Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

In our 24-7 global economy, rest feels like a luxury at best and a weakness at worst. We see work and rest as competitors - but what if they're actually partners in a productive, balanced life? Blending rigorous scientific research with examples of writers, painters and thinkers - from Darwin to Stephen King - Silicon Valley futurist and business consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang exposes how we've underestimated the power of rest for our success. Though it's as natural as breathing, it's also a skill we can all learn to boost our creativity and productivity. Full of tips for upping our downtime, from sleep to hobbies to vacation, Rest is a new roadmap for finding renewed energy and inspiration, and getting more done.

Why You Get More Done When You Work Less

Rest

Fred Rivett

Rest is a skill, and one that can be learned and practiced and nurtured.

Scientists have found that the happiness and relaxation we feel on vacation peaks after about a week, while the psychological benefits of a vacation last up to two months. The ideal vacation schedule is to take a week off every three months.

Meanwhile, in Obliquity John Kay observes that companies that flourished when they focused on great work and customer service often stumble when new executive teams institute strategies focused on improving financial performance. Companies that put profits first, Kay argues, are more likely to lose money than those that treat profit as a by-product of doing great work.

One of his contemporaries said that Watson had time for girls and tennis because he was a genius. But Woolf and Kay made me think: Maybe he was a genius because he made time for girls and tennis.

Just as an astronomer exposes a photographic plate for hours to "reveal stars so far away that even the most powerful telescopes fail to reveal them to the naked eye, so too are "time and concentration" needed to "allow the intellect to perceive a ray of light in the darkness of the most complex problem.”

This state of sustained concentration "refines judgment, enriches analytical powers, spurs constructive imagination, And—by focusing all light of reason on the darkness of a problem—allows unforeseen and subtle relationships to be discovered. Reaching it, he warns, requires "severe abstention and renunciation." One must avoid distractions like "malicious gossip" and newspapers, the "intellectual dispersion and waste of time required by social activity, and anything else that loosens "the creative tension of the mind" and "that quality of tone that nerve cells acquire when adapted to a particular subject." But this does not mnean that the investigator should try to concentrate all the time. Diversions that are “light and promote the association of new ideas” are to be taken freely. Long walks, art, and music offer good material for a break. And if, after a period of sustained concentration, a breakthrough does not come, "yet we feel success is just around the corner, try resting for a while." A few weeks of relaxation and quiet in the countryside brings calmness and clarity to the mind" and provides intellectual refreshment. Even getting there can provide creative stimulus: "the powerful vibration of the locomotive and the spiritual solitude of the railway car," he savs, will often "suggest ideas that are ultimately confirmed in the laboratory.”

When Raichle started looking at scans of people's brains when they weren't reading text but resting between tasks and staring at a blank screen, he was surprised to see that the subjects' brains didn't just quiet down; instead, a second, different set of regions switched on. When people turned their attention outward again, that region switched off, and other regions lit up. This resting-state activity wasn't just scattered or random, either; it was as coordinated as when people were reading.

According to one model of creative thinking, new ideas are created in a two-step process: first, the brain generates lots of ideas, and second, it evaluates them. Ideas that are both novel and original are passed on from the unconscious to the conscious mind.

Studies of paradoxical functional facilitation, in which people who've had brain injuries, strokes, or degenerative brain diseases affecting the left temporoparietal region—the part of the brain where the evaluative center resides—suddenly develop new creative abilities or an obsession with painting or playing music, also provide evidence for the two-stage model of creative cognition. In one especially compelling case, a forty-six-year-old Israeli accountant developed an interest in drawing days after having a stroke. He had never studied art, but he was sketching and then painting while in the hospital; at home a month later, he was turning out several works a day. As his recovery proceeded and his old cognitive abilities returned, though, his artistic abilities receded; after eight months, he was back to normal, and he could no longer paint.

First, the great students didn't just practice more than the average, they practiced more deliberately. During deliberate practice, Ericsson explained, you're "engaging with full concentration in a special activity to improve one's performance." You're not just doing reps, lobbing balls, or playing scales. Deliberate practice is focused, structured, and offers clear goals and feedback; it requires paying attention to what you're doing and observing how you can improve.

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