Rest - your future depends on it

I was digging through some old files the other day and found a short article titled "Rest - your future depends on it" that I had penned to my team back in December 2014. Was surprised that it still felt relevant for where we are at now after another big year. Thought i'd share it....

Rest – Your future depends on it.

The other day I was woken at 7am by my landlord knocking on the backdoor. I was sound asleep and by the time I’d realised someone was knocking he’d come round the side and was calling out “Tom! Tom! Are you awake yet Tom?” I got up, put some pants on and went outside responding groggily with a “what’s up John?”. Now, before I go on, it’s not what you think – my landlord is an absolute legend - he’s more like my grandad than my landlord, and a few days before he had offered to fix a few of my dining room chairs. The reason he was waking me up was so that he could give me the chairs before he went away on holidays. Despite having been woken up, I was grateful – and amazed at how quickly he’d fixed them. I said to John “geez, you keep yourself busy don’t you!” to which he replied “Tom, my father always told me that the devil finds work for idle hands!”.

How many of us unconsciously (or consciously) feel a little bit guilty when we have nothing ‘productive’ to do? When we are not ‘making progress’ or ‘ticking things off the list’, when we are not permanently busy. I think many of us have that old saying ringing in our ears in some form or another and whilst there is some truth to it (i.e. doing nothing when we should be doing something is usually not a great idea), it can rob us from the importance of true rest and the value of sometimes just doing nothing in particular.

I read an article recently called ‘The Lost Art of Free Time’ and it made me think (especially coming into the Christmas holiday period after a busy and productive year) how easy it is to just keep charging on, filling every spare moment tackling all those things we’ve been meaning to get to. The article put it this way - “When you come out of a major busy season or complete a massive project, it’s more important than ever to relearn the art of rest.”

This is not news to us. Our team has a pretty awesome policy known as ‘race and rest’ and I think our bunch are reasonably good at making the most of it. But the question is, do we really rest? Do we consciously ensure that idle ‘downtime’ is allowed where nothing is scheduled and we are free to do whatever takes our fancy? Do we ever give ourselves permission to be ‘unproductive’??

Downtime is not just a luxury or an option for when we have time – it is a vital necessity to sustained performance and creativity, for mental health, quality relationships and to knowing the sound of our own voice.?

An article in the Scientific American puts the importance of downtime this way - “Downtime replenishes the brain’s stores of attention and motivation, encourages productivity and creativity, and is essential to both achieve our highest levels of performance and simply form stable memories in everyday life. A wandering mind unsticks us in time so that we can learn from the past and plan for the future. Moments of respite may even be necessary to keep one’s moral compass in working order and maintain a sense of self.”??

This is not to say that downtime looks the same for everyone. For some it might be alone time reading a good book snuggled into the corner of a lounge, for others it’s a game of ultimate Frisbee or going for a surf. Whatever it looks like for you it can be characterised by something that involves “giving yourself space to be in the moment—thinking, doodling, reading, musing, or doing whatever fills you creatively” and is often what we might feel like we’d really love to do, but may feel is a ‘waste of time’.

When tempted to skimp on your downtime consider this quote from Tim Krieder’s article ‘The Busy Trap’? - “Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.“

?Go. Do it. Rest, in whatever way works for you. Take the opportunity for downtime! Your brain needs it. Your career needs it. Your family and your health need it. Rest. Your future depends on it.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Tom

Questions for reflection:

• How do you rest best?
• When was the last time you allowed yourself to be ‘unproductive’
• Do you recognise the ‘sound of your own voice’ (your own thoughts and perspectives?)

Further Exploration:

‘The Lost Art of Free Time’:

https://99u.com/articles/35599/the-lost-art-of-free-time?utm_source=99U&utm_campaign=8ee0309656-Weekly_11_30_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bdabfaef00-8ee0309656-149012845

‘Why Your Brain Needs More Downtime’ – The Scientific American

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mental-downtime/

‘The Busy Trap’ by Tim Kreider - The New York Times

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/?_r=0

Rest is Not Idleness – Perspectives on Psychological Science Journal:

https://pps.sagepub.com/content/7/4/352?

‘Just Think – The Challenges of a Disengaged mind’ - Science Magazine

https://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6192/75.full

The Energy Project:

https://theenergyproject.com/

Sleep Deprivation is Killing You and Your Career:

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/article/20141201150910-50578967-skipping-sleep-is-career-suicide

Cover Photo by Clément Falize on Unsplash