I have a confession to make. Though I am a teacher of mindfulness, I am not the best at doing nothing. In fact, some might argue that I am among the worst at it. I’m not good at rest and fall into the productivity trap often.
Since this blog is aimed at lawyers and professionals, I assume you may recognize this problem. Life experience and years of meditation have helped me learn how to relax on demand and to appreciate the need for doing so. Still, even when I am tired and have the time to rest, I sometimes struggle to set the urge to be productive aside.
Is Extra Productivity Really a Bad Thing?
Now, your first thought here may be “wait a second, is it really bad to want to be productive?” In itself, motivation to do useful things is not bad. On the other hand, all of us need time to rest. If you are someone in the habit of being productive, you can turn yourself unwittingly into a perpetual motion machine.
This means that your normally useful habit of accomplishing tasks can become an impediment to rest and recovery. As a case in point, I was exhausted this weekend. Though I was blessed with an open schedule, I found myself trying to cross things off my small to do list. When I realized my foolishness, I stopped but it took me a few steps to let go. In case you need help with this, here are the steps I took.
1. Recognize When Productivity Has Its Limits.
The first step to breaking habitual activity is to recognize that your activity is arising –not from need–but habit. Lawyers and professionals tend to be busy people and so we train the habit of maximizing our time with useful activities all week. Though it may sound silly, many of us may have to get intentional about rest because it may not come naturally.
So how do you spot this tendency? Experience is the best teacher here if you pay attention. But the calling card for me is when my heart is not in whatever I find myself doing. If I am not present with the activity and mentally checked out, that’s the clearest sign that I’m tired and need to stop.
2. Ask If Your Activity Is Truly Productive.
As I have written before, I am a big believer in active rest. Though I love meditation as a way to rest, I don’t believe the only way to rest is to do nothing. In fact, this Saturday even though I was tired, I went right into my active rest activities: working out, cooking, and some attempted writing.
I felt better after the first two, but started to feel checked out when I tried to write. After I noticed myself scrolling the internet instead of crafting paragraphs, I asked myself whether the screen time was giving me what I needed. It wasn’t hard to see that I was just wasting my time.
3. Notice How You Feel.
Once you see that your current activity isn’t serving a purpose, you may need to decide what to do or not do next. The best way to do this is to notice how you feel. This can be as simple as scanning through your body to identify energy levels and emotions.
Being someone who does not always have a lot of unstructured time on my hands, I usually have a few wish list activities in the back of my mind. My list includes things like movies I want to watch, books I want to read, things I want to make, or special places I want to visit. If you have a wish list like this, scan through it and notice which one calls out to you the most strongly.
4. Stop, Slow Down, and Really Rest.
When I went through step 3 above on Saturday, I realized that I was really and truly tired. Productivity was out of the question. I was too tired to move or to focus my attention on a craft. Then I remembered it was awards season that many excellent movies were streaming. I decided to watch Maria on Netflix and was not disappointed. It was a much better use of my time than scrolling mindlessly on my phone or laptop.
Of course, the point here is that once you identify how you feel and the activity that catches your interest, you actually have to do it. When your mind, heart, and body are telling you to stop or slow down, listen if you can. That’s what rest is and the more you practice it the better you will get at relaxing when you want to relax.
5. Trust that Your Energy Will Return.
Even if you pick a restful activity as nice as the one I selected for myself, you may still feel some anxiety or even guilt about it. Some of us struggle to relax because we can’t stop thinking about all the things we are leaving undone. This is how productivity really feel like a trap.
This is where experience with a noting practice can really come in handy. When I get like this, I shift into noting the anxious thoughts merely as “thoughts” and then letting them go. After a few rounds of this, my mind usually wears itself out and I can chill.
If not, I remember to trust myself. Though it can be hard to slow down, life experience shows most of us that energy returns when we give ourselves a chance to rest. When I really need it, I recall a specific example where rest helped me achieve something more efficiently and effectively. In case you need an example, this blog post is it. I rested Saturday and was able to write this post with little struggle on Sunday.
Conclusion: You Can Avoid the Productivity Trap.
If you are someone who likes to get things done and struggles to slow down, you are not alone. Many lawyers and professionals, and even at least one mindfulness teacher that I know of, are in the same boat. Lots of good people struggle to relax even when they clearly need it and have the time. If this is you, don’t beat yourself up but you can use these steps to guide yourself into an activity or that can help you relax and recharge.
Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer, for a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.
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