I believe that doing nothing, on purpose, especially for prolonged time (months, years), especially in solitude, is often _the_ most productive, highest leverage activity of all that an individual can be doing. The reason is that our subconscious is way more powerful than our conscious. The logical reasoning engine in our brain is really quite basic. Think a silly 8-bit console emulator running on an an actual modern piece of hardware (subconscious brain). And so relying on subconscious is somewhat like using hardware acceleration. The brain often knows better, but you cannot quite articulate what it is that needs to be done or why. And if you keep ignoring that signal, keep silencing it, keep forcing "doing the right thing" over what it's trying to tell you - that's a recipe for failure. You better listen. How? By doing nothing to the point of getting bored and looking how to "kill time". That's when your subconscious is finally heard. It keeps gently nudging you in the right direction without revealing the grander plan. Perhaps it doesn't have a plan; or perhaps it does but you're better off not knowing it. I also believe that procrastination is an acute case of the same. Your subconscious is screaming - hey human, this activity, this project, this job doesn't quite make sense. Again, you better listen. Otherwise you'll perhaps get more stuff done - but the wrong kind of stuff. Personally I'm looking back at my own timeline, and the gaps between jobs when I was up to nothing whatsoever as some of the most productive periods of my life. Not in a "I did X" way - more like, "I became more of what I want to be faster than at any other time".