Scheduling a ‘lazy day' can help you be more productive, a Zen Buddhist monk says—here's how

Hustle culture encourages working constantly and hardly taking breaks, but cases of burnout are proof that not leaving room for pauses might make you less productive. A Zen Buddhist monk suggests that laziness may actually lead to more productivity at times.

During a recent episode of "Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris," Harris spoke to Brother Pháp Hữu, a Zen Buddhist monk, who made a case about how laziness can help you be productive.

"Sometimes the doing nothing, it gives us an opportunity to just reflect," Hữu said. "To just really look deeply and ask our self, 'Am I happy? What I'm doing, is it giving me nourishment? Is it offering me the joy that I need in order to also offer joy?'"

Hữu takes a "Lazy Day" once a week where he doesn't schedule anything and lets "the day manifest as how it should be."

Moments of mindfulness can lead to curiosity and opportunities to think differently about what you want out of your life, he noted.

He suggests that anyone who is considering adding lazy days to their weekly schedule, start with a 30-minute period where you allow yourself to be completely present in the moment first. As you're doing this, be conscious of instances where you feel called to put on a podcast or watch a movie instead of being immersed in the moment, Hữu said, and try to resist the urges.

"In the non-doing here, it is actually doing. So in the not being active, there is another thing that is happening which is allowing yourself to feel and to see what needs to be felt and seen," Hữu said.

Without making time for moments of stillness where you can sit and think, you won't be able to pinpoint what you need to feel more fulfilled, or even take stock of whether you're happy to begin with.

"If we continue to chase after the wholeness, but we don't recognize that the wholeness is [being] present, and we can offer wholeness to one another by just being there for one another, then we're never gonna stop wanting," Hữu said.

"By being, we allow our self to just not continue to run after something, but just to be present and just to feel the miracle of life that is here [right now]."

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