Truth Bomb Tuesday: If you’re not doing this, you’re either an amateur or destined for a heart-attack.
Okay, this is a bit of an advanced productivity technique.
And by that I mean this is something for people who are already pushing themselves pretty hard. It’s for people who have made that commitment to get the most out of their days and out of their years.
And it’s also a trick for avoiding burn out.
Now, essentially what I want to say here is that if you want to be performing well you need to be resting well.
And when I say that I mean that your rest practices have to be central to your productivity practices.
Most people leave them as an afterthought. They think, “Oh I’ll just go hard for awhile, and then figure out how to rest later when I really need it.”
The trouble is that we end up like frogs in boiling water. (I really wish there was a better metaphor for this idea, but I’m not aware of one.) And by that I mean, the pressure can build up slowly in our system for remarkably long time.
We are remarkably resilient to stress, until all of a sudden, we are not.
And so by the time you need your rest practices, your body is already in total collapse, and for most people, it’s already too late.
And what happens when your body goes into total collapse? Well the physical damage associated with stress is well documented. But obviously your productivity levels go through the floor as well.
So that’s what I mean when I say that your rest practices have to be central to your productivity practices.
I think it’s actually useful to think of your productivity like a muscle. And like any muscle, if you want to get the most out of it, then you need to give it an opportunity to rest and recover.
And the best place to give your productivity muscle a chance to rest and recover, is on the go.
I think we should actually be finding five or six moments every day to let our productivity muscle fully relax.
Yep. Seriously.
And I mean fully relax here. I don’t mean some half-baked attempts at relaxation like looking at Facebook or something. I mean something like meditation, where your intention is fully given to relaxation, and your agenda is nothing but to temporarily power down your mind and body.
So as I said I think, we should be doing this five or six times a day. Now if you’re like most people you probably think that you’ll just power on through your day and then batch all of your relaxation at night.
(But if we’re honest how many people actually get around to relaxing properly at night anyway?)
And you might be thinking that five or six meditation sessions a day is extreme… and, well, it is. As I said, this is an advanced productivity technique. It’s for people who really want to take their productivity to the next level.
If you want to sustain superhuman productivity through your day – making sure you’re not getting distracted by the 10 o’clock temptations, wilting with a food coma after lunch, or fading away in the afternoon – then you need to be resting regularly and well.
And it doesn’t have to be a huge deal. You don’t have to get out there and fully rake the Zen garden.
Five or 10 minutes should do it. And the more you do it, the better at rest you become, and the less time you need to drop into that fully relaxed space.
So have a think about this. If you are exploring practices that can improve your productivity, then your relaxation practices need to be part of the picture as well.
And as an added bonus, you can probably dodge a heart attack while you’re at it.
DB.