Restoration is essential
The link between productivity and rest
This January I noticed a real shift in the narrative. As we ended the year, all was calm. Gone were the big nights out and glittery parties we’ve long associated with New Year’s. Instead, there was a deluge of goal planning and hard challenges to kick off the year. The pressure to hit the ground running and achieve is everywhere. But what if the key to sustained productivity isn’t doing more—but resting better?
In the corporate world, I dreaded the year end review process. It felt meaningless and contrived, not a strong indicator of the actual work and results. I was always itching to get my hands on the process to see how it could be improved. Working for myself, I’ve finally had that chance. Sitting down to reflect on what I’ve learnt, what I want to take with me, and where I want to go in the next year feels like a treat. It’s been nothing short of transformative (I may share my frameworks as they evolve).
A big part of this reflection and planning is setting yourself up for a year of success. This often means defining yours goals, breaking them down and setting some milestones. If you want to go deeper, you look at the daily behaviours and actions you need to embody to get there.
What always seems to be missing from goal planning, however, is rest. This is key to long term, sustained success. We have all sorts of frameworks for measuring productivity and progress, but nothing that champions resting and restoring?
What’s our problem with rest?
Rest continues to feel at odds with our definition of success.
We measure productivity and success by time spent in front of a screen, rather than our outputs. We can see this in examples like return to office mandates. When presenteeism is the highest form of company currency, it’s hard to drag ourselves out of the seat. We know that rest is important— we’ve heard the science, read the books. But prioritising time for it is at odds with how we view our own productivity. When you’re up against it it feels high risk to take a much needed break, even when it’s essential.
Rest is key to sustainable progress. It’s the cycle that recharges us, so we’re ready to go again.
Here’s a few other ways to say that:
Rest resets your brain. It enables you to think outside the box and opens you up creatively. Like when you’ve finally taken that holiday, and by day 5 you start to feel buzzing with new ideas. Or when you’ve had a long shower and find a solution to that problem. There’s a reason The Artist’s Way has scores of fans who all extol the virtues of a weekly, solo ‘Artist’s Date’.
We have to look after ourselves to fully show up for others. This guidance repeats from airplanes to carers: we cannot help anyone else when we're running on empty.
We make worse decisions if we don’t rest. ‘Sleep on it’ is sage advice because it prioritises rest first. You cannot make good decisions without perspective. You cannot have perspective without resilience. You do not have resilience without being restored.
When you’re not restored, productivity becomes even more important to you. Katherine Morgan Shafler perfectly explains this in her book: a lack of rest makes productivity more important, leading to a cycle of needing external validation. (You know the type - look at how good I am! look at everything I am doing!). In contrast, when you’re restored, you know that your needs matter in the moment. You don't have to earn them.
Ways to embrace rest
Define what rest means to you
Understand what rest is to you. This could be a walk, a meditation, some gentle exercise or a phone call with a friend. Or a bath, grabbing a drink at your local cafe, turning your phone off, reading a book. Maybe you like playing some music, making something, writing something, playing a game.
Know that you deserve rest now. Don’t get into that cycle and let productivity win— it’s not a treat, it’s not something you earn, it’s essential.
Embed it into your routine
A simple step to take is to embed rest into how you work. This could look like:
Adding it as a blocker to your calendar
Adding it to your to do list
Making it a part of your daily routine
I like to add it to my daily plan, which has 4 buckets. I cannot deprioritise maintenance.
Deep work (1 item I want to focus on for 3 hours. The priority of the day)
3 tasks (quicker items I need to get off the to do list)
1 risk (something I incorporate to push myself out of my comfort zone, daily)
3 maintenance (things I will do today that are essential to feeling good and restoring energy)
Experiment and reflect
Get creative with testing this out. The next meeting you’re nervous about, take 30 minutes out ahead of it to do something different like a walk. Start with lower risk scenarios and reflect on how it feels. Build up to higher importance days, knowing you’ve got this because you know what you need to feel at your best.
An example experiment: When I first was learning how to do this, I would make myself get out for a walk. I added guardrails that I could voice note ideas or thoughts that came to me into my notes app. I could action them when I got back to my desk, giving me the comfort that I wasn’t dropping any balls. Soon, I relaxed more into it and learnt to enjoy the actual rest. I could enjoy the time without feeling the need to productise it.
A quick hack for when you’re feeling up against it: Meditation is a great mental reset and a fast alternative to a nap. If you're tired, an 8-10 minute meditation will wake you up better than any coffee or energy drink. It puts your body into deep rest mode— so much so my Oura ring actually thinks I am sleeping.
A resource to dig deeper
The Perfectionists Guide to Losing Control - a great read on helping to reframe how you view yourself. An excellent recommendation I picked up from
.What’s one thing you could do this week to prioritise rest? I’d love to hear how you’re experimenting so we can all rise together.
I’m Jen, a product person who loves to think about how frameworks can be applied to life. If you’d like help or ideas designing systems that work for you, let’s connect.