#28: Work Hard, Play Hard, Rest Hard 😴

we’ve forgotten how to chill

Without the eight-hour workday and five-day workweek to anchor to, I’ve been thinking a lot about what work actually is. I’ve already recognized that my definition of work has changed since I’m no longer getting paid, but I still tell people “oh, I’ve got to go do some work now” when it’s time to read, write, or edit. This inquisition into the meaning of work led me to a broader inspection on the symbiotic relationship between work and rest. I initially thought that rest only exists to keep our work in a state of perpetual propulsion, but now I think the two actually balance each other out. Nothing feels better than a good night of sleep after a long day of solving intellectually-stimulating problems or honing your body through a grueling workout. Working hard on meaningful things is a precondition to the most rewarding rest.

No one is ever in perfect balance between work and rest. It’s easy for the pendulum to swing too far to either side, but so long as we can recognize and reel back to equilibrium, it’s possible to remain within the margins of homeostasis. Since leaving my job, I’ve discovered I have a heightened sense of awareness which I can attribute to my mind no longer being barraged by corporate notifications, but also my natural inclination towards openness during this period of exploration.

I realized there are two types of people: those who could work harder and those who need to rest harder. The first group would benefit from more ambition and more perseverance. They set lofty, but attainable goals and then get discouraged when they don’t accomplish what they set out to achieve. They make excuses for not sticking to their plan or tell themselves that they must’ve been pursuing the wrong goal. Maybe that’s partially true, but I can’t help but observe from the sidelines and wonder what would happen if they just tried a little harder rather than repeatedly getting stuck and blaming it on externalities. How would they react if I told them what music artist Russ tweeted?

RUSS @russdiemon

you don’t want it bad enough

More commonly though in my sphere are those who would benefit from more rest. I suppose the path that I’ve taken through college followed by the tech industry has led me to meet other high-achieving over-workers. In my last job, I would receive Slack messages from vacationing colleagues even when the emoji next to their name was ❌ to indicate their out-of-office status. I worked closely with someone who voluntarily scheduled Sunday night meetings with Australian coworkers as they started their Monday. And a couple weeks ago, I listened to two of my friends rant to each other about how they always work weekends since as product managers, their weekdays are so packed with back-to-back meetings that they can’t get any of their “heads-down” work done until the weekend. When I said “Now that I’ve quit my job, I think it’s absolutely crazy that you guys work weekends”, they hushed me in a friendly, but denying manner so they wouldn’t have to direct confront reality.

Some of my friends should work harder, but I can’t tell them that because then it’ll hurt their feelings. No one wants to be called weak or soft. In a similar vein, it’s hard to penetrate the hard shell of my friends who work too much. They wouldn’t feel offended if I told them they work too much, but there’s a different issue here. They wouldn’t actually listen to me. Their compass is guiding them to a different north star. To them, rest, slack, and solitude are unquantifiable in immediate value and therefore not worth prioritizing.

When I turn to myself and examine whether I’ve been working too much or not enough, I pause. I can identify specific moments when I should’ve focused more on my work, but also plenty of other times when I should’ve taken a break rather than trying to brute-force my way towards progress. Every Monday morning, when I sit down in front of my laptop and attempt to time-block my week, I should budget more time for breaks since I always end up biting off more than I can chew. But in the evenings, I know I have it in me to crank out some quality work rather than letting my mind get sedated through a string of algorithmically-recommended Youtube videos.

I struggle to place myself into the should-work-harder bucket or the should-rest-harder bucket because I’m not one lump of a human. I see parts of myself that could at times focus more on what I truly care about, but also recognize that sometimes the most effective action is to step away and rest. Given that I can’t place myself into either category, I suspect that I’m being too broad when I generalize that one friend works too hard or another isn’t trying hard enough.

The gap between what we should do and what we actually do

There’s a certain satisfaction you get after a long day of hard work and climb into bed exhausted. Likewise, it feels good to recharge because what follows rest is readiness - the feeling of being prepared for the next mission or adventure. But when there’s a mismatch between your plan and your actions, you end up out of alignment. If you want to cross off a few items off your to-do list, but end up doom-scrolling TikTok, then the feeling that follows is misalignment. If you wake up at 10am after staying up until midnight binge watching Physical 100, there might be a certain unsettling sensation (personal experience 🤔?).

An optimal sequence would correctly pair our desires with our actions. We would lock in and grind when we’re at peak performance. Conversely, when it’s time to unwind and relax, we would know precisely when to step back. The delta between what we should do and what we actually end up doing is reflected back to us with frustration and fatigue. Closing the gap is equal parts knowing when to apply pressure and when to pull away. Some folks I know would benefit from an extra kick of effort, but more common are the friends who work so much they don’t have any energy to cook dinner or hit the gym once they’re done working. My unwarranted observations have led to me to believe there are two main causes of this persistent lethargy. First, the person might be working on stuff they give zero shits about. That’s a bigger problem and something I had to deal with as I navigated quitting my job for over a year. The second and more directly addressable reason is they straight up just don’t know how to rest.

But what is rest?

Imagine the food pyramid, but for rest. Every item contained in the rest pyramid is technically a type of rest, but as we know with nutrition, they’re not all equal. Just like how you could theoretically survive off of nothing but Doritos and lollipops (with some vitamins and minerals of course), you could also get by with the junk food of rest: social media, TV, and going out.

eat your fruits + veggies

We all know how our bodies feel different the day after gorging on deep-fried or sugar-laden foods. The bloating and aching in our joints serve as feedback signals when we eat poorly, but what exists to tell us when we’re not fully rested? The symptoms of a malnourished mind and soul are less noticeable so it’s easier for us to slip into the perpetual loop of all-day zoom calls followed by an evening of mindlessly staring at the TV.

Yesterday I was with a friend who I could tell has been overworking. I’m not a neurosurgeon; he literally told me that he barely has any energy at the end of the workday. When I FaceTime’d him at 6pm on Friday, he picked up laying in bed in his dimly lit studio apartment. He calls it “closing my eyes for a bit” and I call it “taking a nap”. After we got dinner, I asked him what he had planned for the weekend and he said he was heading to (what I presumed an alcohol-infused) karaoke night followed by a day trip to Napa the next day for wine tasting. I could easily connect the dots on why he feels so tired and he even admitted that the past few weekends of going out have thrown off his sleep schedule, but I didn’t tell him what to do. I’m still figuring out my own self and I’ve learned that even the best advice is only useful if it’s well received. And advice is only received when it’s actually sought out.

Even for myself, I didn’t start viewing deep rest as integral to my overall wellbeing until I noticed my definition of work was expanding. Now that my “work” has become this blog, my climate newsletter, and the On The Rise podcast, I began to fold other tasks like reading books or even tweets under the umbrella of “work”. I started to view taking walks outside and pacing around as part of working because doing these things leads to clarity of thought. This represented a fundamental shift from my prior definition of work. Back when I was a product manager, I didn’t view anything outside the job description as part of working. Now that I’m doing my own thing on my own schedule, without any external authorities, I’m naturally doing what feels right, which has led me to redefine my conception of work, but also recognize that I do my best work when I do my best rest.

Two fuel sources

Everyone rests differently and I’ve noticed that I feel the most mentally recharged when I’m pushing myself physically through outdoor sports. Skiing, surfing, and backpacking catapult me out of my sedentary screen-staring position and into situations that require me to be fully present without any devices. Just like how a car’s battery recharges while the engine is actively engaged in driving, my mind is replenished as I move my body. Then when I’m physically exhausted, I spend the downtime reading and writing while my body rests up. But if I’ve been sitting all day staring at my laptop, then I start to feel mentally drained and need to do something that requires motion, just like how a car battery can die if left idle for too long. There are two fuel sources within me and engaging one is how the other recharges. I can’t let either fully deplete and keeping both charged is a delicate balancing act.

Circadian rhythm of work

The term “Sunday Scaries” concerns me not only because dreading the next five days of your life is sad, but also because the fact that it’s been coined means that enough people feel this way for it to be an actual thing. Full-time employment follows a cyclical pattern of five days on, two days off (with that second day being quite stressful for some). Now that I’m unemployed (but still working), I’ve had to figure out whether that pattern still makes sense for me. It’s been cool to experiment with new ways of working, but sometimes I find myself mentally twiddling my thumbs wondering if I should be working, playing, or resting. Without forcing myself to work or to rest, I’m starting to settle into a tempo that’s different from the weekly cadence.

Without the container of an eight-hour workday or five-day workweek, I’m able to get more done, but also recharge at a deeper level. There have been times when I’m deep in a train of thought and work far more than when I had a job simply because I feel like it. Likewise, I can take more days off than just two at a time. I think it’s entirely possible that two days is sometimes not enough time to fully rest, but also there will be periods when I actually want to work more than the average workday. My work schedule is organically shaping out to resemble a seasonal schedule of deep work followed by deep rest rather than the rote seven-day iterations.

I ended up in this rhythm organically. This week I remembered that starting in mid-March I have ski trips planned back-to-back until my trip back to Hawaii. I bought a one-way ticket so who knows how long I’ll stay. For those few weeks of travel, I’m not planning to do much work which means the next four weeks will be an ideal time to dial in. Then later in the year, I’ll be in Asia for 5-6 weeks so I’ll work less then as well. I’m well aware that this pace of life wouldn’t be possible if I was still traditionally employed. I also just realized I spent the whole time writing about how important rest is only to conclude with my plan of grinding super hard for the next four weeks. Working hard, but also resting hard.