Prima facie, Effort and rest are at two opposite ends of the spectrum.
By Effort, I mean hard work (physical or mental), toil, using the conscious part of the mind, metabolically expensive, something which doesn’t come easily.
By rest, I mean unwinding, a break from hard work.
At the extremes,
All work no play causes fatigue, injuries and cognitive exhaustion. It is unsustainable.
All play no work causes ennui. It is also unsustainable.
So, clearly there has to be a right balance. I want you to view Effort & Rest as part of a continuum, as Yin & Yang of an upward sloping curve, rather than opposite poles of a spectrum.
When you view Effort & Rest as part of a continuum, you realise that both are necessary. Both play their part in the overall scheme of things. They together form an iterative process. The process involves:
Effort involves rigour of making conscious inroads into the unknown. This may involve trying various things, finding the right way, grinding your way on the right path. This is laborious and metabolically expensive. By nature, effort needs consistent conscious nudge.
Rest, on the other hand, is autopoietic. Our mind hates hard, metabolically expensive work. It is always looking to cut down the metabolically expensive work and get things done with cheaper options. (This is exactly the reason why we fall for distractions like social media notifications, coffee breaks, and urge to rest at the mere sight of the couch!)
Our body and our mind have some limits to which they can do a particular task at a stretch. Once, this limit is hit, the Law of Diminishing Returns strikes. The capacity of the body or mind falls off a precipice, beyond this limit. That is when we need rest. It is during this rest that the toil during Effort is processed & synthesized. What emerges out of rest is a reinforced and new & improved version. Some Examples:
Fitness & Strength – When we work out, exercise creates stress on our muscles. There is a realisation that the muscles need to be stronger than what they are. It is during rest that the reinforcement happens. Too much exercise will cause wear & tear & injuries. Too much rest will cause muscles to weaken. There has to be a judicious mix of effort & rest in the iteration.
Learning – When we practice a new skill 5 hours a day and sleep. The subsequent morning, we find that we have taken a quantum leap in our skill level. This happens because, during sleep the magic happens, as our subconscious connects the patterns.
As you can see,
Effort and Rest viewed this way are not opposing forces; rather they are parts of an upward sloping continuum, complementing each other towards the overall cause. These two forces work in a dynamic equilibrium, which will get disturbed with any attempt to subdue either of these legs.
I now move to some very important features or imperatives for the sustenance of this Effort & Rest Dynamic Equilibrium.
Effort First, Rest Later
The Effort Phase comes first. You reserve the first part of your day, week, year, project for the most challenging and demanding part of the work.
Before you eat, deserve it. Before you holiday, deserve it. Before you sleep, deserve it. Work first, then play!
Do not put the cart before the horse. You do not start your day with checking mails, scrolling down social media, stupid meetings. You don’t start your exercise with the easy stuff. You keep these things for the latter part. You pack a punch upfront. You front load your efforts. You do the heavy lifting first – the deepest work, the biggest challenge, the most thoughtful work, the exercise. Once, you’ve stretched your body or mind to its limit, then you take a break.
When you plan your day, week, year, project, schedule the most challenging task upfront.
Two Parts Effort One Part Rest
Nature gives us a hint – our circadian rhythm. A natural wake-sleep cycle that has evolved over thousands of years. It is typically 16-8. We stay awake for 16 hours and sleep for 8. We can extend this proportionately to all our endeavours. What I practise and propose is a 45-15 cycle. Deep dive into your work for 45 minutes. Concentrate hard. Keep high intensity levels. Roll up your sleeves and soil your hands. Such work is metabolically expensive. It drains you out. Law of Diminishing Returns hit. You output plateaus out. Body or mind, depending on if you were doing physical or mental work, is fatigued.
This is where a 15 minutes break steps in. Recharge your batteries. Speak to your friends, spouse or mom, have a cup of coffee, check social media or mails, listen to music, take a slow walk, stretch your limbs, crack jokes….whatever, you get the gist.
Then you move back to the Effort Zone…may not be for the same task, but for some other task. For example, the first Effort activity of the day could be High Intensity Exercise, followed by a Rest Activity of basking in the Sun or chatting up with your spouse or dropping Good Morning texts on 7 Whatsapp Groups! This can be followed by an intellectually demanding challenge like working on your business proposal, followed by checking your official mails…so on & so forth. This way you can keep hopping between difficult, challenging & metabolically expensive tasks and lighter, metabolically cheaper unwindings. The activities may vary, but the central idea is segregation of deep work & frivolous work and not letting the latter spill into former.
During the Effort phase, it is imperative that you keep all distractions and temptations out – out as in, out of sight, sound & smell! Mobile phone, unless part of your work, must be charging in a different room, and must be in silent mode. If you are in office, your colleagues and Bosses should not be in a position to distract. If you are exercising, then you should be totally engrossed in your exercise, no gossiping with your friend, posting pictures on Instagram etc. It is found that the best way to resist a temptation is by not encountering it. Once, we see a temptation, the mere act of resisting it is very draining. It tires your mind. When you’re already onto some challenging task, the mind is likely to find it very difficult to resist the temptations, and will most likely succumb. Just to hammer it down, keep all distractions & temptations out, while working.
This method of segregation your time into serious & frivolous activities is extremely important & useful. It keeps your productivity high and at the same time, keeps your mind creative & fresh. You achieve high quality and large quantity output in much less time. This high efficiency protects you from ennui that can arise from unfinished, unfulfilled work.
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The Sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”
A. G. Bell
Scaling Up
There is a self similarity in the segregation pattern (45-15) at higher time frames. Feel free to extend the pattern on higher time frames. Just like you segregate your time in 45 minutes – 15 minutes zones, you can:
- Divide your day into say Effort Zone till 6 pm, Rest zone post 6 pm.
- Divide your week into 5 days of rigorous work & two days of family time
- Divide your month into periods of rigour and some extended weekends to unwind
- Divide your year into phases when you slog; take long breaks along with your kids’ summer & winter breaks
- Work for a few years on a project; reap benefits by taking a break for a few years. Recharge your batteries, plan another project and come back to action.
The idea is that there is a self similarity in the pattern, and it can be replicated on any time frame. Pick any time frame of your choice and fit this framework. Within & outside this time frame, there are smaller time frames and larger time frames, where you can have similar patterns. For example, you could have slogged on a project for a couple of years, say writing a book. You would have spent most of the two years doing research for your book, compiling it, talking to publishers etc. Now, you’re done, and taking a break for a year. But, within this year, within the overarching theme of holidaying, you can plan your months with effortful & relaxing activities – say, learning Muay Thai for a few months and holidaying in a beach home respectively. Even, while holidaying in the beach home, you can start your day with a run on the beach, or a Gym session, and have a lazy afternoon at a beach shack later!
I’ve hit my cognitive limits of writing. I’m closing this article here with a quick summary:
- Effort & Rest are complementary parts of an upward sloping continuum
- Effort comes first, then rest
- Two parts efforts, One part rest
- Self Similarity of the Effort Rest Framework in all time-frames
As I finish writing this at 10.00 pm, I plan to spend what is left in the day, with my family. We typically dim the lights, and each of us play a song of our choice chance by chance and do basically nothing!