The Rest You Feel Guilty About

You finally sit down. Within a minute, a list starts up: the emails, the laundry, the thing you said you’d look into. So you’re resting, but you’re not resting. You’re sitting very still, feeling bad.

Rest is not a reward

Most of us were taught, one way or another, that rest is what you get once the work is done. The trouble is, the work is never done. There’s always another email, another job, another thing that could be better. If rest has to be earned by finishing, you’ll never be allowed it.

Rest isn’t the prize at the end of the useful part of your day. It’s part of what makes the useful part possible. A tired mind makes worse decisions, takes longer over everything and confuses being busy with being useful. Resting isn’t the opposite of doing well. It’s part of how you do well at all.

The guilt also tells you something about pace. If stopping for ten minutes feels dangerous, the issue isn’t the ten minutes. It’s a speed you never chose, and have stopped noticing.

Ten minutes, on purpose

Choose a ten-minute block today and call it rest, out loud or in your calendar. Do something that isn’t useful, like sitting by a window, a slow cup of tea or lying on the floor. When the guilty list starts, tell yourself that rest is on the list too, and today it’s first. When the ten minutes end, go back to your day without paying for it with extra work.

That’s enough for today.