The surprising secret to productivity

If you’re American, chances are that you’re bad at resting. 

It’s not your fault; it’s deeply engrained in American culture that we need to “earn” our rests. 

But we have it backwards.

We can’t expect to be productive in order to earn our rests; we actually NEED rest FIRST in order to be productive. 

Think of yourself as a car that runs on gas. 

Let’s say the car is completely out of gas. It should be no surprise that it won’t be able to move anywhere. You wouldn’t expect it to start moving in order to “earn” more gas. You’d just give it gas, and soon you’d be on your way.

Resting works similarly; no matter how much self-improvement gurus might insist that you just need to will yourself into productivity, that’s just not how it works. If you’re physically or emotionally exhausted, the only thing that will get you working again is rest. 

It’s also worth pausing to wonder why being productive is the end-all be-all goal for so many people, and whether you’re prioritizing that goal in a way that feels good for you. But delving deeply enough into that could take a whole book, so if you’re up for it, feel free to take a moment to reflect on that for yourself. 

And if it feels right, maybe instead of asking how you can rest in order to be productive, you can think of yourself as both deserving to feel rested *and* as deserving the satisfaction and sense of purpose you may experience when you feel productive.

So, how can we rest?

Our most common attempts at “taking a break” often aren’t actually processed as “rest” in our brains: scrolling on social media, watching TV, and even social interaction may just be overstimulating your brain further, when what you’d really benefit from is a more peaceful activity.

To get the most out of your resting time, you may want to try meditating; research shows that during meditation, the parts of the brain that might not otherwise get to rest finally get to slow down. 

But you may also find other quiet activities restful, like doodling, spending time in nature alone, or gentle movement. It can be particularly helpful if you’re not doing any of the above with any particular end goal in mind other than the process of resting itself, and it can be especially helpful if you choose something that doesn’t have a “wrong” way to do it. 

If being alone with your thoughts sounds more stressful than pleasant, though, you’re not alone; recent research shows that most people would rather electrocute themselves than be alone with their thoughts. So it might be helpful to start with small chunks of resting, even if it’s just a few minutes at a time, just to get used to it. And you can work your way up over time.

So try to build some rest into your life. Unfortunately, our society doesn’t offer many easily obtainable opportunities for rest, so it might take some actual planning in advance to make sure you give yourself a break. 

Whether you’re setting an alarm every few hours to remind you to meditate for two minutes or you’re setting aside an hour a week to take a walk in a park, you may find it helpful to build rest into your routine regularly and plan in advance when, how, and what you’re going to do it. If you have a few minutes, I encourage you to look at your schedule for the next week and see when you might find some times throughout the week to rest.

While finding time to rest within a culture that systematically devalues it might make it feel like you’re swimming upstream, you might be surprised at how much more satisfied you feel in both your work-life and your personal life.