Rest and Recovery
Back home in Portland, I went to my first yoga class in several weeks and immediately noticed that something was different.
This class is kicking my ass! I thought—but then I looked around, and everyone else was doing just fine. The same thing happened during my 40-minute run the night before: 20 minutes in, I was ready to give up.
My most recent epic journey was fairly intense. Among other challenges, I slept in a different bed every night for 10 nights in a row. I hadn’t planned it that way—I was in Cyprus for three nights, but I changed rooms one night and hotels the other night. Because of the complex itinerary, I had a lot of transit stops—one night in Munich, one in Miami, one in Heathrow, and so on. Living out of a suitcase can work for a while, but it does wear you down over time.
Flying home to the States from Germany, I was preparing for two big projects—speaking at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, then launching the Empire Building Kit on board the Empire Builder westbound train from Chicago. I had started working on each of them two weeks before, but Parkinson’s law of “work expands to fill the time allotted to it” kicked in. The night before the talk, I was still shuffling the slides around. Then a few days later on the morning of the launch, I was up at 5:30 a.m. in North Dakota trying to update all the site files before going live.
The two big projects, the hopping around Europe with a bonus trip to Cape Verde, the 46 hours on Amtrak, and everything else contributed to my feeling pretty worn down by the time Portland’s Union Station came into sight. On Thursday I said I was ready for a five-hour nap, but I probably could have used about 50 hours.
Don’t get me wrong—the trip was 100% worth it. I wouldn’t have done it any differently.
I’ve come to believe more and more that saying yes is better than no, an active life is better than a passive one, and embracing adventures are all important aspects of what make many of us happy. If you’re out there doing fun stuff, you can usually ignore people who tell you to “slow down and take it easy.”
Nevertheless, I do get tired doing these things, and I also believe it’s important to rest and recover. Here’s how I do it.
Sabbath Day
I go around the world at least four or five times a year, but home in Portland, I’m kind of a homebody. I don’t go out much, and when I do, I don’t go far. Not owning a car confines me to a 15-block walking radius and wherever the bus or bike will take me, but that’s perfectly fine. I live right in the middle of the city for a good reason.
I generally work six days a week, but on Saturday or Sunday I take most of the day off as a Sabbath day. There are different ways to observe the Sabbath, and I tend to believe that the principle is more important than the “rules” (which is kind of what I believe about everything). The principle is that our bodies and minds need rest, so we should plan a regular winding-down period to ensure we have the strength to keep going.
When I’m traveling, I don’t worry about a day of rest. Sometimes rest just isn’t possible on the road, and other times it will happen naturally at one of the stops. At home, though, I usually take a modified Sabbath from Saturday evening to late Sunday afternoon. During this time I don’t use the computer for much of anything, and it’s the only time during the week when I don’t check email at all.
(I know that other people advocate spending even more time away from the computer, but that doesn’t work for me. I also don’t find that being online all the time is especially draining or disheartening.)
Recovery versus Rest
While rest may be a passive activity—for me it’s reading books and hanging out in coffee shops—recovery is both passive and active. Recovery activities consist of things that help us recharge and get ready for the next thing.
In my case, I go for a long run every week, usually on Sundays. I also review my lists of projects and tasks at least once a week, usually on Friday or Saturday night. I ask: Am I on track? Does something need to change? Am I forgetting something?
This weekend I realized that I haven’t been writing as much as I would like over the past few weeks. It’s a natural consequence of the big launch and all the travel, but I don’t want to lose the habit. Getting back to the writing is a recovery activity. I opened up the files for a couple of big writing projects and immediately felt better. “This is why I do what I do,” I said to myself. “I need to recover so I can do more of it.”
My favorite book about this concept is The Power of Full Engagement, which is a a great response to more traditional “time management” books. I’ve always been skeptical of the idea of managing time—time exists independently, and we can’t tell it what to do—but until I read Full Engagement I didn’t have a good alternative.
In the book, the authors show that instead of trying to manage time, we should be conscious of managing our energy. At different points in the day we have more energy than others, and we’re also motivated to do certain things at peak moments. They key is working with what you’ve got, and planning your work times around when you expect to have creative energy. (This is also a good reason to never answer the phone—but that’s another story.)
Whenever I try to motivate myself to do something, I encounter a great deal of resistance. Whenever I do what I’m already motivated to do, I work much better and get much more done.
***
At TEDx in Pittsburgh I talked about the idea that many of us live our lives waiting for someone else to give us permission to be ourselves. I know that I’m wired for an active life and I wouldn’t be happy with anything less.
That said, I do get tired—sometimes even exhausted. On Thursday I came home and slept away the afternoon. Friday was OK, but on Saturday after yoga I took another two-hour nap. All three days were low on productivity, and I think I still need a bit more recovery time.
It’s good to rest, in other words. But I think it’s even better to have something to rest from. With that in mind, I’ve got more adventures planned, very soon. But first, another nap. zzzzzz …
How about you—how do you rest and recover?
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Image: Esther
57 Comments
Funny enough, I just posted on this very topic on Saturday! I agree, you need at least one day to rest and let the previous week’s events settle in and prepare for the upcoming week. I tend to read, write or visit with family and friends.
I think it’s about taking a day to do things you enjoy as opposed to things you have to do.
Chris. fun post. more adventures! cheers!
i like to rest and recover by not talking every other sunday. there’s something so peaceful and restorative about not opening your mouth. i also talk for a living and do get sick of my voice (others probably do, too!).
welcome back chris!
I don’t plan my time quite so well, since my workload/productivity vaires a lot week-to-week; but I do find that it’s easier to count on times when I usually have creative energy and not try to force myself to work on something at 8pm when I’m notoriously cranky.
Recovering for me tends to consist of catching up with friends over coffee (or over Skype), going to the cinema to watch something visually stimulating, reading, and hanging out with the family.
Rest, recovery, reflection, rejuvenation are essential to life, creativity and travel. Having a child will teach you these things quickly. 😉 So traveling as a family, we must keep everyone’s needs in mind.
Our open ended travel lifestyle is mostly slow travel, but we have times that it is necessary to go faster or more intensely for various reasons and we sometimes we pack a lot in.
That only works though if we make sure we add those 4 R’s listed above. We took a 6 year old into Morocco on a long days journey by land and sea using 5 or 6 modes of travel & once saw 3 museums in a day in Paris with a 6 year old and the Norway in a nutshell splurge in 2 days. It worked for all of us because we allowed for the rest and lots of play..before, during and after.
Time=wealth. Rest well my friend, you deserve it!
Chris,
Your statement ” Whenever I try to motivate myself to do something, I encounter a great deal of resistance. Whenever I do what I’m already motivated to do, I work much better and get much more done,” spoke volumes to me.
I am writing this in a bit of a fog trying to geared up to attend to my “day job” obligations when I would much rather be attending to my independent projects. I have been guilty of cracking the whip as it were in the past, and for a time this was “effective” (it got me through grad school), but I am increasingly realizing it is not sustainable approach over the long term. I am easing into the realization that perhaps today will not the most productive day of the week, but I certainly aspire to creating a day (and life) where I can bring home the bacon doing only what I love. Thank you for your writings!
I recently started this motivational exercise with working out. Experts tell you not to work out 2 or 3 hours before bed, but I found that it’s the perfect way to get ready for sleeping. After my workout, I take a nice shower and am ready for my bedtime routine.
I spent a couple years trying to work out first thing in the morning. It just doesn’t work for me. I would also stay up late browsing the internet and spend hours awake in bed because my mind was still spinning over what I’d read.
So I’m going to stick to the times I’m naturally motivated to work out from now on… and thanks to this article, I’ll keep looking for other opportunities to do this in my life!
“At different points in the day we have more energy than others, and we’re also motivated to do certain things at peak moments. They key is working with what you’ve got, and planning your work times around when you expect to have creative energy.”
YES! I have always worked this way and have spent many fruitless minutes trying to explain it to other people. I just get blank looks back. Thanks for the heads up on the book “The Power of Full Engagement” – I’ll need to check that out.
It often seems that rest & recovery are highly underrated in American society, where it’s often considered as just being lazy. I believe that your body will always tell you exactly what you need if you just listen to it. If I feel like I need to sleep for 10 hours after a serious stretch of work/activity, then that’s what I do. And I’ve always found that I bounce back better if I get the rest and don’t try to resist it.
So rest on, man! 🙂
Glad you’re getting some rest Chris. Oh. Travel NOW all you can. If you think your schedule kicks your ass now, wait until you hit 40, or 50! This van dwelling thing is wasting me at 54, and at 25 or even 30 would have been a piece of cake!! Like your take on the Sabbath too. We ALL need a day of rest, whatever you want to call it!
I get where you are coming from. I work too hard and too many hours most of the time. I know when I am recovering when I am consciously eating a lot of veggies, hitting the gym (mostly for some good stretching) and when I play guitar and singing so loudly that I just don’t care who hears me — when I get to that point where I stop worrying about what I didn’t finish I know I am really resting.
Travel is tiring. It sounds glamorous to sleep in 10 different beds over 10 nights but it is a pretty difficult way to live. It is definitely nice to have longer term bases to have some semblance of a regular routine.
I like the idea of ‘managing energy.’ That makes a lot more sense than managing time.
I guess related to that idea of energy is also mood. If I am tired I get really cranky and it shows up in everything I do. It is much better for me to just to take a nap and wait until I have more energy to put in a decent effort. I take on bigger challenges and try more creative ideas when I am energetic.
I really like how you differentiate “rest” and “recovery.” Rest, to me, isn’t always effective in helping me recharge. Things like sleeping in or playing games or watching TV take very little energy, but usually leave me more tired than I was before.
On the other hand, when I get back to doing work or activities I enjoy – work that engages and challenges me – I find that I feel refreshed, even though it supposedly takes more effort on my part.
Perhaps it’s something like “laziness breeds laziness, and energy breeds energy.”
Thanks for the Parkinson’s Law — It’s so true!
I like that you try to keep a Sabbath day, and I especially like that you differentiated between the rule and the principle. I feel the same about Lent.
I’m similar to you in that “pleasure reading” (magazines especially but anything that is not a textbook) exercise and extra sleep are my favorite ways to recover and rest.
You have to rest! That travel schedule would whooop anyone’s butt. I can’t function well without yoga. I find, too, that no matter how exhausted I feel (and even if I really have to force it) I always feel better after yoga and/or belly dancing; they have a similar effect. Good luck. Recuperate and make the most of home!
I start my day bundled or in my Hanes sleep t shirt, in my backyard. It just works for me to see what is blooming, growing, eaten, vegging in my garden. Morning smells around 6:00 am are alive for me, therefore, that gives me moments of rest and recovery. Same in the evening…I love a surprise and where can you count on that?….NATURE. I am persistent so I guess some say that is a work a holic, I say it is creative. I need to get better at putting on music at night. Thanks for letting me think about rest and recovery, again. Natalie
I highly recommend Wayne Muller’s book: Sabbatth: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest. He says, “While Sabbath can refer to a single day of the week, Sabbath can also be a far-reaching, revolutionary tool for cultivating those precious human qualities that grow only in time.” If you can’t do a whole day, even a few hours can restore body and soul.
Chris, your point: “I tend to believe that the principle is more important than the “rules” (which is kind of what I believe about everything),” is genius.
You have just given us another way to say that “It’s the substance, and not the style” that matters.
Your question reveals a paradox: If rest is the opposite of work; and our work gives us joy, then does it follow that by resting we are not engaging that which gives us joy?
Hmmm
I discount this logic, and suggest that EVERYTHING that we do should give us an EXISTENTIAL joy. So the pain of yoga, the huffing of breath to make the connection before they close the cabin door, the tickle of the bubbles when you finally get back to a place that serves Pepsi cold right out of the fountain and you can sit quietly without fearing your bag will go missing – all of these are part and parcel of a life well lived.
“The highest and best use of one’s time” is my goal, sometimes that means snoring
Great post.
“I know that I’m wired for an active life and I wouldn’t be happy with anything less.”……….”I think it’s even better to have something to rest from” that just made my day! Thanks, 2am on Wenesday I drive my 1 year car sick pup in my smart to London uploaded pic of us see URL. Thanks Chris you consistently make me smile! What a joy! Rest well. Tanya
My Sabbath Day is Friday at sunset to Saturday sunset. I started doing this several months ago and I’m amazed at how refreshed and reinvigorated resting for 24 hours me feel! The Power of Full Engagement sounds like a book I need to read because my energy level tends to be low, maybe I will garner new insight on how to manage energy instead of time.
Yoga=good.
I already own and read the book you’re talking about. It’s a great one. I recommend it to anyone 🙂
Rest is essential! Disconnecting for me is critical to rest my brain. I used to be a night owl but now I try to get to bed early and really disconnect from the computer on days off. Sometimes it’s working in the garden while listening to music. Other times sitting by the fire reading or taking a walk on the beach. Others it’s watching mindless TV or doing something to work up a sweat like snowshoeing or Wii tennis. Need more down time as I get older.
Chris, I so appreciate that you posted this — admitting to us that you need rest and recovery time. It makes us feel just a little less in awe of all you do. I’ve been “saying yes” for the past year or so, and find myself living a much fuller and rewarding life as a result (can only hope this will continue and grow), but I’m also quite exhausted some days! I need to schedule in a weekly half-day for review/recovery, at minimum.
I too am trying to pay more attention to down time. I tend to stay plugged in and often have to consciously disengage. I recently started knitting after several years away from the yarn and needles. I find it relaxing. As I approach another birthday, I had to put the misconception that knitting is for little old ladies out of my mind. Not only do I enjoy it, I also have something beautiful to show for my efforts.
I really love this question. It is one that I ask my workshop participants all the time (I offer workshops to helpers on compassion fatigue, a specialised form of burnout). I’ll say: what is restorative for you? What is rest? Is watching 5 hours of CSI restful and restorative? I think that very few of us actually rest very often. I sometimes get my participants to spend 5 minutes in complete silence, and for some, that is very very difficult.
For me, a restorative practice is doing 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation in the mornings. I feel incredibly refreshed afterwards.
When I’m most exhausted it usually means I need a rest from myself, a real break from the way I am experiencing my life, my critiquing, my evaluating, my inner dialogue, so….I meditate, wherever I am, shut my eyes, let it all go and that is where I find the real break from myself…..ahhhhhhh, it’s wonderful!
Great reminder, Chris, thanks.
ZZZZZZZZZ-On!
I hear a lot of people say that you should take one day a week and use that to rest and recover, for me I have maybe one weekend every 6 weeks in which I plan absolutely nothing and use it as a recovery weekend. Working full time and juggling several other projects (blogging, studying, travel) means that time for recovery is very limited. What it boils down to, i think, is discovering what works for you. My recovery weekends are actually ‘slow’ weekends – i take my time with everything I do and aim to restore myself spiritually – relaxing with friends, eating good food, reading, relaxing and even just lying on the couch watching a few games of rugby or football!
Rest every now and again is good, although I find that the more active I am, the more energy I have and the less need I have for rest!
Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh? Aww … you brought back some fond memories. I grew up in the Pittsburgh area and one of the most fabulous classes I ever attended in high school was the Carnegie Mellon Institute’s Course of Literature. Thanks for a bit of nostalgia. 🙂
Nothing will squash creativity and enthusiasm faster than exhaustion. Sometimes it becomes essential to our well being to accept the fact that not one of us has the stamina of the “Energizer Bunny”!
Muse on!
I’m older and can’t begin live as I used to….full bore and loads of energy to clean up my messes. I’ve had to learn to pace myself…and it hasn’t been easy…due to living with Rheumatoid Arthritis….well controlled by meds…I’ve had to learn not let myself get really tired….I need to listen to my body and take it easy for as long as it takes…..which has encouraged me to stop over planning my time….I want to do it all…and none of us can…..I use my down time reading and web surfing….
ugh! I do neither and I need to so badly. I have no concept of rest or recovery but I MUST find a way to recover from years of abuse and running from that. I feel that is what I am supposed to be doing now but I fight it at every turn. Therefore, i am still exhausted, happier, but exhausted!
I like taking a long walk, working out, baking bread, meditating, sitting in the park a block from our place. It’s also a time I reconnect and call my family and check-in to see how my husband is feeling after a long week. When I’m resting I also tend to get introspective and think about what I want to blog about during the week. I recharge by thinking about the next contribution I want to make.
Doing and resting – the eternal fight for me !
Lots of stuff you say here resonates with me – you should never motivate yourself – you either have the passion or you don’t. Everything else is messy self-discipline, and the only time I need self-discipline is when I’m filling out the tax return.
I find it amazing that you never need to rest from your online activity, it’s never draining ? Heck, I’m obsessed with being online, but even I need rest my brain cells after breaking my finger on the keyboard overloading my Twitter capacities ! Well, that’s all for now, have a great week Chris, and I,….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Prioritize, Organize and Discipline is the KEY to life for me. First of all, I want to agree with soultravelers3 EVERYTHING CHANGES with kids. I am a stay-at-home dad of a two year old boy and a 10 month old girl (when I am not speaking). Before getting married almost three years ago, I was traveling all over the world. One year I was in America only two months and at home two weeks of the two months.
I am taking a trip in a few weeks to South Africa. I will speak at least 8 times in 10 days. I am hoping to get moved to business class with on my flight to Johannesberg using my miles. If not, I hope to get a four seater with three empty seats. My point is I am planning on resting while working.
When I return, I plan to take at least two days (put the kids in a daycare) doing NOTHING!!! I wont feel guilty and i may catch a movie.
It’s interesting how some messages show up just when you need them – and not always where you expect to see them. The rest and recovery bit was interesting but it was seeing your comment about speaking at TEDx about “the idea that many of us live our lives waiting for someone else to give us permission to be ourselves” was exactly what I needed to be reminded of today.
I think learning the trick of little rests during the day – meditation even – might help. I am new to trying this out, but so far, even after a short time I notice a difference. I’m more even tempered through the day.
I think its not just the physical travel but the adrenaliine that goes with it which takes a toll. I’m glad you encourage rest AND recovery, many people now feel they HAVE to keep going no matter what. “A change is as good as a rest,” they say, but I think this is the case as long as a person can rest and recover too.
I find when I’m exhausted if I lie down and think “Argh, I need to get up, argh, I have all this stuff I need to do, argh, I’m being a lazy bum” it’s not nearly as restful as when I lie down and allow myself to be as lazy as I need to be until I’m recharged. I’ve even set aside days to do what I call a Nothing Session where I schedule a few hours and do absolutely nothing–no books, no computer, not even music, just stay in bed and let myself be.
It’s so ironic that you mentioned yoga kicking your butt – I’m starting to get more into it (after a long hiatus) and this weekend took two classes. I thought I’d be a tough girl and go again tonight but I can’t lift my arms! So many benefits, but today will be my day of rest. It’s my “Law of Least Effort” even if just for today.
It even says that God had a rest (invented rest even) on the seventh day after all his creative actions. If He needed a rest, we certainly do 🙂
After becoming ill 5 years ago, I was told to rest. REST! It was the hardest thing in the world. I just wanted to do…do…do! And so I ignored it and went into work. My whole body rebelled and broke down just making everything worse.
I constantly think that I need to do more, get out more, work harder, play harder… but now my body won’t keep up with other people any more.
I am learning that it is okay to rest, it is okay to go at your own pace, it is okay to be ill. What is not okay is to waste time. True rest though is not wasted time, it is the vital process that allows us to continue to do all of the brilliant things we do the rest of the day, to enjoy the people around us, and to prepare us for all challenges that we may face.
You should consider getting acupuncture–I promise it would help with jetlag and keeping your energy levels balanced! 🙂
I’m glad that you had an awesome trip, albeit changing rooms 10X.
I think taking a “Sabbath Day” is an awesome idea!!!
Fitness training plans often call for “active recovery.” For example, a bicyclist would take an easy ride by lowering the pedaling cadence and refraining from hard-short intervals. My problem is that I enjoy sprinting so much that when I hit a nice flat, long section of road, I can’t resist hammering the pedals and spiking my heart rate.
You may want to try some active recovery writing before you get back to your next big project. Lately I’ve been selecting a random page in Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones-Freeing the Writer Within.” I use that page as a starting theme and then blast out 500 words. No one will ever see those words, but writing them refreshes me as a writer.
Like you, I work a six day week. And my days are unpredictable. Qi gong keeps me going, a bit of gardening or cleaning if I need to get my body working so my mind can take a break and generate a necessary solution without a struggle. But best of all is being flexible about that Sabbath day. Sometimes Saturday, sometimes Sunday, but every now & then I’ll take a weekday, or stop work early & go to a movie (which is half work & usually a kind of meditative and refreshing experience). And one of the loveliest breaks: a cup of tea in the kitchen with family, a friend (or two): love goes a long way in a busy life!
I find that if I am tired, it means I’ve let something interrupt my normal sleep pattern. I try to make sure that I get 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep 3 nights in a row. I usually feel fine after that.
I am guilty of working too many hours. That’s usually what affects me most. I have to admit I’d like to have your problem of travel and being busy. Bet that interrupts your sleep pattern!!!
I just had a Guillebeau kind of week! My wife and I visited 5 countries across Europe over the past 11 days. I don’t know how you do it and stay vertical, but thanks for the insight.
Now we need a vacation from our vacation. Time for a little of that R & R.
-Michael
Welcome back Chris,
I rest the old fashion way, I take a one hour nap after lunch. I then work at the compuer reading or writing until 11pm to 1am. I sleep until 7am and have lots of energy most of the time.
My wife and I take in a movie most Fridays. Sunday I attent 3 hours of church and get 2-3 hours of sleep. Some times at the same time.
I love this retired life. It is like doing what I want when I want with a SS income to get by. I am working on an Internet business to bring in travel money and help my three boys in this tough JOB based economy. I am trying to convert them to Internet incomes. They say show me the money. My wife says that too.
I really goofed not reolizing the Empire Builder was only open one day. I am ready for the next one. Get some rest.
yeah, I agree with you, especially as I get older. I’m beginning to enjoy longer stays at places then I used to in my 20’s. I don’t find a different bed every night as glamorous as I once did and i really enjoy getting to see and learn more about a places that I might have stayed at for only one or two nights before.
Also i do think it is important to make a distinction between physical tiredness and mental tiredness. After I came back from a recent month long backpacking trip around southern China I was physically worn out, but mentally I was completely inspired and was writing non-stop! I love that.
I’m terrible at resting and recovery. However, yoga has been something that has really helped me. I’ve been an athlete and fitness guy my whole life, but yoga gives you something much different. Reading also helps as does playing outside with my kids. It’s draining, but in a much different way.
I go for balance and moderation. I pace myself while working on my passions and a sense of purpose. I take in challenges from time to time to get out of my comfort zone. I`m getting somewhere and the journey becomes my premium. What I`m doing becomes my source of energy. But I still got something from all the comments. Thanks, people! 🙂
In my new life plan I’ve just factored in one day a week for doing nothing! And here you are advocating just that. Synchronicity, or what?
Misha.
Chris – take care of yourself and recover well. Your full on approach to life is inspiring and even listening to it sounds exhausted. I know that I try to keep at least one day a week sacred for family, fun and personal time and for me that is one key to living happily and authentically.
Boy can I relate to this! Since landing back in the states it’s been crazy building my client base back up and still having down time for myself. I’m happy to report I finally have my weekends off! Balance is so important even if we are living and breathing our passions.
Whether it’s sore eyes from hunching over my blog all day, tight hamstring from dance class or sore abs from teaching pilates mat, I make a huge effort to unwind at the end of the day or week and take care of my body. Meditating between activities and taking advantage of a sauna’s warmth are my go to remedies.
So happy you are home safe Chris! Yoga does kick ass. I love this local 2 hour bakti flow class on sunday mornings. It’s like church, but way better 😀
I definitely agree about managing energy. We all have our more energetic times of day. I’ve always been more of a morning person and find that I really hit my flow during the mid to late morning.
Excellent post, Chris. I WILL be checking out that book!
I have recently (in the last few years) developed a fatigue disorder of some sort–no diagnosis yet–so I have come up against this in a very big way. It is VERY important to manage our energy. Even the healthiest among us will burn out or become ill if we do not rest AND recharge.
That said, I do not have any one day a week I do this. I monitor my energy levels from day to day and from week to week, and I simply take down time when I need it. (Not as easy to do at work, but it’s a desk job, so a little easier to take down time when needed.) When I am at home in the evenings–usually–I don’t spend much time on the computer. Same with weekends. I find I tend to come back to my online activities much sharper if I can spend some time away. Plus, the art I do aside from my photography requires space, so usually it can’t be done at my desk, anyway.
Keep taking care of yourself, so that you can get in more adventures!
i like to do some basic yard work: either cutting the grass, edging stuff, or tending to my small garden.
My best time of day for getting into the flow is straight after the evening meal – I love retreating to my office (a box bedroom in my house) and creating whatever comes to mind, either writing an article or a chapter, or learning some more aout CS3 and webpages, or painting.
My slump in the day is right after lunch, usually. It was a killer when I had a regular day job! 12,30 if the phone rang I hardly had the motivation to pick it up. Now, the natural thing for me to do, is just take it easy, even if it is for no more than 3/4 of an hour. After that I can get back to whatever project I am working on.
And my favourite time of the week (though it doesn’t happen every week) is to take my breakfast up to bed on sunday morning and read for a couple of hours.
Thanks Chris!
Great advice! Thanks for telling the whole story.
I always wondered about that time management versus energy management issue!
Jon
Great stuff. I need to learn how to set aside more time for rest and recovery. I like your approach.
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