Do Nothing For 24 Hours, because 2 minutes is too easy. (donothingfor24hours.com)

9 points by andrewingram ↗ HN
I like the idea behind "Do nothing for 2 minutes", it does a good job of identifying a problem that afflicts many of us who are permanently wired to a handful of different real-time news sources.

So to be a little tongue-in-cheek, and a little bit serious. I put this together quickly to get people thinking about Mindfulness, which has already helped me in the few short weeks I've practicing it.

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Because someone always has to outdo the last guy. -sigh-
Guilty as charged :p

Still, I could have gone with donothingfor120seconds.

I made this because I liked the idea of donothingfor2minutes.com, it does a good job of illustrating a problem that people genuinely do have.

My original intention was to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. But I decided instead to push people towards mindfulness, which i've only been trying for a couple of weeks but has already started to help me with some of my problems.

Does studying for exams count as doing nothing?

It's certainly not accomplishing anything very meaningful :P

One thing is for sure, every time you do that the rest of the world gets ahead of you by a full day.

Really, instead of doing nothing for 24 hours or even 2 minutes try to really concentrate on what you're doing for a change. People - all people, not just programmers - are wired to do stuff, not to do nothing. And it's surprisingly hard to give something your full attention.

We are far too easily distracted and 'doing nothing' is just as hard as concentrating on one task for the exact same reason: you are easily distracted.

The attempt to concentrate fully on a productive task is a far more useful way to spend that time, and it doesn't have to be some 'set' time either.

I agree, except for the first bit. It's not helpful to think of life as a race, leave that thinking for business time. It doesn't matter if you reach your 'goals' at 30 or 50 or never, the important thing is to live life along the way.

24 hours was never intended as a serious suggestion, it was supposed to be a hook to get people thinking about the very things you've mentioned.

> One thing is for sure, every time you do that the rest of the world gets ahead of you by a full day.

Employers who have people working on their factories 16 hours per day must think the same thing.

Clever, but the title here says 'do nothing for 24 hours'.
Yes, but it's not like if you stop for one day then the rest of the world gets ahead of you. If that's the case either you're working on something to be the first (nothing against that), or you are solving the wrong problem to begin with.