It’s Time to Take a Serious Break, and You Can Do This
If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s the need for real downtime
Sitting in my usual chair in front of my computer at a ridiculously early hour on a Friday morning, uninspired by every single story idea I was mulling after 11 months and 11 days of writing or thinking about writing every single day, I looked around my home office and said to myself: “Rob, you kinda just don’t wanna write any of these.”
My next thought: “These are some good ideas. Why don’t you want to write them? Where is your motivation?”
Then finally: “Dude, you really need to take some time off.”
“But I suck at taking time off,” I said aloud. (Yes, I talk to myself out loud when dealing with the most intractable challenges — it’s the best way to get my attention.) And I had the usual fear pop into my head: “If you don’t write something today, you’ll slip out of the flow, become irrelevant, never making a living wage again.”
That’s when my next story idea germinated: This year, let’s actually work really hard to take a real break. Because we’re terrible at it.
Everyone needs a break right now. Among the 75% of U.S. adults who say they’re burned out at work, 40% blame the pandemic and the sudden disruption of working…
