When We Had Time to Let Our Minds Wander
Not too long ago (at least in my mind), I lived in Chicago. I found Public Transit fascinating. You mean I can get somewhere and NOT have to drive?
No road rage.
No printed out maps (ok maybe it was long ago).
No internal calculation around how much farther I could drive on empty.
It was great. Me. My new Ipod. And a window to stare out of.
In a city where the hustle was real, I found myself lost in my music, staring into space, allowing my mind to meander from thought to thought.
Sometimes I forgot my magazine or puzzle. My mind would recover by slipping in and out of thought, meandering where ever it wanted. People would sometimes share a newspaper they would finish. Other times I just stared.
Chicago effected my nervous system a lot more than my time in the South. But on those rides, I had room to let my mind and body take a long pause. Every day.
As a dad or four, interruptions to my thinking are as plentiful as weeds in my lawn.
Screams.
Tears.
Fights.
Requests for homework help.
Sports schedules.
The pauses I had in Chicago feel almost impossible now a days. Even when I have the chance, my hand somehow always grabs my phone. My face opens it with zero effort, and my thumb takes over before I realize what has happened.
It could happen at a stop light. A Starbucks line. Halftime during a kids game.
I am beginning to think that these are the dad-versions of staring out a train window. But I often don’t notice that opportunity until its gone…
or until some angry driver behind me honks their horn because the light has turned green.
Learning to Find The Time to Pause
A fellow dad writer has been commuting across London without his phone, spending two hours a day doing what I used to do on the train: mostly nothing. He describes realizing one day that he’d picked up his phone without remembering deciding to.
I know that feeling. Nowadays, I can barely muster a one minute pause once I am lost in ignorant algorithm bliss.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the long pause. The one Chicago use to give me without me needing to plan it. The kind of space my mind could wander around in for a while.
With 4 boys, a full schedule, and a dad still trying to ward of the dreaded double chin…
I keep telling myself I don’t have time for that.
Sure, influencers online will tell me to just wake up earlier.
Cool internet bro! You have you, your feed, your macros, and your workout plan to worry about.
But I am beginning to recognize the moments in my day that the time I need is already there.
In the Starbucks line.
At halftime.
On the drive to the gym, when I could leave the podcast off and let my thoughts go wherever they go. The “hard” part is noticing it before I fill it. Maybe that’s why I am starting to see those moments as what they really are…
sacred.
No one is asking anything of me. I don’t need to ask anything of myself either. I can just take a long pause.
Support: Mind Wandering and Undemanding Activities
Researchers studying creativity found something interesting: people who spent a break doing an undemanding activity that encouraged mind wandering returned with more ideas for a creative problem they had already encountered than people who rested, did a demanding activity, or took no break.
The researchers did not test what happens when you hand that break over to your thumb. I have done enough of my own fieldwork on that one.
Let me be clear, I am not expecting to solve the mysteries of fatherhood halfway through an undemanding walk, a mildly demanding bike ride, or a run in which I’m mostly focused on keeping my lungs from exploding.
But I have noticed that all three help me
unplug,
get active,
and let my mind wander.
Maybe my mind needs more chances to wander other than where my thumb sends it.
Reset Using the Long Pause
The type A in me sometimes wins out, and it has with this reset. I have started tracking how many undemanding or mildly demanding activities I do every day without my phone.
My mind literally HAS to wander if I leave my phone behind, even though my brain can make a pretty strong case for bringing it. I have four boys. Someone could call about…
A trip to the emergency room,
A sports schedule change,
A unsolvable debate about who would win in a fight: Captain America or Iron Man (clearly Captain America),
All amazing reasons to keep my phone nearby. But I have discovered that if it is within reach, my thumb will take over. Filling that space with whatever if thinks my attention wants in the moment.
The statistics I’ve collected so far indicate that three phone-free moments a day keep the nighttime grumps away.
One day, that might be a walk to pick up Drew, a walk after lunch, and a bike ride to the gym. Another day, it might be a bike ride with Hunter, a walk before a big meeting, and an evening stroll with my wife.
Usually there are more walks than anything else. Some pauses give my mind room to wander; others give me room to notice the person beside me. Either way, the long pause is alive and well.
As for my very scientific goal of three pauses a day:
More is fine,
less is not,
none is no bueno.
Keep Exploring Fatherhood and Presence
Read: My Algorithm Wants Me to Be a Better Dad - What happens when even good self improvement content keeps us scrolling instead of being present
Listen: Garage Talk: Watching the Birdies - Exploring the wonderful tension of a 4 year old wanting to watch birdies when Dad just wants to get to the garage gym.
Read: Bedtime Brains and Doodle Therapy - How late night doodles help my son’s active brain power down for the night.
I am so happy when I see and read others who are understanding that we HAVE GOT to bring back phone free time. To think, day dream, let our minds wander, or to just SEE things around us.
Every day I work to leave my phone behind. On walks, in my home... I do not need it. I am teaching my niece and nephew this also. It's so hard with kids, but I feel we have an amazing opportunity to bring them back to the wonders of the world.
This made me think about how many of these “long pauses” exist inside youth sports, and how quickly we fill them.
The drive to practice. Warmups. The innings when our kid isn’t involved. The walk back to the car. We reach for our phones, analyze the game, talk about what needs fixing or start thinking about what’s next.
But some of the best parts of raising kids through sports happen in those in-between spaces when nobody is trying to accomplish anything. Maybe we don’t need to make more time. Maybe, as you say here, we need to get better at noticing the time that’s already there before we fill it.