š„± Are you getting too much rest?
How can we develop a healthy sense of productivity, without burning out or sacrificing the ambition to better ourselves and carve our path in life?
Hey, friend š
Today, Iāll start off with a little secret.
For the majority of my 29 years on this planet, the word āproductivityā has irritated me.
It often conjures a mental image of a restless grinder who seeks MORE at all costs.
Heād be the kind of guy who would start half-spitting-half-shouting about āthe hustleā before he shook your hand, which heād half-crush and say your pain was just weakness leaving your unproductive body.
Like Odin, the archetypal grinder would happily trade one of his eyes if it guaranteed distraction-free working hours.
But thenā¦
I started trying to produce more stuff.
As my writing journey has progressed over recent months, Iāve been confronting a fresh question in my mind that Iām sure you can relate to:
How can we develop a healthy sense of productivity, without burning out or sacrificing the ambition to better ourselves and carve our path in life?
This balance is hard and sometimes Iāve been like a baby giraffe on a tightrope.
At times, Iāve seen aggressively dark circles under my eyes from trying to squeeze out more learning or writing than was optimal. Iād then feel the ache of a jaw that had been clenching regularly all day.
Some days, Iād leave my night-time unwinding too late. Iād wake up after 40 minutes of sleep, my brain whirring away. Writing in a notebook would be the only way my subconscious would stop trying to cling to the thoughts and finally relax.
So you could say Iām not befriending the restless grinders of the world.
Iām not going to tell you to wake up at 5am, eat your cereal in the shower, or name your firstborn child Pomodoro (but now that you ask, you canāt go wrong with Alex).
Techniques for more productive working have been taught 1,000 ways by 100,000 competent minds and I donāt intend to add my voice to the mix today.
Instead, letās talk about rest.
When we think about our energy and time management, rest is a key part of the equation because it provides:
Opportunity for your subconscious to think through difficult problems
Time to mentally decompress, spend time with loved ones, have fun, or explore your hobbies
Time to sleep, which is essential for every cell in your body
A sustainable rhythm of push and pull alongside your working day
But, like a drummer and bassist that canāt keep time, that rhythm can become unbalanced. Itās easy to see the effects when weāve had too little rest. When life has been intense and our stress levels are skyrocketing.
But what about the times when weāre getting too much rest? Or, at least, the wrong kinds of rest?
I get it, work is stressful.
The commute isnāt much better (especially if, like me, youāre being subjected to the humidity, blank stares, and fluorescent fingers of the London Underground).
You get home and complete whatever immediate just-back-from-work routine your brainās programmed with.
What happens then?
If youāre the average person, youāre spending 2 and a half hours on social media a day. Youāre watching Netflix for over 2 hours a day.
Even if you account for time people might spend doing those things while at work, this time adds up, chronologically and mentally.
Consider how little time this leaves to calm our brains and bodies down in other ways (no you have a dirty mind!). There are a million ways to spend our non-work time, and theyāre all in a war for our attention.
When we think about what this means for our daily attention and the habits (good and bad) they form over weeks, months, and years, rest takes two forms:
Productive
Unproductive
Hereās an overview of each:
Unproductive Rest
Unproductive rest is better defined by how you feel in the moment than what youāre doing.
Let me be clear: Iām not advocating for extreme measures. Thereās no need to throw your TV into the sea or say goodbye to a glass of wine with dinner. Life is meant to be savoured and weāre not robots).
What matters is the amount of time involved. The quantity of consumption.
For this reason, unproductive rest is like a hug thatās held too tight for too long.
At first, itās a nice reliefāa burst of hormones that make us feel relaxed and happy. But, as time goes on, it suffocates us.
When we rest like this beyond the useful dose, we feel lethargic.
30 minutes of watching TV to unwind can balloon into 3 hours. Instead of feeling rested, youāre more likely to feel that the sofa has its own gravitational pull.
Donāt get me wrong, itās more of a rest than trying to continually squeeze out more drops of productivity from a dry husk of a mind.
But that isnāt saying much.
This grogginess is multiplied if youāve also been scrolling aimlessly on social media for most of that time, trying to pay attention to everything and paying attention to almost nothing.
This modern generation, which has gotten so good at doing two or three things at onceāmulti-tasking, aided by electronic devicesāI'll confidently predict will end up worse than people more like Warren Buffett with more solitary reading time and less trying to do three things at once.ā - Charlie Munger
Unproductive rest doesnāt allow our brains to fully unwind. It doesnāt help us soothe our tight glutes and hamstrings from sitting down all day. In the extreme, it doesnāt even allow us to remember the last Instagram story we saw.
Then think about what happens when we let that cycle of work and not-quite-rest spin for months on end.
Too much unproductive rest for too long is why people turn to dopamine detoxes, beachside holidays (where their brains thank them for not shovelling media into their eyeballs all day), retail therapy, or New Yearās resolutions after the Crimbo Limbo.
Anything to add novelty, soothe discomfort, or go cold turkey after a flash of despair.
The choice we face is how mindful weāre willing to be in our approach to rest. Consider these moments:
Does the 5th pint weāre about to drink actually make us worse off, all things considered, than if we stopped at 4? If it does, thereās zero sense in drinking it.
Have we overshot the window of relaxation from watching TV and feel ourselves entering slug mode? At that moment, youāve got the best opportunity to break the cycle and do something else. Something that gives energy, rather than sucking it away.
Was work really that difficult today, or are we using it as an excuse to avoid going for the first run in a few months (and all the short-term pain)? Even when we know the post-run feeling of overcoming this mental hurdle will be more than worth it, the choice isnāt easy.
But these are the choices that shape our habits. As any book on habits will explain, when we compound these choices over years our lives improve exponentially.
Now letās move on to productive rest.
Productive Rest
Productive rest is the opposite. The experience is coloured with calmness or intensity in the moment, and a positive afterglow of achievement and joy.
It needs a nuanced approach because any form of rest can be productive.
It depends on the mental and physical benefit you need at the time and the amount of uninterrupted attention you give to it. For this reason, you could choose from any of the following on a given day:
a long walk in nature
a 15-minute braindump journalling session (to clear your mind of the thoughts itās desperate not to forget. Writing is magic; once your subconscious knows the thought has been recorded, it feels more willing to let it go)
Knitting
Meditation
Naps
Sauna / ice bath sessions
A hard gym session
Yoga (but probably not hot yoga if youāre a natural sweat machine like me)
A guilt-free session of gaming
Live music
Stand-up comedy
Doing absolutely nothing at all (As my dad would put it: āThe square root of fuck allā. But boredomās a powerful tool for creativity and problem solving)
If youāre a bit of an optimiser, like me, when youāre choosing your rest you can factor in variables such as:
How stressful your dayās been
How much time you have available
Whether you need time with others or time by yourself
Whether you feel the urge to exercise your body, exercise your mind, or both
The intensity of the treatment depends on the intensity of your day or week. When youāve pushed hard, you need to pull back hard.
Coming back to my story at the start of this newsletter, Iāve had times in the recent past when my mind was pulsating and throbbing with a thousand thoughts a minute. Some were helpful but many were not.
When thatās happened, a 10-minute meditation session wasnāt enough. Maybe an hour would have worked, but really what made more sense was to pay attention to my thoughts less, not more.
My PS5 was perfect. But after 45 minutes or so, Iād be veering into unproductive rest territory, captured by the calloused grip of the God of War.
This kind of experience has taught me a valuable lesson:
When you take a deliberate approach to life, rest needs to be a part of the analytical and strategic equation. Productive rest is about gifting yourself what you need at the right time.
But the dichotomy of rest begs a simple question:
When Does Productive Rest Turn Unproductive?
It takes mindful awareness to recognise how we feel, especially when it comes to fainter, less pronounced emotions.
When youāre resting, check in with yourself and ask how you really feel.
Letās say youāve finished a TV episode. Instead of letting the cliffhanger pull you into the next episode, take a moment to stand up and pause. Standing helps you avoid the trap of the sofaās present comfort, and pausing allows time for your logical mind to process your immediate emotional response.
At the end of the day, you might ask yourself questions like:
āDid I need that extra episode? Is it that hard to read for 10 minutes before bed instead of watching YouTube?ā
Donāt beat yourself up if you feel guilty; what matters is that youāre honestly asking these and giving yourself the opportunity to change your habits in the future. Know when to use the stick and when to offer the carrot to yourself.
Obviously, talk is cheap we want to pull ourselves away from the unproductive rest trap.
Itās easy to say āIāll go to the gym after a quick episodeā.
But one episode turns into two. Two become four. Youāve fallen into the gravitational pull of Planet Netflix and the moons of Instagram and Tik Tok, as well as your sofa.
Todayās vacant stare in the black mirror becomes the morningās self-judgement in the bathroom one. The warm thought of a gym session passes into the rear-view mirror.
At this point, to leave the sofa needs a discipline-fuelled rocket.
Why make it harder for yourself?
When youāve done what needed to be done, you can rest guilt-free. itās infinitely more enjoyable, especially if youāre in a situation as a creator or entrepreneur where you always feel thereās something to be done.
Youāve earned this time.
Take it easy with the knowledge the rest is helping you stay on track in the long run.
Finding Balance
Weāre conditioned to feel guilty for taking time off, for not āhustlingā (a word which now irritates me more than productivity ever did). But thatās a recipe for burnout, sooner or later. Pass.
However, itās also common to feel, consciously or subconsciously, that sitting around and watching TV and scrolling through Instagram for 3 hours is not helping us either.
The key is finding a balance that leans you forward into a better future. The smallest change to your rest time can bring you more happiness today and a more holistic life tomorrow.
What would life look like if you carved out time for just 15 minutes of productive rest, with no other distractions?
How much better might your neck and back feel if you replaced 30 minutes of screen time with gentle stretches?
Nobodyās coming to save you, so itās up to you to experiment and find out.
Iāll leave you with a simple daily question you can ask yourself (other than āAlex really is a top name, isnāt it?ā):
āWhatās the smallest change I can make today?ā
Take it easy,
Alex