Belle Taylor: Have you tried being lazy lately? It’s harder than it looks

Can you be lazy?

Of course! You might say. A day to be lazy? I would read a book. Or do some gardening. I’ll mindlessly scroll my phone or do some cooking, binge watch a TV show. Absolutely slack as can be, yes siree, that’s me.

No, I mean really lazy. Not I-don’t-want-to-finish-this-assignment-so-I-will-deep-clean-the-bathroom-instead kind of lazy. More, stare at a blank wall with an empty mind lazy. No phone, no TV, not even a book. Maybe you can watch some clouds. If you’re really lucky there might be a nearby wall with some paint drying.

That’s a tougher proposition. So tough in fact that in South Korea it’s been turned into a competitive sport. It started in 2014 when artist Woopsyang realised she was burnt out. She said she felt guilt whenever she wasn’t being productive and so, in what could be seen as a completely counterproductive move, in the quest to be less productive she created the Space-out Competition.

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Now an annual event, it takes place in Seoul. This year, 4000 people entered the comp but only 117 made the final cut — it’s tough to be lazy. The contestants had to do nothing: no talking, eating, sleeping or engaging with technology. Their heart rate was checked every 15 minutes so the person with the steadiest beat could be declared the winner. Freelance announcer Kwon So-a, 35, was awarded first place. Also competing was double Olympic silver medallist, speed skater Kwak Yoon-gy, who came third.

“I tried out for the Olympics five times and have never taken a proper rest while training for 30 years,” he told CNN. Perhaps he should’ve trained a little harder for Space-out — he might have finally picked up a gold.

All this makes me wish such a competition existed when I was a teen: “I’m not doing nothing Mum, I’m training.”

The competition may seem frivolous, but it makes a serious point: we are all so busy and occupied we rarely take time simply to be. Sometimes I try to practise being bored. If I’m stuck at the waiting room at the doctors I’ll attempt to not look at my phone or grab a magazine. “It’s not that long,” I’ll tell myself. “I can just sit with my thoughts for a minute.” I stare at the light fitting. I inspect my fingernails. I smile at the baby in the pram across from me. I look at the light fitting again.

I think, “bugger this”, and get out my phone. If I was in South Korea, I would be one of the rejected 3883 people deemed not lazy enough to compete. A slave to distraction.

We are living in an age of intense productivity but also constant distraction. Mobile phones mean we not only have a handheld entertainment device at our fingertips at all times, but a way to access work, book that appointment or shop for those boots you’ve had an eye on, all while you could be staring at that light fitting.

Perhaps that is not entirely a bad thing. But there is something to be said for letting your mind be still without the aid of a meditation app. Look around a crowded train carriage and you can almost guarantee more than 90 per cent of people will be staring at their phones. Go to your local gym and almost everyone has headphones in their ears. Even the treadmills have screens these days, so you can catch up on your telly while working out. Every second of our day can be optimised. Which makes being lazy such a radical act, if only you can handle it.