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You’ve undoubtedly heard about having a good work ethic. But have you ever heard of the term rest ethic?
Your biggest obstacle to getting enough rest is probably you.
I know this might sound like a crazy thought during the last week of August — when so many people are on holiday — but it’s a conundrum worth considering before you get caught up in the busy fall season.
Lots of people have great work ethics. In fact, as a writer, you probably work harder than many others, regularly squeezing in enough time for researching, thinking, planning, writing and editing.
But it’s also likely you don’t have a great rest ethic. And the biggest reason for that is guilt. You probably say things to yourself like:
- I really need to burn the midnight oil if I want to succeed.
- No pain, no gain.
- I just need to keep my eye on the prize.
- Persistence is the key to success, and giving up leads to failure.
- I need to push through it.
But if you really want to get better at your work, you need some rest, too. Just as professional athletes don’t work out every day (they understand that muscles are built on the REST days), writers need to understand that downtime allows our brains to make new connections and better decisions.
But rest is not simply a result of free time. It’s a skill we need to learn.
Did you know there are actually seven different types of rest, and we need all of them? Here’s the list:
- Physical rest: This can be either passive (sleeping or napping) or active (stretching or massage).
- Mental rest: This requires taking breaks from your work every day, even if only for a very short time. Close your eyes, walk around the block, listen to a piece of music — do something that allows you to take your mind off your work for at least a few minutes.
- Sensory rest: Bright lights, computer screens and background noise are the culprits here. Go somewhere dark and quiet for a few minutes several times a day to escape this sort of stimulation.
- Creative rest: This won’t sound like rest, but it is. It requires giving yourself time to appreciate nature (forests, oceans, lakes, waterfalls, flowers) or the creations of others (music, books, art).
- Emotional rest: This means having the time to freely express your feelings and the ability to stop worrying about pleasing others.
- Social rest: This means being surrounded and supported by a network of people who revive you rather than deplete or exhaust you. Make sure you have enough friends who fall into this category.
- Spiritual rest: This means the ability to feel a deep sense of belonging, love, acceptance and purpose in your life.
If the idea of a rest ethic sounds like too much work, let me give you five simple and easy-to-implement suggestions:
- Park your phone for at least an hour each day. Put it in a different room so you aren’t tempted to check email or text messages. (And be sure to turn down the volume, first!) I have a friend who’s started watching what people are doing on their phones in public, and he’s noticed that 90% of them are scrolling through their texts — even though they haven’t appeared to have received a new one. Recently, I was on a five-day holiday in another town, and whenever we went to visit the cousins we were there to see, I left my phone in my pack, in their mud room, by their back door. It was liberating to be free of my phone for up to six hours at a time.
- Remind yourself to close your eyes for 60 seconds at least once every morning and afternoon. You’re not the president of the United States. Surely you can take a couple of 60-second breaks to refresh your eyes and pay attention to your breathing.
- Get out of the office or house for at least 10 minutes every day. Take a walk around the block or, if you can’t go that far, go down to the lobby or out to the front yard and amble for a few minutes. Breathing different air and seeing different sights will make those 10 minutes feel like a hundred.
- Make sure you have enough friends who actually look after you. Being a friend doesn’t mean YOU do all the work. Some friends are givers and others are takers. Spend more time with the people in your circle who are “givers.”
- Enjoy the world. This may mean going for a walk in a forest or along a beach or going to a concert or play. Entertainment isn’t the objective — the idea is to experience something bigger than yourself.
Don’t depend on personal projects or self-care to improve your rest. Interestingly, personal projects aren’t always restful. Sometimes they’re just, well, more work. And rest is not really about face masks and bubble baths.
Instead, you just need the ability to do nothing. To have no pressure. To stop worrying about productivity and accomplishment.
Just to be you.
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Need some help developing a better, more sustainable writing or editing routine? Learn about my three-month accountability program called Get It Done. There is turn-over each month, and priority will go to those who have applied first. You can go directly to the application form and you’ll hear back from me within 24 hours.
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My video podcast last week addressed how to juggle tasks related to book writing. Go here to see the video or read the transcript, and you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel.
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Do you know how to stop sabotaging your own rest ethic? We can all learn from each other, so please, share your thoughts with my readers and me in the “comments” section below. If you comment on today’s post (or any others) by Aug. 31/24, I’ll put you in a draw for a digital copy of my first book, 8 1/2 Steps to Writing Faster, Better. To enter, please scroll down to the comments, directly underneath the “related posts” links, below. Note that you don’t have to join Disqus to post. See here to learn how to post as a guest. It’s easy!
