A clear sign of workplace burnout is this: the dividing boundary between one’s downtime and one’s responsibilities can get really blurry. This might look like doing work stuff at home and home stuff at work. Oftentimes I have spoken to helping professionals who find themselves surfing Facebook at their desk, even (especially?) when there is a stack of paperwork to get done. They are often the same people who will pick up calls from clients on the weekend, when clients should be the LAST thing on their mind. Do you see the boundary breakdown here?
This happens because over the years something inside us has fallen into disarray; perhaps the executive part of our brain that governs planned behavior has been chronically overwhelmed by the excessive demands of life. Our discipline may have therefore eroded to the point where we lack the internal fortitude to deal with anything other than what happens to be in front of us.
Any of us who have worked in social services (or who are parents, which is just another form of social service) for any length of time have realized that the work never ends. I remember hearing about a man who dedicated 40 years of his life to child protection. He made a greater impact than most during his sometimes grueling years of service. Yet mere months after his retirement party few remembered him. The work existed long before him and now continues to exist in his absence. The clients will never stop calling. The laundry will never be finished. It like chasing after the wind.
The same is true for you. You will not get to the bottom of the pile. Ever.
So knowing that the pile is eternal, why do you put off rest? Why do you treat downtime as though it is a prize that can only be earned once “finished”? It will never be finished. Now in our defense, we didn’t grow up this way. Most of us “finished” each school year at the end of June and were once able to savor an annually-held endless summer with our friends. Later on at college, we knew that if we just persisted past our finals we could drive home and enjoy a month of Christmas on our parents’ dime. Back then, it made sense to incentivize rest because the nature of our work was finite.
Not so now. Now we play the long game. The training runs and 5k races have past and we are now competing in the ultra-marathon. So let me state this clearly: rest must be prioritized as a “To Do” item, not as the absence of something. It does not have to be earned. You never have to be worthy of it. You never have to justify it. You just take it because if you don’t it will never happen on its own.
My partner struggles with guilt at the thought of rest. She’s a very productive and devoted mother of three who is also running a household, upgrading her education, working part-time, and preparing to launch a business. It feels hard for her to justify rest because in the moment so many other things- the kid’s school assignments, prepping for work, and managing the general chaos of motherhood- seem far more urgent and important. Mostly she just feels a powerful sense of guilt at the thought of taking time for herself.
But one day we discovered an interesting trick for how she could justify getting a couple of days away, minus the mental guilt trip. She planned a getaway at a scrapbooking retreat. The idea is that she could spend a weekend away with friends in her PJ’s while “working” to produce an album or two of family memories. Within that framework she found the permission needed to totally relax, unwind, and most importantly avoid the emotions of shame and guilt at the thought of leaving her family behind.
Also, this period of rest did not look like a blank spot in her daytimer. There was a large block covering Friday, Saturday, and Sunday called “Scrapbooking Retreat”. Having that time scheduled in made it real and protected the time from the nagging list of other things that could invade it.
That said, rest periods needn’t be a weekend long. Even a regular hour dedicated to one’s own needs, plotted in pen, and fiercely guarded can be the salve our hearts and minds need to recover.
So what about you? Do you schedule your rest time? I would recommend that you not only write it down, but that you describe the activity as something more specific than “rest”. If your vision is to go kayaking that day, then write that down. Maybe it’s just an hour one evening for a bath. Write that in! The concreteness of it will help you resist the temptation to let other things take priority.
For us, the work will never stop. Therefore we must reorient our perspective from “finish line” focus to “journey” focus. If we can do that, maybe we will find the rewards we seek along the way.