I know you.
You’re already thinking about working this weekend.
You’ve got a shit-ton to do, mostly from random crap that piled up this week, but also from everything you couldn’t tackle due to last-minute meetings, an unprecedented number of emails, and constant interruptions from, ahem, Instagram and other social media notifications.
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I’m not judging. I’m thinking about working this weekend too.
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Another Friday is here and, without fail, I’m planning out a full weekend of effort, squeezed in between family meals, baseball games, and Netflix episodes of Lost in Space (our latest guilty pleasure).
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This desire to always be busy stems from hustle-guilt, a term coined by @margoaaron describing a feeling that you’re never doing enough, that you should always be achieving.
It’s not healthy.
First, in the words of @benjaminp.hardy:
“Most people are always plugged-in, always going, and thus are busy. Hilariously, they think being busy is being productive. It’s not.”
How many times has the 5 o’clock whistle shocked you into wondering why you are so exhausted yet have nothing to show for it? Those are the days you were lost in administrative (emails, texts, meetings, calls), but never got to the important stuff. In other words, you were busy but not productive.
Doing more of that on the weekend won’t help. It’ll just burn you out.
Second, rest and recovery are not just nice, they are absolutely essential to optimal performance. Just like in exercise, unless you rest and recover, you’re work will plateau. You’ll get run down, the effort you put in yesterday will be for naught, and the effort you put in today will be lackluster. You’ll never get stronger; you’ll sit stagnant, wondering why progress is so hard.
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Maybe this isn’t the weekend for you to rest. Maybe it’s too late, your plans are set, and there’s nothing I can say to convince you NOT to work.
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That’s okay. You gotta do whatcha gotta do.
But make sure you plan some rest in the near future. Schedule some recovery time into your perpetually busy life.
I guarantee that, if you do, you’ll come back stronger, faster, and smarter. You’ll finally have the energy to operate at peak levels.
About the Author
Michael Mehlberg
HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE
I help high-achieving entrepreneurs organize their brain and schedule so they can organize their life and business.
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