How to Intentionally Rest to Boost Creativity and Productivity
Welcome to Day 5 of the 30-Day Intentional Living Challenge. If you’re new here, there is still time to join this FREE challenge that will encourage you and make it easier for you to bring more intention to your everyday.
Why is Rest Important?
Today, I am so excited to talk with you about one of my favorite topics, rest! Rest is something that many of us don’t feel like we have time to indulge during our busy modern lives. Yet, rest often comes to us after we burn out or become too sick to continue at the high-speed pace we live our lives. Resting not only enables you to get more done in a day, but it also can boost your creativity, help you solve problems, and become more efficient overall.
How to Add Rest Into Your Day
It may seem impossible to add rest into your daily routine, however, rest time can be as simple as closing your eyes for 10 minutes, or being Horizontal for a few minutes. It can also look like a 20-minute nap or a simple walk without distractions (see my previous post about flaneuring).
How Does Rest Boost Productivity?
If you type in the above question into Google you will find results from a variety of business sites touting the power of rest in the workplace. What they don’t share is how many famous creatives, inventors, and entrepreneurs use the power of rest to make great strides in their most influential work. Many only work 2-4 hours a day and accomplish more in that time than you or I in a full 9-5 day’s worth of work. Our brains thrive on rest. It’s a time for us to catalog new information, source solutions to problems, and do the subconscious work that enables new insights or inspirations to strike.
How Does Rest Affect Creativity?
Taking time to rest provides your brain with the time it needs to solve problems and come up with solutions. It’s similar to productivity, but the main difference is that during your rest time you may awaken with a new thought that will solve the puzzle you’re working on or a new tactic to approach the issue around your new chicken coop build.
Today’s Task for the 30-Day Intentional Living Challenge
You can download the calendar that includes daily prompts that invite a little more intention into your everyday. Today, I hope you will find a few minutes to rest and close your eyes. You don’t need to do anything else. If you finish the task and feel a little reprieve I hope you will add the practice into your next day too. Over time I think you will find that resting will have more benefits than foregoing it and pushing onward.
