The importance of taking breaks
Cliche to say, but self-care and deliberate “do nothing” periods are the key to consistency, creativity, and personal evolution.
Lately I’ve realized how absolutely terrible I am at doing nothing — although this issue has been on my mind for awhile, I wanted to make a point to voice my feelings after reading an article yesterday titled The power of doing nothing at all by JotForm’s CEO, Aytekin Tank.
First, I highly recommend everyone read the article above — Aytekin Tank has a special way of illustrating tips and advice that people in the startup landscape hear daily. His approach to narrating one of the hardest skills to master is gentle, approachable, and resonated well with me.
A common problem
After speaking with several fellow startup founders and CEO’s, I’ve found that it’s a common issue to measure our successes by how busy we are — the endless 16 hour workdays, packed with heavy task lists, and the feeling of defeat when we don’t meet the goals that we set for ourselves.
It’s a vicious cycle: experiencing burn out from the grind, which leads to doing nothing involuntarily, then feelings of guilt and discouragement from the momentary lull follow.
Especially in development, it’s well-known that the burn out rate is high — constant demand for research, problem solving, and the overwhelming rate at which new technologies and opinions are released can be highly discouraging. Many of those in the development space that I look up to have mentioned that the current pace I’ve set for myself cannot be sustained and that it is to any developer’s detriment to not create a healthy balance between work and personal activities.
In introspect, I’ve pinpointed the cause to be the obsessive desire to get closer to the light — which is laughable because of the fact that it was me that submerged thousands of feet into the abyss. Wearing my battle scars proudly, I’m more keen to realizing the vast amount of opportunities to solve problems all around. In order to be successful, contrary to my green-eared thoughts, it’s important to stay lean, agile, and reduce burdens and obstacles at every stage — especially when working with extremely limited resources.
When in the abyss (or cave, or tunnel), remember, you can create your own light. Find a way to pivot and reduce obstacles; what are your key assumptions? What I mean by this is which parts of your business leave you vulnerable? If you’re a mountaineer, and you have the fanciest shoes, apparel, and helmet, but your rope breaks, then all else fails. By creating ways to minimize risk and reduce clutter, you can create your own momentary light, and persevere through the abyss (cave, tunnel, etc.).
Life tasks fall by the wayside
Another self-observation I’ve realized is often times, I let personal/life tasks fall by the wayside from the same guilt I feel when I’m not doing something work related. When I had a 9–5, my house was spotless, my car was clean, and I kept up with menial life tasks — now, one year later and self-employed, I have to constantly add “clean house,” or “do laundry” to my Todoist.
That’s okay — sacrifices are part of any great success story, it’s give and take — however, to my detriment is the built up clutter that I carry because of how entrenched I am with my work. You may have heard founders say that they work 7 day work weeks, at 12+ hours a day — I’m only speaking for myself, but in my case, this is absolutely the truth. I can’t think of a week in the last year and a half that I haven’t worked tirelessly and meticulously in order to build my dream.
As I mentioned above, this is somewhat part of it all, however, I’ve realized more recently that this model is not sustainable — that it’s equally important to take breaks or do nothing as it is to grind away at completing your daily task lists.
Hinderance of creativity
Most importantly, the inability to create a healthy balance in life will hinder creativity. As a founder and developer in today’s landscape, it’s crucial to cultivate an environment where creativity and innovation can thrive — without this, you’ll fall stagnant to the rapid pace digital economy in which we live.
In this week’s development meeting, I could feel a layer of stress from the overwhelming complexities in our application’s architecture. One of the points I voiced was how lower spirits are all part of it, and that we can use it to our benefit. My next suggestion was that we take a day or so off from touching the code base and focus on ourselves — by taking a break, even a small one, our focus and creativity will replenish. I try and embrace all of the peaks and valleys — I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to experience as many hardships as I can because they’ve all been for the greater good. Without the lows, how do you identify and cherish the highs?
I’m humbled and thankful for the many lessons I’ve learned along my journey — certainly there are many more mistakes to be made and I look forward to them. My key takeaway from my recent feelings is that I need to establish a consistent do nothing period, or at the very least, take a few hours away from it all. 7 day work weeks is not sustainable, and although this is the reality for many in this landscape, it will ultimately lead to issues. This is a marathon, not a sprint and although we feel that it’s impossible to take time for ourselves, let’s not forget one of the reasons many of us embarked down this path — to have the flexibility that a 9–5 does not provide.
