Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
I listened to Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang and I quite enjoyed it. Its clear you need to rest for success.
Some key takeaways: rest, take regular vacations (maybe coupled with a think week), have focused mornings (when the alarm goes off, don’t read social media or your email; have a plan for what you want to achieve before being interrupted – consider this your leader time), allow your mind to wander, and exercise regularly.
Some quick notes:
- Rest is not the adversary of work. Rest is the partner of work. They complement and complete each other.
- A stoic would say, no good life without good work. One provided means to live, while one gave meaning to life.
- If you want rest you have to take it
- Learn to breathe (I think this is something the Apple Watch helps with as well; it reminds you from time to time to take a breather for a minute, and then it quantifies it for you as well).
- Rest in ways that are challenging or rewarding
- Long creative lives tend to be lives rich in work and rest. Don’t worry about age
- Don’t say labor rather than contemplation is what gives you success – this is why you have workaholics
- Do you have convergent or divergent thinking? Wikipedia has some good reading on this: Convergent thinking, Divergent thinking.
- Brief periods of mind wandering boosts creativity
- Associative thinking – maybe this is why people like working in cafes
- Deliberate practice
- Have focused mornings
- Inspiration must find you working
- Awake and aware or asleep and cleaning up – our brain can only do one not the other (our brains don’t multitask)
- There’s a link between lack of sleep and dementia as well as sleep disturbance and dementia
- Vacations are like sleep. Take them regularly.
- Build rest into your schedule
- Use recovery activities to help with creativity (why exercise is useful)
- Exercise regularly. Otherwise strenuous exercise will tire you out!
- Finishing an entire book is close to manual labor according to Murakami (quote from: Haruki Murakami: Writing Novels Is an Endurance Sport)
- Exercise in your mid life (40–50s) will really help you later in life
- To stay ahead, it’s necessary sometimes to step back
- Bill Gates think week – he spent a week away from everyone including family to read and figure out new things. Very interesting concept, WSJ In Secret Hideaway, Bill Gates Ponders Microsoft’s Future reports its a twice yearly ritual for him.
- The Samsung Electronics sabbatical plan is quite interesting; you go around the world, immerse in local culture, and it helps the company overall. Read Why Samsung pays its stars to goof off.
- Depth of experience abroad is important. More important than breadth, i.e. just travel abroad. Working in 2 countries a year is good but 8 will be too much (I personally like this idea tremendously; it also makes for diverse networks).
- Detachment is important during a sabbatical
- Annie Dillard: “who would call a day reading a good day? But a life spent reading, that is a good life” (full quote)
- From a book in 1895, titled The Use of Life by John Lubbock, he makes a distinction between idleness and leisure: “Leisure is one of the grandest blessings, idleness one of the greatest curses. One is the source of happiness, the other of misery.” People sometimes mistake rest for idleness but this is obviously a mistake.
