Doing Nothing? Oh, Just Reading.

Here’s a scenario. You’re sitting in the break room at work, reading a book that you’ve waited all morning to get into, and you’ve just gotten to an interesting part — and keep in mind you only have 10 minutes left on your lunch break — when, lo and behold, a crew of people swarm the break room and sit at your table. No sooner have they sat down than one of them begins talking to you about whatever crazy tale they’ve already been talking about to the others when they originally came in, another one is trying to show you the latest youTube video about a cat throwing up on itself, and yet a third wants to know who you would pick for their fantasy football matchup this week.

Sound familiar? It should, if you’re a reader. Why is it that if you’re engaging in nearly any other enterprise people will give you leave to do so, but if you’re reading, it’s as if you aren’t doing anything at all. And you don’t want to be rude, so you put your finger in your place (your index finger, not your middle finger, even though you want to) and you smile and talk to them about whatever interests them. With about five minutes left on your break, there is finally a rift in the conversation, so you slide your book back open… only to be rebuffed when three more people come in and you have to do the cycle all over again, until your lunch break is over and you haven’t even finished the good part!

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a sign that you could put up every time you get a chance to read and it’s possible that people will show up shortly to interrupt? The sign could be like one of those “Jenny is out. Will return in 20 minutes,” signs, with a little clock on it. And there could be a space on the bottom where people could write down whatever questions or anecdotes they have to share with you. Then, when a natural break in the action of the book comes up (or in 20 minutes, whichever comes first) you can do the finger thing (again, the index finger) and be engaged in whatever else is going on.

Creating that sign now. Email me if you want a copy.

Sam