Upmarket Magazine

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Why You Should Do Nothing Posted: 20 Sep 2012 08:00 AM PDT I did nothing last weekend.  And it was awesome. I simply took the whole weekend off.  I didn't do anything around the house.  I didn't complete any home improvement projects.  I didn't balance my checkbook.  I didn't run errands.  I didn't even pick up all the clutter that accumulates with two kids.  I simply relaxed.  And it was awesome. About the most work I did was take my daughter and wife to King's Island Amusement Park to ride some roller coasters.  (Apparently no one goes to amusement parks during hurricane weather, so there were no lines!)  Looking back, this was exactly what my family needed.  And it's also exactly what my work needed. I talk a lot about work.  The psychology of work.  The fact that work doesn't bring you meaning, you bring meaning to work.  And even tips and tricks that subtly boost your performance.  But one area I don't talk about as much is rest.  Perhaps it's because I am terrible at practicing rest.  Perhaps it's because I feel guilty about encouraging rest on a blog about work.  However, I'm learning just how important it is to rest.  And if you truly want to accomplish something you must rest.  Not take 15 minutes to catch your breath, but to truly rest. The American culture, although I suspect this is true for much of the world, revolves around doing.  This is a good thing.  It's a good to work, to accomplish tasks, to create new things.  And a lot of work needs doing.  People need money for food, we need nice things to enjoy, and we need to help protect people who need protected. The problem is when we become obsessed with just work.  We forget that work can't happen without rest.  If we don't give our bodies time to recover from exertion, we can't perform.  We see this time and again in the world around us.  When you exercise, the best performance comes when you give your body a chance to recover.  Doing the same workout 7 days a week is actually less effective than doing it 3 times a week.  One of the major food-producing discoveries was the simple fact that you should leave one field "fallow".  Farmers get less crop out of a field if they use it year after year.  By letting the soil "rest" the next batch of crops grows bigger and stronger, and thus more profitable. Our bodies, and even nature, tells us that rest matters. Yet we force our way through it.  We use caffeine to help us wake up.  Then we use sedatives to help us wind down.  Maybe that describes you.  Maybe it doesn't.  But if you are reading this website, I can almost guarantee that you don't rest enough. If you want to be more productive, you have to rest first.  So here's the challenge: pick one day a week and rest, then come back here and tell us what happened.  And if you can't do that, then pick one afternoon or one evening and simply do nothing.  I think you'll find it's awesome. Photo credit: Thomas Tolkien

Creating the list Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:00 PM PDT …is not the same as obeying the list. Do you make the list you check off, follow and work on every day? When does it get made? Who approves it? Do you identify tasks or perform them? If you had a better list, would you do better work? If you made the list instead of just obeying it, would you be a more valuable member of the team? Yes, asking questions is often more valued than answering them. (If they’re the right questions.) Image credit: karindalziel

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