The Steepwitch Clock: An Invitation to Do Absolutely Nothing

On November 1, we get an extra hour. I have a rather radical suggestion for how to spend it.

On Sunday, November 1, daylight saving time ends, and the clocks fall back one hour.

We are being given an extra hour.

Now, I know what you're thinking. An extra hour! Think of what I could accomplish! An hour to catch up on correspondence, tidy the house, organize a drawer, finish a project, or get ahead on something that's been nagging at me.

Absolutely not.

I would like you to do something quite different.

I would like you to do absolutely nothing. For one entire hour.

And I would like you to plan for it.

Find your favorite chair. The one where you can put your feet up. Make yourself a lovely hot drink. Tea would be my recommendation, naturally. Find a blanket if the weather calls for one. Perhaps a biscuit, a little piece of cake, or something else delicious to nibble on.

And then sit down.

For sixty minutes.

Look out the window.

That's it.

If the weather is beautiful, take yourself outside. Sit on the porch, in the garden, or somewhere you can watch the world carry on without your assistance.

But here's the important part.

No books. No podcasts. No music. No television. No telephone. No journaling. No knitting. No meditation app. No guided breathing exercises. No attempt to turn this hour into an opportunity for personal growth.

You are not trying to accomplish anything.

You are not even trying to relax.

You are simply going to be conscious, drink your tea, perhaps eat your biscuit, and look at whatever happens to be in front of you.

Watch a bird. Watch a cloud. Watch the light change on the wall. Watch absolutely nothing happen.

And when your mind begins to remind you of all the things you could be doing with this perfectly good hour, let it chatter away.

You don't have to do anything about that, either.

The Corporate Watch and the Steepwitch Clock

I am generally suspicious of what I call hard-edged planning.

Not all planning, mind you. I love a beautiful calendar, a considered ritual, and the delicious anticipation of something I've chosen to do.

What I object to is the notion that every hour of our lives must be accounted for, assigned a purpose, and ultimately justified by what we have produced.

I call this the Corporate Watch.

It is a profoundly patriarchal understanding of time, one that treats our lives as a series of measurable units to be managed, optimized, and made productive.

Even our leisure has become a kind of assignment.

We take walks to get our steps in. We read to improve ourselves. We meditate to become more focused. We take vacations to recharge so we can return to being productive.

Apparently, we cannot even sit quietly without being expected to emerge as a better version of ourselves.

I'm tired of it.

I would like to propose another way of keeping time.

The Steepwitch Clock.

The Steepwitch Clock does not measure the worth of an hour by what you managed to squeeze into it.

It asks a different question.

Did you actually inhabit that hour?

It recognizes that an afternoon spent staring out a window is not an afternoon wasted.

That a cup of tea enjoyed without interruption is an event in itself.

That sometimes the most interesting thing happening in our lives is the life that is happening while we aren't busy trying to improve it.

And that doing nothing is not a failure of imagination.

It may be one of the finest uses of imagination we have.

Why I Want You to Plan Ahead

Here is the delightful contradiction.

I am asking you to plan to do nothing.

I want you to look at November 1 and make an appointment with yourself for one entire hour.

Not because doing nothing requires organization, but because we've become so accustomed to filling every available space that an empty hour rarely survives unless we deliberately protect it.

Tell the people you live with that you're unavailable.

Prepare your tea.

Find your chair.

Put the phone somewhere else.

If you have children or responsibilities that make an uninterrupted hour difficult, arrange a little help if you can. And if sixty minutes simply isn't possible, begin with whatever time genuinely belongs to you.

But please, don't turn this into another thing you have to get right.

There is no correct way to stare out a window.

You don't have to feel peaceful. You don't have to have a revelation. You don't have to notice something beautiful.

You are allowed to be bored.

You are allowed to feel restless.

You are allowed to spend the entire hour wondering what on earth possessed you to agree to this ridiculous experiment.

Just stay in your chair.

Sip your tea.

Have another biscuit.

An Hour That Belongs to You

For artists especially, I think this is important.

We can become so accustomed to making things, thinking about making things, worrying about making things, and wondering why we aren't making more things that we forget we are allowed to exist without producing anything at all.

You do not owe the world a painting, a poem, a performance, a business idea, or even an interesting thought every time you sit down.

Your attention belongs to you before it belongs to your art.

And your life is not merely the raw material from which your art is made.

It is a life.

One worth sitting still long enough to experience.

So, on November 1, when the clocks fall back, I invite you to reclaim that extra hour.

Not to get ahead.

Not to catch up.

Not to prepare for the week.

Not to become healthier, wiser, calmer, or more creative.

Simply to be alive for sixty uninterrupted minutes.

And perhaps, once you've experienced what an hour like that feels like, you might begin to make room for another one.

And another.

Because the Steepwitch Clock isn't really about that one extra hour in November.

It's about remembering that time is something we live in, not something we have to conquer.

Put the kettle on.

Put your feet up.

Look out the window.

The world can manage without you for an hour.

And wouldn't it be lovely to discover that you can let it?

Yours,

Pattie

Artistic Clarity · Steepwitch