Hey Reader

One thing I've been aiming to implement for myself recently is a "soft productivity week" once per cycle.

The intention is that work would still get done, but I also take more time off to rest and have fun.

Naturally, with last week being my first official soft productivity week, the body decided it was time to get sick 😂

Obviously it really wanted to ensure that I was going to take time off.

(If you were curious about how the week went down, and the getaway reading retreat I took as part of it, we have all the details in last week's vlog!)

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While getting sick just as you hit scheduled time off definitely gave me teacher-life flashbacks, it also reminded me of a quote that I all too often ignore the wisdom of.

Let's have a look 👀

The idea - Schedule your rest

Let's just ignore the fact that I actually had scheduled some leisure time for myself last week, and the body lowkey tried to sabotage me by getting sick, but I do still find the concept relevant 😝

In much the same way that if you don't let your computer do its scheduled updates, it will find a time to force you to do them.

Usually in the middle of working on something important before you've properly saved your files 😅

The general wisdom here though is to make sure that we're actually scheduling time for ourselves to rest and recover so that we can bring our best selves to doing the things that require our energy.

Plus, having scheduled leisure just makes life more fun 👏

Despite knowing this though, when it comes to blocking things on my calendar, my first priority is always work and traditionally productive things.

Scheduling this way isn't necessarily bad, it ensures that those things get done, but it does have an unintended consequence.

Prioritising my productive and "get stuff done" blocks often means that the things most at risk of being left out completely are the activities that refill my cup and reenergise me.

Essentially the stuff that is leisurely, restful, and fun.

To combat this, this cycle I'm aiming to treat my work and rest blocks with the same priority when it comes to scheduling my time.

This means not only actually having scheduled rest time, but treating it as a non-negotiable. Kind of like it's an appointment that I'll get a cancellation fee for if I skip it 😝

Before each new week starts, normally on a Sunday, I'll sit down to look over my calendar for the week and make sure that I have blocks for both productive work and reenergising activities.

I like to colour code them so that I can easily see the balance between them at a glance 😈

I won't specifically aim for any kind of 50/50 or 80/20 split, but more so I just want to ensure those leisure blocks are on there too!

So far it's been working well, and while there are definitely ways I could make it better, the first step is just getting those restful activities on the calendar to start with.

Let's take action

Rather than having our rest time forced upon us in the form of burnout or illness, let's proactively put reenergising activities onto our schedule.

While you're just getting started, even scheduling a small, 10 or 15-minute block here and there can get you in the practice of prioritising rest.

If you want to take it a step further though, you can set up blocks and scheduled recurring events on your calendar.

This is something that my partner Vogel does to ensure that he actually takes his breaks rather than just working through them.

I would love to know any other tips you have for making your rest and leisure time a priority (and ensuring that you actually take those breaks!)

Feel free to hit reply and let me know your suggestions 😊

Until next time!

- Jess

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