2050: The Power of Rest AND Blocking and Protecting Time to Think by Julie Morgenstern on Rest And Productivity

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[00:01:00] This is Optimal Work Daily. The Power of Rest. Increase your productivity and reduce burnout. By Julie Morgenstern of juliemorgenstern.com I think I speak for most of us when I say it's been an exhausting past few years. All of us have experienced so much upheaval and uncertainty in both our personal and professional lives that many of us are suffering from burnout.

[00:01:25] Medical professionals define burnout as a response to prolonged stress that leaves you feeling emotionally and physically drained and exhausted. If you find yourself constantly fatigued, emotionally numb, and unable to keep up with life's incessant demands, you may be suffering from burnout. Being burnt out can negatively impact performance and productivity. So what do we do about it? Unlock the power of rest.

[00:01:51] We all know that getting enough sleep is vital to helping us perform at our peak abilities. But sleep specialist Dr. Matthew Edlin found in his research that a full night's sleep by itself is not enough to keep us energized all day. Instead, we need cycles of rest throughout the day to keep up our energy and focus. If you've ever wondered how you can get a full 8 or 9 hours of sleep at night and still be exhausted by the afternoon, this is why. Four types of rest you can do in one to five minutes.

[00:02:20] If you're experiencing burnout, it's likely your days are already pretty packed. Where am I going to find the time to rest in the middle of the day, you might be asking. In his book, The Power of Rest, which I highly recommend, Dr. Edlin defines four types of rest that can be done in one to five minute increments throughout the day to help you reset and keep going. 1. Physical rest. Physical rest is just what it sounds like, the act of physically resting your body.

[00:02:47] You certainly don't have to take a full-fledged nap to achieve this in the middle of your workday. Taking a break to simply sit still, enjoy a cup of tea, or eat a snack for one to five minutes can have an enormous impact on your energy levels. 2. Mental rest. Most jobs today require constant, intense focus. But just like any other part of the body, an overworked brain can get tired and cease to function as well. Mental rest is the act of shifting your focus to another topic for a brief period.

[00:03:16] If you find yourself starting to glaze over while working on a project or feel like you just can't put a coherent thought together while writing an email, take a moment to think about something else, anything else. Come back one to five minutes later and you'll be able to return to your task with renewed energy. 3. Spiritual rest. Dr. Edlin defines spiritual rest as time meditating, praying, or my personal favorite, reflecting on an existential question, like pondering the cosmos.

[00:03:45] There have been days where I had only a few minutes between presentations, and in just two minutes of pondering the cosmos, I found myself remarkably refreshed. And 4. Social rest. Humans are inherently social creatures. Sometimes when we're really concentrated on our work, we can go for long stretches of time without having an interpersonal interaction. If you find yourself overwhelmed in the middle of the day, try calling a friend or having a chat with someone in your immediate space.

[00:04:13] It doesn't have to be a long conversation, but it can be enough to recharge you and get you through the rest of your day. The antidote to burnout is rest. Even if you have a busy schedule, short interludes of purposeful rest can be a game changer for your productivity and well-being. Over the next few days, try stopping a few times a day for one to five minutes and rest physically, mentally, spiritually, or socially. See how your performance changes from this simple act.

[00:04:45] Blocking and Protecting Time to Think by Julie Morgenstern of juliemorgenstern.com Do you crave time to do your deep thinking work during the workday and not on nights and weekends? Too often, workdays are filled with demands for back-to-back meetings, dozens of emails, IMs, and Slack messages that our days feel out of our control. Even when you set aside time to think, you are likely to give it away.

[00:05:09] Yet, investing time in strategic planning, writing, innovation, process improvement, or learning helps us shift from reactive to proactive and go from working hard to working smart. The key is to block the time regularly and then protect it so that you can use those blocks as intended for strategy, creative problem solving, and looking ahead. That is how you will make your unique contribution. The solution is all in the planning.

[00:05:39] Block Time Daily Habits are built on daily or weekly practices, not erratic ones. Begin by claiming one to two hours per day for your high-level thinking time at an ideal time of day. For many, it's the first hour or two of the day, when your mind is fresh and you still have the rest of the day to deal with the same-day crises and urgencies. For others, it may be sometime between 12 and 2, when it's perfectly reasonable that one could be at lunch.

[00:06:05] You still have the morning and rest of the day to be available for meetings and reacting. Occasionally it works to do quiet time at the end of the day, but usually only if you're working across time zones and the hours between 3 and 5 pm are quiet because your colleagues in another part of the world have left for the day. Plan your deliverables for each time block. To protect thinking time, decide the day before exactly what you're going to do in that legato hour.

[00:06:31] This works well combined with another strategy I've written about, plan tomorrow plus 2. At the end of each day, look ahead at tomorrow and decide specifically on a deliverable you'll produce in that time. Review last year's strategic plan to identify what was accomplished. Write rough first draft of a blog. And find three studies that support your opening argument. Once you've defined the deliverable, you can identify how to prepare physically and mentally for that thinking time.

[00:06:59] When you show up to your thinking block the next day, it's not to decide what to do, it's all about implementation. Say no to meetings and emails during your legato time. In the absence of a concrete alternative, it's always tempting to say yes to last-minute meeting requests and the distraction of constant emails. But when you become more concrete with your deliverables for your legato time, it's easier to defend it from external derailers. You can ask yourself, what is the highest and best use of this time?

[00:07:28] Checking my email or completing the first draft of the report? Knowing that you have only carved out 10-20% of your time for deep thinking means that you are available 80-90% of the time. This knowledge can help you stand in the courage of your convictions that the company and your team are counting on you to do the deep thinking work and ward off distractions with consistency and grace. Shift your mindset. Legato time is valuable time on your calendar.

[00:07:56] It can make a huge difference in your job performance, giving you time to make your highest and best contribution to your team and your organization. Protect and use this precious legato time for work that will advance your productivity and help you succeed. You just listened to the posts titled, The Power of Rest, Increase Your Productivity and Reduce Burnout, and Blocking and Protecting Time to Think.

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[00:09:24] And thank you to Julie. Julie Morgenstern is an organizing and productivity consultant, New York Times bestselling author, and speaker. For over 25 years, Julie has been teaching people all around the world and at all stages of life how to overcome disorganization to achieve their goals. She is the inventor of the inside-out approach to organization and the brain behind their services. She has a bunch of great articles and much, much more on her website, which again is juliemorgenstern.com. So please do check that out. Show her some support.

[00:09:54] And big thanks to Julie for letting us share her work. Okay, that's going to do it for today. I hope you enjoyed these two posts. And I will be back here again with you tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits. You've got to be a good one of our favorites. After two months, I will follow the links. From the end of the page, if you want to continue with our favorites. We'll be looking for your favorites. The first thing is your favorite kind of argument.