The importance of quiet time

I’ve had a Post-It in my day planner for at least 3 weeks that says, “Write blog post about quiet time.” Ironically, I have not had enough quiet time to actually write a blog post about quiet time. This is…troubling. And, according to Alan Lightman, a physicist and writer, it’s a sign of the times.

In a TED-Ed post entitled “Why We Owe It to Ourselves to Spend Quiet Time Alone Every Day,” Lightman says: 

“The loss of slowness, of time for reflection and contemplation, of privacy and solitude, of silence, of the ability to sit quietly in a chair for fifteen minutes without external stimulation — all have happened quickly and almost invisibly…

The situation is dire. Just as with global warming, we may already be near the point of no return. Invisibly, almost without notice, we are losing ourselves. We are losing our ability to know who we are and what is important to us. We are creating a global machine in which each of us is a mindless and reflexive cog, relentlessly driven by the speed, noise, and artificial urgency of the wired world.”

Lightman likens this destruction of quiet time to global warming, thereby putting it in the category of Modern-Day Catastrophes. He puts into words what’s been nagging at me for several years now. I’ve been aware of this loss of quiet time; I just wasn’t able to articulate my concerns as eloquently as Lightman.

Recently, I’ve started paying attention to the weekly notifications on my phone that report my screen time. The first one I saw said, “1 hour and 45 minutes,” and I thought, “Oh, that’s not bad.” I thought it was for the whole week. That was my daily average. Meaning, per week, I spend roughly 14 hours on my phone. 14 HOURS!

What did I used to do with those hours before smart phones? It’s hard to remember. I know I read more. I always had a book with me. Now, if I’m waiting for an appointment or whatever, I scroll through social media. I’ve been making a point of putting a book back in my purse.

I’m sure I wrote more, too. Or at least wrote with more concentration and fewer distractions. My writing process has become very…piecemeal. A paragraph here and there. I rarely get the hours of flow that I used to love. I mean, I have a kid, so that’s a big part of it. But changes in society are a big part of it, too. There is so much distraction and so much urgency now. There are multiple news cycles per day, making you feel like you’re missing out if you’re not constantly refreshing CNN.com. Most of us are bombarded with hundreds of Facebook and Instagram posts per day. Text messages pop up all the time. The workplace is run by emails (I was away from my computer for an hour the other day and came back to 60 emails in my inbox). It’s impossible to keep up, but we try, and in doing so, we sacrifice any quiet time.

I do not like this. For obvious reasons. I’m a writer. I need quiet time. I need it not just to produce stories, but for my sanity. I’m also a reader. I don’t think anything quite compares to sitting down with a book (or an e-reader, if you like). It requires a dedicated effort. It requires closing the door on a thousand other things you could be doing. That choice is so indulgent and empowering and amazing.

I admit that I’ve been listening to more and more books in recent years, because then I’m killing 2 proverbial birds with 1 stone. Our modern world mandates efficiency and I’ve taken that to heart without even realizing it. With audio books, I can go for a run and “read.” I can drive to work and “read.” To me, this doesn’t count as “quiet time.” This is more “filling time,” another example of how technology has made us all addicted to being stimulated every moment of the day. That said, I enjoy listening to books, so I’ll still do it. But I don’t ever want to give up the time I spend just reading either. 

Now that I have a kid, I think a lot about how younger generations are growing up and what they consider “normal.” Will my daughter even enjoy quiet time? Or will it be totally odd to her because she was born into a world of constant noise? Is the desire for quiet time innate in us as humans? If it is, how do we encourage young people to carve out that time for themselves? What’s the risk if we don’t–an epidemic of depression and anxiety? 

I know, for me, quiet time is absolutely necessary. I’m a classic introvert. I get incredibly anxious if I don’t have time to organize my thoughts and just be. And, seeing how I’ve given up quiet time almost without realizing (to the tune of 14 hours a week), I’m making more of an effort to get it back. I told a friend a little while ago, “I feel like I have no internal life anymore.” I often say I’m “stressed” or “feeling scattered.” For me, this is all symptomatic of not having enough quiet time, so I’ll see if things improve as I reclaim some.

Beyond myself, I would argue that quiet time is necessary for all of us. All of us can benefit from setting time aside to think, to “know who we are and what is important to us,” as Lightman says. Otherwise, we’re just clicking and tapping and reacting to the thousands of stimuli we receive every day. And that can’t be good, right?

How important is quiet time to you? What are your tips for maintaining quiet time in today’s world?