Want to offer more to your work? Do less.
Want to offer more to your work? Do less.
And rest.
While the act of resting seemingly asks us to do nothing, it’s often the daily habit that takes the most effort to build in a meaningful way.
Why? For starters, we’re in the midst of a productivity culture running rampant. Most of us are engaged in a working world that prioritizes being available and busy all the time, equating hours logged with employee or company value. With the amount of time we spend working, it’s not surprising to see that mentality bleed into our personal lives. Even “after hours”, even when we’re catching up with friends, even when we’re at home mentally writing our list of errands, we’ve become more concerned with doing than being.
We’re also glued to our phones. Time meant for rest and recharge is often filled with the stimulation of the screen and the endless stream of information that beams from it. If you’re darting between your phone and the tv, while you “rest” on the couch on a Sunday afternoon, you likely won’t feel energized and fully ready to get back to your screens Monday morning. If you go for a walk in the sunshine in the middle of your workday, only to refresh your inbox and Twitter the whole time, you guessed it - not restful!
The reality is, prioritizing time away from our work is actually proven to improve cognition for when we get back to it. Our creativity blooms and we’re more capable of problem-solving. Plus, consistent rest allows us to feel in control of our relationship with our work (and our lives) which keeps us clear of the resentment and burnout zone. Been there. Would not like to go back.
It’s also important to note that rest doesn’t have to mean napping, lounging or doing “nothing”. It can look like cooking, making art, reading, or even exercising. It can look like doing anything you love without the other 20 tabs open in your mind. The real ingredient for the type of rest that really restores? Presence. However, presence takes practice. Shutting off and tapping in, even for an hour can be difficult. If you’re looking to build a better rest routine into your work life (and life in general), try on the below for size. And remember, the tips below also take practice. So stay gentle with yourself, if some of them feel like you’re stuck on the HARD level. Keep trying!
Communicate your project statuses with your team.
If you have open projects looming over your days or hours off, you’re likely to feel a sense of guilt or anticipation for the unfinished work. Having a tidy to-do list where everything gets checked off before you log off is ideal, but not always reality. Sharing a status with your team about where you are in your project, what flexibility there may be in deadlines and when you intend to get back to it (after your time off) can bring a massive sense of relief that allows you to really drop into your rest time.
Turn your notifications off.
Just because you’re making strides in the pursuit of intentional rest, doesn’t mean everyone is. Getting a ping from a coworker or boss during the time you planned to be off can be equal parts frustrating and tempting. Drop a quick note to those you work with daily and set your automatic email response to share when you’ll be out and when you’ll respond. Turn off your notifications, including badges, and fight the urge to open your work apps out of habit. For emergencies, most phones offer a separate contact list that you can personalize - so calls and texts from people important to you will come through, even with notifications paused.
Ditch your phone altogether.
Tuning out of your work might be the easy part. However, nowadays our electronics are woven into every step of our daily lives. Most of us are attached to our phones from the moment we wake, as we pause our alarm. From the screen in our hand, we get our news and social updates, our entertainment, our recipes, our shopping fix, and even our preferred outlets for rest, like audiobooks or meditation apps. But the truth is, every moment spent with our screen is a moment of stimulation, whether it’s the content we’re consuming or the blue light that emits from the screen. If you want to work some real magic, ditch your phone and watch your me-time triple.
Identify the things that fill your cup.
Everyone’s got their own cup, and everyone fills theirs differently. Spending some time thinking about what uniquely brings you joy and makes you feel well taken care of, and bringing those things into your life intentionally, can make a huge impact on the quality of your time away from work. You might even contemplate or journal on these prompts: The activities that make me feel most at ease are… OR I feel most nourished when I…
When we clock out of the idea that working is our worth, we have the opportunity to open up to a more balanced life. Perhaps even assigning as much effort and importance to our rest and our play as we do our productivity. The most important thing to remember is that resting more doesn’t have to mean you’re giving up on your work or becoming lazy. The higher quality your rest is, the higher quality your work will be. Trust. The bottom line: If you want to offer more to your work, the people you love, or the world, start doing less.
Go find rest - whatever it looks like for you,
Jade
Want to deep dive on the art of rest? Try one of these recommended reads on the topic!
Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price Ph.D
How to Not Always be Working by Marlee Grace
Do Pause: You are Not a To Do List by Robert Poynton
Rachel’s 5 cents ✨
My addition to the above - Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey, the founder of The Nap Ministry. Her work explores rest as a form of resistance against relentless people over profit capitalism and its roots in racial supremacy. Her instagram is 🔥, follow her here.
It’s supremely difficult to follow this advice, isn’t it? Which is why, imo, this conversation needs to be accompanied by proof points on what it does for your quality of work - for now. Because unfortunately, just doing it because it’s good for you isn’t enough if you’re indoctrinated into the “work harder, longer” culture. Or maybe you totally agree with this advice, but you’re stuck with colleagues or clients that don’t buy into the ✨breathtaking amount✨ of research proving its effectiveness. We’ll get there.
Until then, I share with you some capitalism-oriented talking points, in the hope that it helps you remember and challenge the productivity hustle. I can say that from years of working with CEOs and founders and directors of departments, this is how a business thinks about you whether you’re an employee or a contractor. It’s not the most pleasant mindset, but I hope it reminds you of why you need to prioritize yourself.
Here we go:
It is expensive and time-consuming to find new people, which is what your boss or client will have to do if you burn out. If you want to actually deliver value to a business, don’t burn out. Rest.
If you check work email during the evening, you will either forget things you need to do, or you’ll never truly turn your brain off and stop working, which makes your work the next day worse. And it will be your fault (from a performance review/agency review perspective). Rest. Leave the vigilance “checking” for emergencies only.
Businesses HATE paying for bad work. And if you don’t log off in the evenings, if you don’t take holiday, etc., etc., your work is going to be bad. And your boss (and their boss), or your clients, or your team members, are going to eventually notice the work is bad. And once it gets into their brains that you’re not doing nice, good work, that’s all they’re going to see. Someone, somewhere, will start a file (even a mental one) on whether you deliver value for money. Worst of all, you may not know until they’re sitting you down to fire you.
You are simply better at your job when you rest. You work faster. You are more creative. You are nicer to people. That’s the “you” your job or your clients are paying for. It’s your responsibility to show up as that you.
If these statements make you feel a bit 🫠, go read Jade’s section again to remember this is about finding ways to rest. You can do this, we promise! Rest is your responsibility, yes, but it is also your right.
Kindly,
Rachel
PS. Caught a typo? That’s just us being human. 😉 Speaking of being human, thank you for keeping in mind that this and every edition of Nice Work reflects what we most believe to be true at this moment. What you read here, we’ve experienced out there. However, life is long, so thank you in advance for giving us room to evolve and re-address these topics in the future!