Importance of Having Rest

I wasn’t able to express almost any idea in words later last week. I was grasping for words but they just weren’t anywhere in my head. And the very ideas looked pale and dumb. Days turned into minutes. “What’s going on?” I thought. “Is it constant interruptions throughout the day influence me this way?” Today I realized that the main problem wasn’t in the interruptions.

At the beginning of this year, I set ambitious goals for myself, with tight deadlines. For example, till the end of March my goals were:

1. Upload the Introductory course for our project Plussios.
2. Launch first ads for the Plussios Template.
3. Upload YouTube videos for Plussios once a month.
4. Upload YouTube videos for my personal channel 2 times a month.
5. Create a reels for my Instagram every week.

I expected myself to do all of that alongside the full time job and taking care of our kids and household. To get anywhere near my achieving my goals, I had to have a tight schedule. I worked or studied what was relevant to my tasks every moment I didn’t work at FT job, take care of kids, or sleep.

I did launch the ads, but failed all of my other goals, especially the regular ones. What was worse, I didn’t feel like being able to move forward.

Today was different. I realized that I managed to finish a book on starting a U.S.-based company, and started reading Email Storyselling Playbook. It inspired me to finally start writing, even though without the selling part for now. But what did I do differently yesterday?

I allowed myself to not work on anything, and just do nothing or whatever I wanted to do except for learning. Reading books didn’t count for learning somehow 😇

Yet, it wasn’t quite “allowed myself” but rather “forced myself to” have rest. And even one day of intentional laziness re-charged me.

I heard a million times about the importance of rest in our lives. But I always tend to forget about it in the process, prioritizing work and seemingly useful activities over having rest. And that keeps proving itself one of the most dangerous way of thinking.

Today, I’ll update my week schedule. I’ll add 30 minutes of rest to every day, and Sundays will be my days-off as well. And “rest” means not thinking about anything specific, not watching videos or scrolling social media feeds. Just have a cup of coffee or tea.

Do you remember to have rest throughout the day? Do you have dedicated days-off during the week?