Hours with friends doing nothing aren’t wasted. Years later, that nothing is what you’ll miss most.

Time with no purpose looks like waste while it is happening, because nothing is being produced and there is nothing to show afterward. What is actually getting built is closeness, which only forms in unstructured hours and cannot be squeezed into a scheduled slot. Long pointless afternoons are where people learn each other.

Protect one of those a week and resist giving it an agenda. Sitting in a parked car, walking nowhere, a kitchen and no plan. If somebody asks what you did, nothing is an acceptable answer and usually the accurate one.