Breaking Bad
Learning the Art of Leisure
I am going on vacation soon and I’ve been feeling pressure from a fellow scientist to check in on a communications plan while I am gone. I’m trying to find a way to keep things moving without the need to check in. Checking in would make my vacation feel less vacation-y.
Let me be honest here. I am bad about taking breaks. But breaks from work are vital for two reasons: creativity and productivity.
Resting your brain increases your creativity, giving your mind the space to let ideas stew. Have you ever wondered why so many people talk about getting an idea while in the shower? Or on a hike through the woods? Or while on a long drive? A relaxed mind is more likely to wander. To brainstorm new ideas. To daydream.
Breaks also increase your productivity. It doesn’t have to be a six-week Bora Bora vacation. A break can be taking Friday afternoons away from the computer screen to THINK BIG IDEAS. A break can be a 5-minute rest between Pomodoros—a way to stay focused on a single task (see my post from a few weeks ago)—but for this method to work, you must take the prescribed break after your burst of productivity. It is an essential part of the process.
What exactly is a break? That may seem like a silly question, but a recent post from Daydreamers had me thinking deeply about leisure. They break leisure into two categories: low quality and high quality. Low quality leisure (like scrolling social media) drains you. High quality leisure feeds you.
When you take a break from say … sorting your inbox … you don’t want your break to be typing up a memo. You want to do something completely different—and restorative. Like a stroll through your garden. Or exercise you enjoy. Or taking deep breaths. Resist the urge to check your phone. Or binge watch Breaking Bad. Or checking your communications plan when you’re supposed to be on vacation.
For small breaks, even for those that are only 5 minutes, I am trying to follow some advice and establish a mini-vacation routine. Sitting in an easy chair and reading a few pages of a novel, taking a lap around the park, sketching a cartoon. If you work in an office you might step outside, chat with a colleague, or make a ritual out of brewing a cup of tea.
Work and rest go hand in hand. A Scientific American article equates work and rest as different parts of a wave—without the low, there is no high. One of the reasons I write children’s books is because I find a similar balance between the fun and playful children’s text I write in my leisure time and the heavy academic text I write for work. The lyrical and playful writing gives me a bit of a break but also feeds the creative energy for my academic writing. It is a nice balance. But I still need real, restorative rest in between.
I am going to be better about breaks. No more doing the dishes or checking my phone between tasks. And for this upcoming vacation, I’ve convinced myself to leave my work phone at home and not cave in to the pressure to check the communications plan. I’ll let my mind rest, wander where it may. As a colleague once told me, “Don’t worry. The work will still be there when you get back.”