FCTB029: Why It’s Important To Slow Down and Take A Break

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This week’s episode is about the importance of slowing down and taking a break. Sometimes we wear being constantly busy as a badge of honor. But remaining busy for too long and not slowing down runs us all the risk of burning out.

At some point, busy-ness isn’t as productive as perceived. When this happens, it is best to step back, take a break and re-energize. I’d like to compare our productivity and sanity to working out and muscle-building where rest is just as critical of a component to make it effective.

I will not be doing podcasts for a whole month, as I go on a break. I will be going on a vacation, to slow down and focus on an exciting project that you’ll hear about on this episode.

Today, I devoted the podcast to discuss the Why and How of slowing down and taking breaks.

Reasons to Slow Down:

• It allows us to re-calibrate and deal with things from a new perspective, and an example of when the simplest fatigue gets to me (6:21).
• Allows for personal reflection of our circumstances and needs and a story that illustrates how busy-ness preoccupies us from doing so (8:00).
• Slowing down and taking a break lets us pay attention to certain facets of our lives to maintain balance (9:25).
• Resting and taking breaks prevents us from constantly being in our heads, doing or thinking about something instead of being present and just enjoying the moment (10:43).
• Stepping back permits us to be more effective, especially with routine or repeated tasks, and come up with a system or process to make things more efficient (11:44).

How to Slow Down?

• Just take a break – it can be for a couple of minutes, days, or weeks (13:17).
• Take vacations and step away from your daily routine (13:58).
• Turn things down and say no when you have too much on your plate (14:23).
• Give yourself more time to accomplish things, everything doesn’t have to be done right now (14:50).
• Be an MVP – Minimally Viable Product – this isn’t necessarily the best, greatest, top of the line product, but it’s the one that gets the job done and keep things afloat (16:01).

It is often perceived that by taking breaks we lose time, when actually we’re gaining more time by doing so. I hope that this episode gives you something to ponder on especially if you’re always on-the-go.

Give yourself a break, breathe, and maybe be an MVP.

If you’re having serious withdrawal while I’m on break, you can find me on the blog and all over social media.

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