The Underappreciated Art of Taking Quality Breaks.

Finding Your Rhythm in a World Out of Sync, part 4.

This is fourth and final installment of my series, Finding Your Rhythm in a World Out of Sync.

If you missed the first three parts you can find them here:

Part 1, Finding Your Rhythm in a World Out of Sync;

Part 2, A Simple Experiment That Changed the Way I Work; and

Part 3, The Superpower You Can Develop to Improve the Quality of Your Life.

This is Thomas.

He is my friend’s grandson. I’ve featured him before because he has this Slow Sippin’ thing down.

The other day, he was learning to ride his bike without training wheels. For a guy who just turned three, this is a tall order and very hard work.

After about 5 km of dedicated practice, he spied a bench. With no prompting from his parents, he stopped, leaned his bike against it, laid down, and took a nap.

There’s lots we can learn from Thomas.

Finding a great rhythm in your life, in part, is knowing when to stop.

It’s knowing when to put your bike down and take a nap.

The problem is, most of us are all about “gettin’ er done," and getting on to the next thing.

Letting yourself create and experience these spaces in your life can make the difference between a day that ends in exhaustion and one that feels like a day well-lived.

Here are four ways to create more space to breathe.

1.      Listen for the space between the beats.

When we think of an arresting drum solo, we think of the beat. The sound. But what gives the sound depth and interest are the rests between the beats.

If you think about it, the beats don’t vary that much. It’s the spaces between them that make the difference. If they are all the same, the rhythm is monotonous and boring. If you can’t hear or discern the spaces or if they have no pattern, the sound is simply noise – irritating and stressful.

A great rhythm is an intricate relationship between beat and rest. It’s the dance between sound and silence, substance and space. 

So it is with the rhythm of our lives.

Think back to some of your most memorable moments. Chances are they didn’t occur when you had your nose in a screen. Or when you were racing around to tick off items on your to do list. They probably occurred in one of those in between spaces – when you were traveling on vacation, or hiking in the woods, or playing in the back yard with your kids.

Life is full of moments like this if we care to notice.

When I’m feeling pressure to get things done, I tend to think of these spaces as interruptions. Or I don’t notice them at all, but just float through them in a mental daze churning through items on my to do list.

But when I let myself fully experience these liminal moments, when I see these “interruptions” as the stuff that gives life meaning and even joy, life is more interesting.

Here’s a practice to try.

Pay attention to the spaces in your life. Notice when you resist them as interruptions. Notice when you tell yourself you have no time for them. These spaces are your life. Try welcoming them.

2.      Design your breaks to serve different needs.

The breaks in our days and in our weeks have a purpose every bit as important as the work itself. They enable us to restore, learn, and experience pleasure.

Restore

Mental focus burns cognitive resources and these resources need to be replenished. Most of us can’t accomplish more than 60 to 90 minutes of focused activity without a break. The key is to take your breaks at the first sign of mental or physical fatigue. Pushing through these signals is ultimately counterproductive. The quality of your thinking declines. You make more errors. Progress is often slower and so is recovery.

What fills you up?

A full night’s sleep, a walk in my neighborhood, a half hour of yoga, coffee with a friend or colleague – these are restorative for me. For you, it might be an intense workout at the gym, 20 minutes of meditation, or an afternoon nap. 

Everybody is different. Every day is different. Some days restoration looks quiet and restful; other days it looks intense and playful.

Restorative breaks can take 5 minutes or a few weeks or even months.

Experiment. Pay attention to how you feel after a break.

Ask yourself, “Do I feel more energized or depleted?”

Take the kind of break you know will fill you up.

Explore

My mind is a puppy. It’s easily distracted and likes to wander off. So, most of the time, I try to reign it in, get it to focus. It takes a lot of energy.

Every so often, I let the puppy roam free and wander.

When I do, I’m often rewarded with a cool idea, an interesting connection I hadn’t seen before, or a solution to a problem I’ve been mulling.

Professor Barbara Oakley calls this diffuse thinking. Diffuse thinking, sometimes called daydream mode, is when your puppy mind is off its leash. During these periods your mind works in the background to make novel connections, to process and learn, to solve complex problems.

You can use this mode to your advantage by using the open loop effect. If you're feeling stuck, stop the struggle. Stop in mid-task, get up from your desk, and take your puppy mind (and maybe you’re real puppy) for a walk. Give your problem over to your subconscious to solve. The results may surprise you.

Play

Sometimes, it’s not rest but a hit of pleasure that you need. A time for fun, movement, or connection. Or maybe just a mindless activity you enjoy like the morning crossword or game of solitaire.

When I notice I’m starting to feel burdened or work feels like a slog, I treat it as a signal that it’s time to play. I am lucky to have a couple of jedi play masters in my life in the form of young grandchildren.

Ask yourself: What brings me joy? What feels fun? What makes me laugh? Design more of that into your life.

3.      Learn when and how to put things down.

I had an argument with my husband last night. This one was about golf. The weather is gorgeous, he wants to be on the golf course. He wants me to be out there with him. But I’m trying to get this post published this week.

I’ve struggled with this my whole life. Putting work down. I love my work, yes. But, that’s not what keeps me glued to my desk. It’s the lure of that illusive feeling of being finished. I tend to confuse finished with done.

I tell myself I don’t have time for a game of golf because I’m not done.

I’m trying to break this habit.

These days, done is when my body says it is. It comes from the inside, not the outside. I’ve learned there’s an important distinction between “it’s done” and “I’m done.” I’ve discovered that “it” is almost never done, and I need to respect and honor when I’m done.

The art of putting things down is also learning to make a clean break from your work. In this case, instead of using the open loop effect I talked about above, you want to close things down so you don’t keep ruminating on them. Fortunately, your brain can’t tell the difference between actually finishing a task or simply recording it.

Before you leave an unfinished task, make a list of what remains to be done, and when you will do it. That enables you to let go of it until you return. It also creates a faster, more effective start up when you pick it back up again.

The same holds true for putting down your day.

My clients often complain that they can’t seem to leave work at the office. They come home and are distracted, not present with their families, compulsively checking their phone.

The thing I’ve found most useful in combatting this in my own life is performing a closing down ritual at the end of my workday. This is a set of actions and reflections to signal to my mind and body that work is done for the day. It has been invaluable for reducing stress and my tendency to ruminate about work in the evenings. For tips on how to create an end of day ritual, read my post, The Shut Down Sequence.

So today, I will leave this post before it’s finished. I will make a note of what’s still to do. I will play golf.

4.      Start a conversation.

In 2009, Harvard Business School’s, Leslie Perlow conducted an extensive study at the Boston Consulting Group, which was later the subject of a book called Sleeping with Your Smart Phone.

The researchers wanted to study the impacts on performance and employee well-being of taking “Predictable Time Off” (PTO) every week. They asked study participants to commit to one scheduled evening off a week, completely disconnected from work. The results were encouraging. The study showed measurable improvements in participants' productivity, performance, and employee well-being. 

But that’s not what I found interesting.

You’d think committing to a single night away from work would not be that difficult. It turns out, it was. Employees were resistant to making the commitment. It said a lot about the organization’s “24/7, always on” culture.

What was interesting was the thing that finally enabled them to overcome their resistance and begin to shift the culture.

“The breakthrough came when the team began discussing in earnest the challenges of implementing PTO and began to realize that the experiment would succeed only if everyone committed to and benefited from it…

“As one member of the first team put it, “How much we are working and why, has become a very explicit part of everything we talk about in our case team meetings.” Personal needs, once considered taboo in team meetings for fear of appearing weak or less committed than others, were voiced openly.”

Embracing work cultures that support employee well-being requires teams to talk to each other about how they do their work. And how they can work together to create a more sane and supportive work environment. Much of our team coaching work focuses on these kinds of conversations. They are powerful for creating change.

I recently read a compelling and courageous article by

Stephanie Pollock

called, The mental load might be killing my ambition (substack.com). It’s a visceral reminder of how the world looks from the front lines of the war between growing a family and growing a career. In particular, the exhausting mental tax that comes with trying to keep all the balls in the air.

It reminded me that we need to have conversations with our families as well. About what we need from each other. About how to share the load. About how to build a rhythm that works for everyone.

I’m optimistic that more of these conversations are happening. There is evidence that workplace and social norms are slowly changing. And there’s still a lot of work to be done.