The Busier You Are, the More You Need Quiet Time

Start your week on a positive note with this Newsletter ?

Every week, I carefully curate inspiring articles and share my thoughts, accompanied by motivational quotes. I hope you enjoy this next edition of my Monday Motivation, and I eagerly anticipate hearing your feedback and suggestions for future topics.

This week, as alluded to last week, I would like to focus on the important topics of rest and reflection. As we start to wind down for the end of the year, it is important to take advantage of this rare opportunity where many of our clients, colleagues and counterparts will also be on holiday.? It is a rare opportunity to turn off notifications, stop checking social media and be present for life’s more important things:? family, friends and self.

The authors of today’s article, The Busier You Are, the More You Need Quiet Time, remind us of the value of rest.? I must confess that I have been sharing this article with my team at year-end since it came out in 2017.? Taking time for silence restores the nervous system, helps sustain energy, and conditions our minds to be more adaptive and responsive. These are all things we are looking for more of and we must remember that, although it may not possible with the world getting louder, silence is still accessible.

Cultivating silence, as Hal Gregersen writes in a recent HBR article, “increase[s] your chances of encountering novel ideas and information and discerning weak signals.” When we’re constantly fixated on the verbal agenda—what to say next, what to write next—it’s tough to make room for truly different perspectives or radically new ideas. It’s hard to drop into deeper modes of listening and attention. And it’s in those deeper modes of attention that truly novel ideas are found.

Even incredibly busy people can cultivate periods of sustained quiet time. Here are four practical ideas:

Punctuate meetings with five minutes of quiet time.

If you’re able to close the office door, retreat to a park bench, or find another quiet hideaway, it’s possible to hit reset by engaging in a silent practice of meditation or reflection.

Take a silent afternoon in nature.

You need not be a rugged outdoors type to ditch the phone and go for a simple two-or-three-hour jaunt in nature. Immersion in nature can be the clearest option for improving creative thinking capacities. Henry David Thoreau went to the woods for a reason.

Go on a media fast.

Turn off your email for several hours or even a full day, or try “fasting” from news and entertainment. While there may still be plenty of noise around—family, conversation, city sounds—you can enjoy real benefits by resting the parts of your mind associated with unending work obligations and tracking social media or current events.

Take the plunge and try a meditation retreat.

Even a short retreat is arguably the most straightforward way to turn toward deeper listening and awaken intuition. The journalist Andrew Sullivan described his experience at a silent retreat as “the ultimate detox.” As he put it: “My breathing slowed. My brain settled…It was as if my brain were moving away from the abstract and the distant toward the tangible and the near.”

Taking time provides perspective that can help people see new solutions to problems.? A chance to be in silence supports this greatly. ?Using the methods identified above may give you a great chance to benefit from your time off during the holidays.? Don’t forget to also be fully present for time with family. Also, allow yourself to also enjoy the chance to watch a favorite holiday movie.? I know I sure will.? Wishing all of you a wonderful holiday season!

Stay on the beat with me and have an amazing start to your week ?

Yours,

Mark

Source

Zorn, J.; Marz, L. (17 March 2017) The Busier You Are, the More You Need Quiet Time. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2017/03/the-busier-you-are-the-more-you-need-quiet-time