Have you ever counted minutes, seconds waiting in the doctor’s office or any anteroom, wishing that the wait gets over soon? Nobody likes waiting. It strips away the power of action and execution. It forces us to just do nothing which makes us more restless than ever. 

The most common thing to establish your control back is to pull out your phone and doom scroll through life. But that’s probably not the healthiest thing to do. You might feel that you’re back in control for a fraction of a second, but doom scrolling itself is a causal effect of boredom that induces more of it. So, sooner or later, you’ll get tired of it also. 

Therefore, to assuage the pain of seemingly interminable tedium, we have gathered some of the most effective and insightful activities to make the process of thinking-waiting-wishing more interesting than ever. But before we begin with the litany of activities that you can do, let’s focus more on the reasons why waiting is so painful than pain first.

What’s Wrong With Waiting a Bit More?

As mentioned previously, waiting strips us off from control and makes us more restless than ever. When there is nothing to do, we are left with ourselves and our thoughts which are left unorganized and whirl inside our minds like a tornado. This catalyzes into overthinking and before we know it, we instinctively pull out our phones and doom scroll our way through life like always. 

One of the best solutions to this problem is to stop searching for activities to do outside but inside yourself. Don’t rely on external stimuli, instead look within and you’ll never be bored for the rest of your life. This process is called deliberate thinking, where you reflect, contemplate and analyze yourself, based upon your thoughts, your actions, and your perceptions. 

Now, you might say that it’s easier said than done because what is there to think about? ‘I lie here thinking waiting, but what exactly should I think about? – will be your first thought as you read this. You’re right on your part. You might even, in an attempt to understand and try, read the instructions or contemplate the painting on the wall of the anteroom, the next time you have to wait. But for how long will you be able to do that? 

Productive Things to Do While Waiting

To help you with this conundrum, we have selected some deeply insightful and reflective thoughts that you can deliberately think about to make your mind sharper and soul richer. 

1. Review your goals. Okay, you might feel a bit awkward or anxious at this point, especially when you’re struggling with the idea of goals. But, just so you know, it doesn’t have to be about your life’s ultimate goals or anything of the sort. It can just be a short-term goal or schedule that you can decide for yourself.
2. Run through and analyze the recent incidents, current events, the book you’re currently reading, etc.
3. Think honestly about your fears, desires, worries, and other concerns. And rationalize them. Break them down. Think why you feel so.
4. If you’re waiting in a room full of people, look quickly at every face (not creepily) and imagine what they would be thinking right now. It can be as funny or serious as you want.
5. Question your mind that if you weren’t sitting here then which dream place you would like to be in right now.
6. Review your current impressions and try to think positively.
7. Comprehend the mistakes you’ve made in your life till now. This does not entail doubting yourself or criticizing yourself harshly for your health or other things. It is meant to be an exercise of learning, where you review your mistakes and learn from them. But first, forgive yourself for those errors.

This is one sort of fast-thinking that you can do for yourself while waiting in a room. In the digital age, these questions might sound weird, even funny to some. Some might think, why should I waste my time on these stupid questions when I have my phone?

Well, if you think like that, then you’re probably wasting your time on your phone, as reflective thinking is an essential part of life and no matter what you do, at some point, you’ll have to resort to that someday. 

Waiting is all you can do

One way to make waiting more enduring is to accept the fact that it is unavoidable. Instead of perceiving it as something intolerable, view it as fair and normal. You’re not alone. Other people are also waiting with you and even they’re experiencing the seemingly interminable boredom you’re experiencing. If you want, then you can make it interesting for you and them by striking a conversation with a person sitting beside you. This is one way to make your wait more interesting apart from these questions. 

These questions will surely make your waiting more interesting and the plus point is, it will help you know yourself more than ever. You will not experience the feeling of restlessness as you normally would in an anteroom. Instead, once you begin asking yourself these uncomfortable yet insightful questions, you’ll go deeper and deeper into it. 

You might probably be using your phone every day and maybe it is for all the right and productive reasons. So, take some time off it and enjoy yourself. At the end of the day, you have to sleep by yourself. You need to know that better! 

Also Read: 5 Healthy Habits To Lead The Productive Life