Making use of your time
MAKING
USE OF YOUR TIME
Mario
D’Couto
“Ordinary
people think merely of spending time. Great people think of using it.”
-
Unknown
“The
key is not spending time but in investing it.”
-
Stephen R. Covey
“Take
care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves”
-
Lord Chesterfield
As we continue to find ourselves in this global lockdown,
I thought of taking the opportunity to write about something that is quite
often taken for granted and that’s, rest. Rest has always, in most cases, been
perceived as a passive activity, a nap, lying on the couch, watching sports on
television or binge – watching a popular series on Netflix or Amazon Prime. That’s
one form of rest. But do you know that physical activity is more restful than
we expect and mental rest is more active than we realize?
Unless you are working from home (like me 😊), rest to a certain point can be a
bit asking for a lot, for the simple reason that now that we have so much time
for ourselves, finding ways to break the monotony of time can seem like a
daunting task. But don’t worry, in this blogpost/article, we shall go through a
few ways on how we can use our time productively, which if done systematically
will eventually lead you to wonder, ‘how did the time go by?’
Before we could go into that, one thing we need to be
clear about is that rest and work are not two aspects of human life that are at
loggerheads against each other. They are partners! You cannot have good work
without good rest (although there can be exceptions) and rest can certainly be
a time to rejuvenate and is, an essential component of good work. World – class
musicians, athletes, writers, designers and other accomplished and creative
people alternate daily periods of intense work and concentration with many
breaks. By learning to rest better, it would not only support our work but it
also helps us to keep our minds sharp and alert to take note of whatever or whenever, something that needs our attention.
As seen before, because of the kind of busy lives that we
are all so accustomed to, rest is always perceived as a mindless activity.
Besides, what’s more easier than just closing your eyes and going for a snooze
or slouching into your sofa (couch) and watching T.V. all day. However, for a
surprising number of creative people, exercise is an essential part of their
routine. Some walk miles every day or spend weekends working in the garden.
Some are training for the next marathon or they are doing rock climbing or
scaling mountains. Their idea of rest can be more vigorous than our idea of
exercise.
Now granted that as we find ourselves ‘caged’ in
the four walls, most of the time, the above things mentioned may not be
feasible. However, whether you have a backyard or an open road to exercise or
not, I think this quarantine is a good test for our creativity. I, for one, use
a bag filled with books or a bucket filled with water for weights besides the
other forms of calisthenic exercises I do at home. To be honest, I started this
practice a while back, much before the pandemic could actually start. This is
something which you may choose to consider. The important thing is to be as
creative as you can be. If you feel stuck, there’s a lot of material available
on YouTube or if you get the chance, check out Roger Frampton’s book, “The
Flexible Body” in which he speaks about how one can exercise from home using
one’s own body weight as resistance.
Serious exercise helps keep our bodies operating at its
peak, which in turn keeps the mind sharp and gives us the energy to do
difficult work. But it also offers subtle psychological benefits and not just a
stress relief or a chance to clear our minds but a way to connect with our own
pasts. Many serious thinkers choose activities that reflect childhood interests
or cultivate skills they first developed with their parents or older siblings.
Such choices are part of a bigger, conscious strategy of building a life in
which work, play, labour and leisure all have their place and are linked
together.
If at all you have the good fortune of having a backyard
or an open road in your society or neighbourhood where you can take a brisk
walk or go for a jog, by all means go ahead (and oh, don’t forget to wear the
mask though 😊).
There is value in a simple act of just going for a brisk walk even if you
cannot jog.
In a study that was done at Stanford University, it was
found that a simple activity as walking has a carry – over arousal effect that
increases creativity. In the study, an overwhelming majority of the
participants were found to be more creative while walking than while sitting;
their creative output increased by an average of 60% as per the study. What’s
more is that the effects of walking lingered long after the walk had ended.
This is to say that people who were tested after walking were to able to
generate creative ideas even when they sat down after the walk. So if you feel
stuck at something or your bored, or you just feel like you have nothing to do
but would like to do something, take a 5 to 10 minute walk. You can even do it
in the space of your home (I do it sometimes 😊).
You just need to think out of the box. A few great personalities that I can
think of who practiced this (the habit of walking) were Isaac Newton, Albert
Einstein, Ludwig Van Beethoven and Emmanuel Kant (although there could possibly
be more as well).
With that being said, it may seem that using rest in a
productive way is only about physical movement but as mentioned above, mental rest
can be as active as physical rest. What do I mean by this? Passive forms of
rest turn out to be more physical than we expect. When you go to sleep, your
brain doesn’t switch off. It gets busy consolidating memories, reviewing the
day’s events and going over problems you’ve been working on. You get a glimpse
of all the behind – the – scenes activity when you dream, but most of this
activity happens without your conscious knowledge and without your direction.
The brain also gets busy cleaning away toxins and doing physical maintenance;
this is important for preventing degenerative neurological diseases. Sleep
scientists can see all this activity during REM sleep, when your brain is
spiking with electrical activity. Your brain is active when you’re awake but
zoning out. During those moments when your mind is wandering and it feels like
your mind has gone blank, your brain is actually working at full speed. It’s
just not bothering to bring your conscious – self along.
As mentioned earlier that a common misconception that we
could all fall for is, rest is a mindless activity, but what if I told
you that rest a skill (something that we can master)? Is not breathing a
natural activity? It is indeed and yet in as much as it is spontaneous, knowing
to breathe with intent and purpose is a game changer.
Disciplined breathing is one of the most powerful tools
we have to counter stress, fear and distraction. Learning to breathe more
deeply helps athletes compete harder. It helps soldiers and sailors remain calm
in battle or in the midst of a storm. It helps musicians sing with greater control. It enables actors and
politicians to project their voice. That’s why learning to control one’s
breathing is something that virtually everyone doing physically strenuous and
mentally challenging work must master.
People don’t just become world – class performers through
deliberate practice. It’s also by deliberate rest, for they both (work
and rest) go hand in hand. Through deliberate rest, it helps one recover from
the stress and exhaustion of the day, allowing new experiences and lessons to
settle in one’s memory and giving the subconscious mind space to keep working.
It’s often in the periods of deliberate rest and apparent leisure – when you’re
not working or trying to work – that you can have some of your best ideas. For
world – class performers, rest is not just psychologically and physically
restorative but also mentally productive.
Rest is a skill that can be developed. It’s too bad that
most of us have perceived it as a complete mindless activity or a passive
thing. When it comes to rest or taking a break, most people either head to
happy hours, go clubbing on the weekend, travel to a resort and so on. It is
not that fun activities and socializing are not important. It is only to
say that rest can be more productive. So while fun activities and socializing
can ‘hold a place’ in your schedule, learning to rest in ways that are
challenging and rewarding, not only will make one healthier but will also help
make one’s mind sharper and better. So yes, while rest is natural, learning to
rest well, in ways that are productive, are certainly far more effective.
The best investment that one can make is the investment
in one’s self and what better time than now to take stock of one’s life,
analyse, set one’s goals and see how best to take it forward. You may not get
such an opportunity again as Benjamin Franklin said, “Time lost is never
found again.” If you would like some more information on being creative and
sustaining creativity or you feel you’re stuck for ideas to come up with
something productive, checkout a previous blogpost of mine called, “’Take a
break’ or ‘Juggle with different topics’ – A Path to Creativity”,
Until then, stay safe, stay blessed!
