I’ve already explained in another note why “agile” isn’t always “flexible”. And let’s face it — beneath the playful surface of agile methods lurks plenty of pressure and stress. Because it’s ultimately always about maximising value for stakeholders: buyers, users, investors, sponsors. When no traceable benefit and measurable value is visible, the agile experiment dies quickly.
Agile work life can be pretty stressful too. No breathing room between sprints. This “agilising” — I’m introducing that as a verb — promises short-term a new way of working where everyone orients toward actual results and value creation. In theory, only working on what brings real value and progress. Those who don’t focus on value just produce innovations that are currently useless but promise future worth like an Indian fortune teller. Different topic.
When you agilise, you have better team discussions, hopefully understand better what’s needed. But this sharp focus on value also narrows the team’s perspective. Where’s the creativity? Where are the new ideas?
They certainly don’t come from working through Sprint backlog tasks. To open more space for good ideas, we need something the agile world doesn’t provide: “useless-ing”. Yes, that’s a verb. You can useless anywhere: on a walk without AirPods, playing with your kids, freewriting. But not in front of the TV — there you’re just being entertained, not engaging with yourself in stillness.
When you useless, you simply try to achieve nothing. Hard to imagine for many. What, just exist without simultaneously tidying the dishwasher? Exactly — just live, let thoughts drift by, hold only to the blue background, breathe, release everything, useless for a while.
When you useless for an hour, it’s not worthless. You’ve lived that hour fully, without being driven by other people or your own thoughts. Like many activities, useless-ing must be cultivated and practised. You could meditate or just sit on a bench and stare ahead. Or start with 10 minutes of useless-ing daily?
Go outside and walk around the block. Look around, breathe deeply, observe nature, houses and people around you longer and more closely, without judging. Just let it be as it is. You’ll notice you get better at useless-ing over time, but avoid measuring your uselessness. Then you’re back to agilising, which you can do the rest of the day.
Until useless-ing becomes second nature (and useless-ing isn’t the same as procrastinating!), it helps to schedule it as a fixed appointment. Later you won’t need that.
I wish you many useless and seemingly worthless hours in 2022, where you come closer to yourself, gain new inspirations, and let them flow into your daily life.
This post first appeared in German on reinergaertner.de, where I’ve been writing since 1997 — back when the internet still had that new-car smell. An AI assistant helped with the translation under my supervision. If something reads a bit odd, blame the Denglish in my head.