This book actually wasn't recommended to me nor endorsed by a famous CEO. I found, Rest; Why You Get More Done When You Work Less by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, while while browsing in Barnes & Noble on a business trip in Irvine, CA. The title was provocative enough so I gave it a try....and wow! I'm glad I did. This book is easily on my list of top few most influential books ever.
The premise of the book is that rest isn't the antithesis of work, it's complementary. The current notion of a successful person is someone who works 20 hours a day, multi-tasks, is on call 24/7 and always over-worked. The reality is that this person is perpetually pre-burnout and is not successful because of it. A quote from Thomas Jefferson in the last chapter sums it up nicely "It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness."
I'm going to work on integrating a number of concepts from the book into my daily life:
- Focused work. No phones, no email, no interruptions, set amount of time. The max amount of time in a day possible for focused work seems to be four hours. Based on my work, I'm thinking two, 30-40 minute bursts with a 15 min break between should be adequate.
- Mid-day naps. That's right, naps. They're not just for babies anymore. As a matter of fact they have been used by the best thinkers and most creative people in history. The idea is that by giving your body rest throughout the day (along with your normal circadian rhythm), your brain processes and organizes new information rather than trying to "muscle through" the times of the day when you are tired and unproductive. People think that passive rest means that your brain shuts off. However, studies show the contrary, the difference in brain activity between focused work and passive rest is only a decrease of 5% - 10% meaning your brain is still working hard, it's just processing and organizing versus taking on new information.
- Afternoon walks. Similar to naps, walks rest and refresh your mind.
- Organization. The afternoon is for less focused work (email, phone calls, etc) but before leaving every day, organize the work that needs to be done during the focused work the next day.
- Sabbaticals - Regular week-long (or longer) sabbaticals.
- Deep play - For me this is studying jazz.
- Music before bed. This is the most shocking and immediate effect I've gotten from this book in the week that I've been implementing thoughtful rest. The book mentions listening to classical music before bed (Yo-Yo Ma seems to work best for me). It's been many, many years since I've had regular, vivid dreams when I sleep. In the past week, there has only been one night that I didn't, that's the night I didn't listen to music before bed. Vivid dreams means I'm getting to REM, deep, revitalizing sleep.
This book has made me reconsider and restructure not only the way I work, but the way I view rest and I highly recommend it. There is certainly more to be gleaned from it than these few points I made here, but I'll leave with my favorite two lines from the book: "Deliberate rest helps you recognize and avoid the trap of pointless busyness and concentrate instead on what's important." "Taking rest seriously requires recognizing its importance, claiming our right to rest, and carving out and defending space for rest in our daily lives."