The Christian Science Monitor had an essay recently, it was about the value of puttering; we don’t putter anymore and we spend too much time focusing on what we have to get done in our lives.  Everyone deserves some time in their lives for things that aren’t necessarily important but that is unstructured and unorganized.The Christian Science Monitor recently ran an essay on the value of puttering.

The thrust of the article was that we don’t putter much anymore. We spend too much time “getting things done.”

Accomplishment is great, but what if we all just stayed at home this Saturday and puttered?

What if we did something completely unnecessary, like rearranging all our spices in geographical order according to where they grow, or re-framing all our family photos in new frames that look exactly like the old frames except they’re new?

What if, instead of edging the lawn, we painted our pink flamingos yellow to go with our house? What if, instead of going into the office and finishing up some work, we took all our old sheets out of the linen closet and used them to make curtains for the garage?

I suspect, if we all spent one Saturday doing stuff like this, on Monday we’d guiltily think, “Oh, I should have done X instead of wasting my time,” and we’d sheepishly confess to colleagues that we “got absolutely nothing done” over the weekend.

But I also suspect that next week we’d be making the dog a cushion out of the curtains that were only slightly ruined in that last rainstorm.

We all deserve some time for unstructured time in our lives, as well as some down time. It’s good for our hearts, our minds, and our souls.

“So you see, imagination needs moodling – long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.” ~ Brenda Ueland

Thanks to FitBuff.com for including this post in the Total Mind and Body Fitness Blog Carnival.