How to rest effectively

What's the ROI on your downtime? How are your resting habits effecting your professional performance?

If you haven't thought about these questions now is the time. When you were younger you may have been able to pull all nighters and be fine if you drank 3 coffees the next morning. You're older now and we need to start thinking more strategically about how you spend your downtime so you don't sabatosh tomorrow with what you do today!

The most important shift most people make to optimize their rest is prioritizing rejuvenating activities over entertaining activities. There is a difference. For example taking a nap vs scrolling social media. Sipping your favorite hot drink in the back yard vs a night out. Everyone is different so what is rejuvenating vs entertaining for you will vary from other people but the principle is the same - spend more time actually resting instead of being entertained.

Think for yourself now. What activities leave you feeling refreshed? How much time do you spend doing those activities in the evenings and weekends? Now think what your entertainment modalities of choice are. How much time per week do you spend doing those? Compare the hours you spend on rejuvenating vs entertainment activities. Are you happy with the ratio? If not it's time to make a change. Especially if you've been feeling tired or burnt out recently.

Second big idea is to increase the amount of times your rest during your workday. It's not enough to optimize our time off work, we need built in breaks throughout the day. A good first step is to take breaks before you need them. It's easy to rest when you feel tired, it's better to rest before you hit that wall. This looks like taking your whole lunch break even if you feel you don't need it. Spend the remainder of the time doing some rejuvenating activities like taking a walk, focusing on your breathing, and just listening to your thoughts. Think of other ways you can fit in 5-10 minute pits stops in your schedule. Just getting up to walk around, get some water and talk to someone about something outside work can be hugely beneficial. These mini breaks keep you performing at peak capacity because you're not waiting for your usual 3pm energy slump to give your brain a moment to rest.

Last big idea is related to your goals. If you're reading this you're probably a goal-oriented person, but did you know your goals could be the cause of your fatigue? The truth is a low quality goal kills motivation. In other words, if the "win" your working towards doesn't inspire you, it's dragging you down. The most energized and passionate people have goals that get them fired up just thinking about accomplishing them. Here's a good test - sit down and close your eyes. Now think about the goal or outcome you're working towards in the next 1-2 years. Listen to your emotions, what are they? Do you feel Imposter syndrome? Dread? More tired than you already are? That's not a good sign. You should start feeling excitement. Anticipation. Inspired. The urge to jump up and start hamming on the projects that will get you to your goal! If that's not the case, you need to change your goal to something that authentically pulls you towards it.

With the above techniques you now have the tools to feel less tired and more inspire day to day. As always, remember you're doing better than you think and you're worth more than you know!

Full Transcript

 what's up my good people let's talk about how to rest better how to optimize our downtime so we feel more rejuvenated our tank is fill up and we're ready to go back into the next day excited about the projects that we're working on excited to tackle our goals I know that's the goal of a lot of people right here maybe you're feeling burnt out tired maybe you're just fatigued from a long year even though we're not that far into the year yet that's okay we're going to talk about how to optimize your downtime so that you can feel more alive and joyful every single day and I've got three ideas for you and the first idea is to consider the ROI of your downtime actually think about and consider the return on investment from the time that you spend away from work you see a lot of people conflate two separate actions in their lives rest and entertainment and I think the problem with that is when you when you move towards activities after work that are stimulating that are exciting that are fun that are entertaining that's all well and good but usually entertainment after work comes at the expense of rest time and because those are two different things we can often spend too much time outside of work entertaining ourselves and not enough time actually filling up the tank and doing activities that rejuvenate us so think about for yourself you know what's an activity that you do that that's Entertainment and what's something that's actually rejuvenating and restful for you and then consider which one you're prioritizing because I'll tell you most people who don't make this distinction they lean a farther into the entertainment side of things and spend most of their evenings and weekends doing those sorts of activities which pushes out the time they can have napping or just reading a book alone or just lying down resting your eyes I'm talking real basic stuff whatever it is for you those things that really truly give you that rejuvenated tank filled uh sense after you've you've done that particular action so think about that for yourself and consider how to improve or increase the amount of time spent in actual rest as opposed to the time spent trying to entertain yourself maybe that means you've got to cancel some plans this weekend maybe you're going out somewhere you're going to a dinner party and you know you really just need to take a nap on a Saturday that's okay um plan for more rest in your life second big idea I have for you today is to rest more often to rest before you need it one of the biggest shifts in my professional life was implementing this resting before I felt like I needed it to keep my productivity high and to keep myself feeling energized if you think about your life across the span of a day like a trajectory of energy across the day you know you might have if you're like me you might have the most energy at the beginning of the day and then it kind of slowly gently goes down towards the afternoon you've got less energy at the end of the day but it's a pretty straightforward line of energy throughout your work day what a lot of people do unfortunately is they hit a wall somewhere around the middle of the day or two or three PM where maybe the food coma from lunch is hitting in maybe they've just been grinding so hard throughout the day it's just kind of catching up with them and their productivity drops in half or even less right at the end or the middle of their day and this is so unfortunate and and I know how this feels and this is why I feel for you if that's what you're experiencing is the end of your work day is so much harder and you get so much less done than the beginning the solve for that is to take smaller breaks throughout the day to give your brain a rest because a lot a lot of people think oh I'm physically fatigued you know and we think about our physical bodies needing sleep but actually our mind is what's most often drained at the end of the day we're cognitively exhausted from solving problems from having conversations from going to meetings throughout the day so we need to give our brain a break and the way we do that is very very simple it's taking a walk disconnecting from everything for a moment and just focusing on your breathing it's taking time to get a hot cup of tea or coffee it's getting a back rub it's breathing alone in a room for 15 minutes in the middle of your work day it can be different things for you but what those activities do is they give your brain time to disconnect from work to be focused on nothing for a minute so that you can actually reconnect with it rejuvenated and feeling more excited than you were before you took that break and here's the here's a key to that sometimes you think oh all I need is a five minute break and I'll get right back to it well actually it's okay if that five minute break needs to be extended to you know what I'm gonna go on a walk and take an extra 15 minutes because you're much more valuable towards your productivity and your work throughout the day and you're going to feel so much better if you take that extra 15 minutes now to really get that rest you need so that you can attack the rest of the day as opposed to just trying to stuff in a five minute break and like yeah that's fine that'll work and then getting back to it make sure the rest that the breaks that you take are are actually effective and they might need to be slightly longer than you think to make sure they are effective so that's big idea number two the last big idea for you today is that lack of energy and lack of vibrancy in your life can actually be a lack of inspiration what I mean by that is maybe you are doing everything right you're taking breaks you're getting good sleep you're doing all those things you're eating well all the check boxes right but you still don't have energy well this could be your problem maybe you're not inspired right now maybe you don't have something exciting pulling you forwards in your life you see we can do all the all the regular habits that are required of us to to have a really good restful downtime routine but if when we get up to to go during the day we have nothing exciting to work on that can be totally draining to us we can spend our whole day working on things that we don't care about and that can be quite literally depressing so if you're feeling like you have really good rest habits but you're still not feeling energized and you still feel drained throughout the day maybe look at where you're going what are your goals right now what career are you in what what tasks and projects are in front of you and honestly are you excited about those because if you're not that could be your problem and it's a signal for you to change direction it doesn't have to happen today you know maybe you can you know roll it out slow but but shift the direction you're going and make sure that you're working on projects that genuinely excite you that when you lie down to sleep and you think about the next day you actually get excited to wake up and work on them that's what real life is all about life life is about having the energy and the excitement to enter into the day with excitement with heightened energy not just optimizing the time that we're not working so that will do that will be a really really important thing if you're that person so those are three big Ideas I have for you and please for yourself for your family for the team that you're leading for your business for yourself 10 years from now for all those reasons take your rest seriously and optimize your days so that you can get quality down time so you can come back fully charged up full of joy to the projects and the work and the important toil that that makes up your work day and if you can just do one thing based off this video all you got is one action step do this write down a simple change you'll make to help you get better rest what's one thing for you that you can do and implement that will help you get better rest maybe it's cutting a certain thing out of your life like a distraction or entertainment maybe it's starting something new maybe it's changing your goals and your direction and what you're working on whatever it is for you what's a simple change you can make to improve the quality of your rest and feel more energized each day do that and remember please do like this video share this video with three of your friends who you think might uh might you know find this information useful and as always remember you're doing better than you think and you're worth more than you know