It's Ok to Work Less This Week 👌

Yesterday was a holiday in America, but the lesson is applicable for anyone who takes time off for holidays, vacation, or for mental health.

A short week doesn't mean you have to work a full week

I have struggled with this my entire working life. The benefit of a day off is blunted or entirely wiped out with the effort to "get ahead" or "catch up" from the time you're not working. It's obvious to say but hard to practice.

Whether it's your job or side-hustle I hope you're able to protect the week from catch-up creep. Making room for rest is a key part of long-term productive work and (creative) output. Here's how I'm doing it this week...

⛰️ Plan Activities - it's easier for me to step away from work if there's something to step towards. An outing with friends and family is a great way to do that since it's something I like to do combined with (healthy) peer pressure.

🎯 Limit my GAP - protecting time for the week starts with my GAP preview. This week I can focus on just one main goal with a stretch goal if I have time. But I'm not trying to maintain the same output I do on normal weeks.

😃 Stay Accountable - this can be combined with activities, but it helps me tremendously to have someone to keep me accountable. My wife is the point person on this, but I also have a couple friends that will ping me at night to make sure I'm not "going back in" for a couple hours of night work.

Everyone's schedule and situation are different, but I hope you can use these lessons and tips to help you protect a restful week. Unless you have a very clear and defined reason, don't just mindlessly slip back into the trap of cramming 5 days of work into 4 days. It doesn't help in the long game.

Stay healthy my friends, and have a great (short) week 🙏

p.s. partially inspired by my friend Web's tweet on sleep and "hustle"

Web Smith @web Mental health time: To meet obligations, I had to go the last 40 days with very little sleep. My health worsened to extremes. I failed to produce my best work. I strained a very meaningful partnership. I failed a lot. I am now in the pro sleep camp. Death to hustle culture. May 31st 2021 78 Retweets 1,667 Likes