Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. – Genesis 2:3
The recurring mistake I always make is failing to plan rest into my schedule. Instead, I went to sleep with grand intentions for a productive Sunday. If I could just run 10 more miles on top of the 22 from Saturday, write another post, and complete a few other household chores, the weekend would be a success.
After a poor night of sleep, I woke up exhausted and listened to my body. I let my priorities slip as I caught up on extra sleep and Netflix. Unfortunately, the rest was overshadowed by lingering guilt over all the tasks that were not accomplished. And, it’s quality rest that was sorely needed as I’ve been running at max most of this month.
There’s an important distinction between resting intentionally and using rest as an excuse to opt-out from discomfort. Every time I give in to my present self, I weaken my self-perception as someone who follows through on what they say. It’s important to have boundaries; creating a separation between work and rest improves the quality of both. But how do I establish those boundaries?
Cal Newport protects his time by scheduling all hours of his day and starts a shutdown routine at 5:30 pm. “I fix the firm goal of not working past a certain time, then work backward to find productivity strategies that allow me to satisfy this declaration.”
Laura Vanderkam supports the daily planning model. “If we plan our workdays, we should also plan our free time.” To gain a sense of time abundance, she says time freedom stems from time discipline. She advises using money to reduce undesirable tasks is money well spent.
Finally, I need to recognize that I cannot accomplish everything. Tim Ferriss wrote: “Develop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don’t, you’ll never find time for the life-changing big things.” Make space for rest so that I can come back swinging harder at the big things.
Cover Photo by Sid Leigh on Unsplash
