There is so much going on right now! “back to school”, “back to basics”, “back to work”. Why is the focus on what we are getting back to?
I don’t want to get back to anything. My time away, whether a weekend, a vacation, a massage, or a yoga class, is where the actual work happens that allows me to get ready for whatever I am facing next. Why do we never say “I need to get back to vacation,” or “it’s time to get back to summer,” or “I need to get back to my family”? I feel that should be the baseline!
The term “work to live” versus “live to work” is cliché but appropriate to this concept. Many people are so focused on work that they forget to live. I will admit that I was in that camp for quite a while. I was also masterful at burning myself out at work.
“Burnout is what happens when you try to avoid being human for too long,” according to Michael Gungor, author of “The Crowd, the Critic and the Muse: A Book for Creators”.
When I had a nice weekend, I would end up with a terrible case of Sunday Blues knowing the workweek was starting back up. I thought about the to-do list and projects that needed to be finished. I was so focused on what I was “getting back to” that I didn’t stop to really appreciate what I was doing on that weekend day. I spent a percentage of my precious weekend thinking about “getting back to work”!
It’s not surprising that Harvard researchers Killingsworth and Gilbert found that 47% of people’s waking hours were spent thinking about something other than what they were doing at the moment. This mind-wandering typically made them unhappy.
The good news is that we can do something about this.
Daydream believer
Here’s the mindset shift that happened for me recently. I stopped thinking in terms of “back-to-school” or “back-to-work” or “back to basics”. Instead, I am working really hard to be present, especially in my time away from work. I find that this is when my brain has enough space to really relax and when I get some of my most out-of-the-box, innovative ideas.
The Scientific American article by Ferris Jabr called Take That Vacation: Why Time Off Makes You a Better Worker found that downtime and daydreaming foster innovation by allowing the brain’s default mode network (DMN) to generate new ideas.
This is based on neuroscientist Marcus E. Raichle’s findings that DMN is only activated in periods of rest. This isn’t inaction. Instead, it is a distinct, internally focused mode where creative connections emerge.
There’s physical evidence of this as well. A recent study by Dr. Ben Shofty from the University of Utah School of Medicine, published in Brain, used high-resolution neural recordings to explore DMN dynamics, uncovering its causal role in creative thinking.
So we need to make sure we allow our brain to enter this default mode network!
Anne Lamott put it best: “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you!”
Reset, not recycled
I look at my time away from work as a re-set that allows me to think differently, not return to the same, recycled ideas over and over. I also look at my time at work as a reset for me personally. That is allowing me to continue to adapt and change rather than be stagnant going “back to” the ways I am used to over and over again.
With the economy being in flux, the job market looking a bit flat, AI becoming the norm rather than the novelty, being present, human, empathetic, and adaptable are critical to sustaining energy and the mindset for resilience and adaptability.
So don’t think about getting “back to the office” on Monday. Think about where you are right now and that the time away from “work” is just as much of the job as when you are on the clock!