Rest Because the Work Needs You To

If I’d been treating a colleague the way I treated myself, HR would have had me up for a disciplinary.

I would make up strange rules when I was working hard. I’m not even sure I consciously chose them.

I would tell myself that I could stop only when I'd got to a certain point… finished the section or cleared the list.

So I'd push on, past the point of being any use.

And I could feel the work getting slower, more laboured with each passing hour.

A part of me knew that if I was rested the whole thing would be better and quicker.

But the belief I had built was that rest had to be earned.

Downtime was a reward for sufficient output, not a condition for doing the work well in the first place.

The more senior the work, the more it depends on judgement, presence, and perspective. The very things that go first when you're running on empty.

So don't rest because you've earned it. Rest because the work needs you to.

Summer is a strange test of this. The break arrives, and for a lot of us the old habit persists.

The holiday that has to be justified. The half-attention on the phone. The feeling that you should be doing something.

But time away has a use beyond the rest itself. It's one of the few points in the year when the pace drops enough to notice what rules are running your life. Some of which you may never have chosen.

September has a way of coming round fast, and most of us go back to exactly what we left. The pause is the chance to ask whether you want to.

Rest Because the Work Needs You To.