'Do nothing' also has its own power!

This is the story of Aytekin Tank, Medium's member and the founder of JotForm. He is also the leading writer in business, entrepreneurship, leadership, inspiration, technology and meaningful life lessons. Let's watch what you want to say through this story.

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The old crocodile was floating, he took a nap at the edge of the river when a young crocodile swam to:

"I hear people say you're the best hunter in every riverbed, can you teach me?"

Awakened, the crocodile glanced at the young man but did not bother to reply, then returned to his sleep on the water.

Young crocodiles feel extremely disappointed and not respected, it swims upstream to chase catfish, water bubbles follow his swimming rhythm forever. The crocodile said to himself, "I've shown it to him."

After a day, the young alligator returned to the crocodile, who was still sleeping. It began to tell him about his successful hunt:

"You've caught two catfish today. How about you? What did you catch? Nothing at all? Perhaps you're not a scary hunter like everyone else is. "

Once again, the crocodile just glanced at the young crocodile, said nothing, closed his eyes and continued to float on the water, leaving the tiny minnows snuggled into the algae under his belly.

The young crocodile wants to go mad, it is extremely angry at the crocodile's reaction. He decided to swim upstream again to prove his hunting ability.

After a few hours, he had hunted a small crane. Smiling satisfactorily, he clamped the crane in his mouth and swam towards the crocodile with a determination to show him that he was really a good predator.

As they approached, the young crocodile still found the crocodile floating at the edge of the river. However, something has changed - a huge wildebeest is drinking afternoon water, just a little bit away from the crocodile. As fast as lightning, the crocodile rushed out of the water, sharp teeth clenching the antelope and pulling it into the river.

Terrified, the young crocodile swam to the small crane hanging from his mouth and watched the crocodile enjoying a nutritious meal. Every word burst out of his mouth, he asked the crocodile: "You . you just . tell me . how . can you do that?

Finally, the crocodile also responded:

"I didn't do anything."

Do what is more important than just showing off.

When I first built JotForm, I (the author of the article) was like a young crocodile, believing that he had to always do something to get results.

Back then, if anyone told me I would see better results by spending more time doing nothing, I would just roll my eyes @@ and continue to plug in for 16 hours a day.

I think that to succeed, we must constantly build, work, grow and develop the next milestones, regardless of the milestones.

We all have problems with busyness. But busy and successful do not go together. And, I think if we prioritize "doing nothing" more, we can catch more wildebeest than catfish.

This trick worked for me, and I hope it will be right for you.

But, doing less or doing nothing is an easy task to say, especially in a society that is always extremely busy. Take a closer look at this "busy" obsession.

Infectious disease called "busy"

The whole mankind has struggled with busy for a long time - at least since 425 BC, when Homer wrote the Odyssey (who is the author of the Odyssey is still controversial, but Homer is widely recognized. more widely and the author of the article also wrote so I leave it so).

The epic Odyssey tells the story of lotus-eaters - a group of strange people who eat lotus flowers all day and do nothing. Strangely, they are satisfied with that life.

Homer wrote that after some people went with Odysseus to eat lotus flowers, they also became like Lotus-eaters: satisfied, relaxed and slightly indifferent. Afraid that if all those lotus-eating men lost their motivation to return home, Odysseus had ordered the affected men tied to the chair and left the boat immediately.

Interestingly, Odysseus's response to "doing nothing" sounds like a business executive, startup founder, football coach in the university we meet today - public addicts and despise anything related to complacency (self-satisfaction about what you have achieved, without having to try harder).

Of course, they are just the tip of a much larger social ice, where people are frozen with fear when they think about doing nothing. The whole world measures value in the relationship between busyness and quality of work. It even became a status symbol called "busy".

How many times have you heard or yourself experienced a conversation like this:

- How are you recently, Mark?

- Busy, I can't raise my head, sir.

- Great, try to get up to him.

Unconsciously, we have measured the value of others based on the number of hours they work, the problems they have to deal with, regardless of whether they look like a madman whirling around in a mountain of work.

At Tim Ferriss's 4-Hour Work Week, the author teased this thought by saying: if you want to promote, you should be more busy by working more hours, adding more work to people and constantly paying email.

But sooner or later, we all have to wonder what our mission is? The busiest or create the most impact?

It is fascinating to look at the achievements of the world's greatest minds and we realize one thing in common - they all take the time to "do nothing".

The power of not doing anything

Taking the time to do nothing is really a big challenge in your life. Especially during the working week, we are always pent up and "terrorized" with meetings, announcements, and a to-do list.

The founders of the busiest corporations are at the forefront of deploying "Think Weeks" in their annual schedules. One week Think Weeks it's time to "do nothing", just to rethink, read, think and separate from the world is constantly reeling out there. They are Mike Karnjanaprakorn of Skillshare, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Ferriss and even Bill Gates. It was Bill Gates who made Think Weeks famous.

During Microsoft operations, Gates will have 2 times Think Weeks in a year. It is not a holiday, but a period of time for "doing nothing". Gates was very disciplined with his Think Weeks, during which time he was completely separate from his family, friends and Microsoft employees. He admits that most of Microsoft's success comes from ideas and concepts that arise when he does nothing.

Make "do nothing"

You don't need to do the same as Gates to get Think Weeks. Take me as an example. Every year, I quit at least 1 week and returned home to help my parents harvest olives.

All thoughts about developing startups or conversion rates will disappear when you pick olives. That is the state of meditation and tranquility. Although I know that picking olives doesn't put me on top of TechCrunch, it's a personal measure of success. And somehow, good ideas often come to me during this time.

For those who can't take a week off from work every year to "do nothing" they can access this in a different way, take advantage of the holidays. On Saturdays and Sundays, give up all technology equipment, turn off your smartphone and hide it. Turn off the laptop power and put it under the bed. Try to refrain from watching Netflix, reading love stories, watching movies.

Let your brain have free space to think by getting out of the daily work cycle and doing nothing. Your mind will have time to find new ideas and continue to handle old ideas.

The result will come to you like it came to the crocodile at the beginning of the article.

Although, we tell ourselves that we can achieve more by scouring everywhere, but sometimes what we should do is close our eyes and lie still.

And, wait, until the wildebeest appears .