Take a Break

Next week, my company is off for summer break. They have two of these weeklong breaks a year in addition to regular holidays, a few inner work days (where you get the day off to do inner work), and unlimited paid time off (3 weeks are recommended). I don’t say this to brag but to show that there are companies that understand their employees are human beings who need breaks.

And I truly appreciate this. Because many companies only give the time they’re required to give: a bare minimum of sick days, personal days, and federal holidays (the latter of which some sectors like food, hospitality, and medical don’t even get). For these companies, employee value is equivalent to time spent at their desk (or wherever they do their work). Anything outside of that doesn’t add value to their bottom line, and therefore anything they pay for outside of that is essentially money lost.

Then there are a few companies that recognize that a break is not a waste. In fact, it’s an advantage. Because a break isn’t just recovering from the mental and physical toll of work in order to show up and do it again (although, there is that). It’s also a necessary ingredient in creativity and growth.

Writers have often recognized and embraced this. William Wordsworth, Virginia Woolf, and Charles Dickens are just a few examples of writers who were well known for walking every day before sitting down to write. Haruki Murakami has a whole book on how daily running has influenced his writing. For them, being away from their writing was (or is) a mandatory and integral part of their writing routine because of the space it creates.

Space is something that all of us need. It’s what allows us to better understand what’s happening in our inner world and work through blocks. It’s what allows our minds to connect dots that we didn’t know could be connected (for example, when we have a great idea in the shower). It’s what allows us to hear our intuition and sense what’s working and what isn’t. This applies to every aspect of our lives, not just work—after all, we are so much more than the work we produce. The point is, though, that if we are always doing and filling our time, then it’s so much harder for these things to happen.

And we can see the impact that more regular breaks have on work and productivity thanks to experiments with a four day (32-hour) work week. Companies who have tested this have reported that their employees are just as productive, if not more productive, than when they worked five days a week (see here and here). Part of that is because employees have more time to live the non-work part of their lives. They can show up Monday (or Tuesday) morning more refreshed, less distracted, and with some new ideas percolating.

So when companies give their employees more time off, they are essentially investing in allowing employees to have more impact, which in turn helps their own bottom line. It’s a win for everyone.

This is so counterintuitive to our hustle and grind, I’ll sleep when I’m dead culture. I know I’ve fallen prey to the “more time spent working equals more work done” mindset. At my first job, I was practically attached to my work laptop. I had it open when I got home at night after work, I had it open on the weekends. It felt like if I stopped working, I was a bad employee because there was so much more to do.

Here’s the secret though: there’s always more to do. It will never end if you don’t choose to stop.

And this is where it’s so important to understand that completing a task does not always equal something impactful. The other reason the 4 day work week can increase productivity despite working fewer hours is because employees have to become better at recognizing what in their day is actually impactful in order to get all their work done.

I might have ten hours of meetings on my calendar in a given week, but only a few of those meetings might actually move the needle on anything. I can continually update dashboards of data, but if no one is actually doing anything with that data then it looks like I’ve been productive but actually I’ve just wasted a bunch of time.

Time will always be filled somehow. So it’s up to us to constantly evaluate what’s worth our time (both in and out of work) and cull the things that aren’t adding value in our lives or our work.

Companies can benefit from the same thing. How many companies go chasing shiny projects without considering whether they even have the resources to do so because they feel like they need to expand their portfolio? Every company I’ve ever worked for has done this, including my current company. When there is constant messaging that you are never enough, it’s incredibly hard to resist taking on more and more. And workplaces feel this pressure too! They feel like they have to constantly reinvent themselves and grow faster or risk being crushed by the competition. So they put their employees under more and more stress and tell them to stop making excuses when employees can’t keep up.

AI is the next evolution of this. Now we have a computer that can do so much of our work for us. So now we don’t have an excuse for not being able to keep up when we’re asked to do the jobs of 3 people.

This mindset of more More MORE is exhausting. It’s depleting. It extracts from us and the natural resources in our world. And the outside world will not stop demanding more on its own. Not when our entire economy is based on this concept (even when there’s proof that it’s wrong).

So what do we do about it? One thing you can do is bring yourself back to a place of stillness every single day. Even if it’s just for a few minutes. Because that constant reminder that we can exist without the hustle and grind and that it feels right when we do is an important way to both give ourselves the breaks we need to thrive and continually plant the seed that we need to demand more of this. From our companies, from our government, and from society.

And the next time you have a break, whether it’s a lunch break or a full-fledged vacation, it might be worth considering not filling the time with anything. There is so much pressure to do do do even when you have a break: go travel, clean the house, make some calls, have a story to tell the day you get back.

Or maybe just rest.

I know that’s easier said than done and it might not be possible most of the time, but maybe just even ask the question: What would happen if I did nothing just this once? What comes up for you when you ask yourself that? Do you feel like it’s possible? Do you feel like you deserve it? And if not, what’s getting in the way?

This isn’t meant to be an exercise to judge yourself or beat yourself up, but rather to get curious and give yourself some love because we’re all being pushed to carry so much more than we are supposed to (and some people especially so).

Whether you have a break coming up this week or not, I hope you take care of yourself and know that you are enough just as you are. And if taking a break is a possibility, I hope you take it.