When putting your feet up is the most productive thing you can do

There is one question that irritates me whenever it is asked because, as an entrepreneur, it fundamentally fails to understand what it is that I do. It is:

“Are you busy?”

People working nine to five may not understand it as most of what they do is react during their working day. And if there is nothing to react against, be it a flurry of orders, customer complaints, a boss demanding something yesterday, they have less – sometimes nothing – to do.

As an entrepreneur, I always have something or other on the boil, and often I have those reactive tasks also. But those are no fun most of the time, and not what I would regard as real work.

And then I’m always learning something new too, and being in the internet game, there is always plenty new to learn as the landscape shifts once again; that keeps me on my toes, whether I want to be or not. I tend to go through phases of working solidly on some project or other, after which I sometimes seem to lack focus, find a new project, or throw myself into learning.

Sometimes I’ve thought I had the balance all wrong, and I should be looking to working and learning more consistently, without the ups and downs, the periods of mad productivity followed by almost a sense of loss of what I do.

But that’s wrong, as I live for the excitement of getting projects going, and the downtime is a reward for that. The problem is I sometimes don’t see the downtime for what it is and try and push through it.

The result?

I get stressed out, unproductive and tired, particularly at this time of year when the heat picks up. As the temperature rises, my energy falls.

That was the case last week, when I seemed hardly able to function. However, this week, instead of working on Monday and Tuesday I spent the afternoons on the beach. A swim and lying around in the shade with a good book did wonders for me.

If your productivity levels have stalled maybe it’s time that you took some downtime too.

Categorised in: Productivity

This post was written by David