when we do less.

Being comfortable with sometimes being zero per cent busy means we think about whether we are doing the right thing. This contrasts with grabbing the first task we see, so no one assumes we're lazy. If we see our buffer shrinking and stay busy, the only possible solution is to work slower.

The secret to doing good work, investing well, and having a full life is always to slightly underemployed; you waste years by not being able to waste hours. Those wasted hours are necessary to figure out if you're headed in the right direction or making the right decision at any given point.