- You're working super-duper-rifically hard.
- You go to "relax", where you start thinking about more work.
- When you come back, your brain becomes discombobulated.
You end up sucking.
Why?
When you're thinking about work on your break, you force yourself to run a never-ending marathon.
Instead of refilling your brainpower capacity, you deplete that brainpower until you're running on S.U.C.K. fuel.
Boo.
Instead, refill your brainpower fuel reserves to optimize your efficiency.
Here's how.
Refresh Your Brain/Mind/Body/Spirit
When you're on your break, do this:
- Get amnesia.
That is:
- Try to empty your brain.
- Try to go brain dead.
- "I don't remember anything! OH NOES!!!111one"
Go completely blank for as long as you can.
Meditate for the first two minutes if you need that.
KABAMOZILEINGO!
What happens?
Freshness Happens.
Completely/totally/100% refreshing yourself from your work gets you fabulously stronger for that next session.
- You regenerate your brainpower to full capacity.
- You optimize yourself to another session of I-will-kick-this-work's-@#$-like-it-stole-my-mama.
- You're able to rock fuller and longer and awesome-er.
It's like you're a mid-engined Formula 1 car:
- You just raced several laps of a Grand Prix, averaging 997687965908709865 miles per hour.
- Now, you're heading to the pits.
- You completely stop/refresh/get-filling/water/love/life.
- You refresh yourself to dominate several more laps.
Win for you.
- Get amnesia.
- Rock more work.
Go brain bye.
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Mike Smith - Bootstrapping Blog
Posted @ 11:21 AM on May 13, 2008
Great article, but one question - what do you do when you're in the middle of a project and you know that taking the time off will screw with your work flow?
I had that problem the other night. I started working at around 8pm/9pm and ended up still working at 8am. I felt "in the zone" and when I finally stopped to wake my girlfriend up and talked to her for a minute, I went back and felt so out of place and got really upset I couldn't continue like I was.