In previous newsletter issues, I've talked a lot about digital detox, work-life balance, and prioritizing rest.
But I also shared last week about my experience with workaholism over the past 10 years. In that one, I mentioned I tried not working for a full day and how weird and stressful it was.
First, I want to make something clear. I mean not only not working for the day (e.g., being on vacation, the weekend, etc.) What I mean is not checking my email, not sitting on the computer, not taking calls, and many other little work-related things that creep up in our downtime, especially with the world becoming increasingly connected and work becoming much more asynchronous.
I honestly don't remember the last time I spent an entire day without at least replying to an email or having a quick chat with a colleague/client. I never minded doing it. After all, if I can spend 30 minutes on a Sunday to help someone who had to work through the weekend, I am all for it.
But I never realized the toll this was taking on me. I am trying to eradicate any workaholism from myself, so I did an experiment a few weeks back.
Experiment Premise: I will not work for an entire day. I will not check my email, put my work chats on mute, put my phone on Silent, and won't return work-related calls.
I also had some expectations about the day and its effect on me and, most importantly, my productivity afterward.
Hypothesis: I will feel relaxed and rejuvenated. My productivity on the following day will be through the roof!
Running the experiment
I woke up and went straight to my computer. I always turn it on to warm up while making coffee. I stopped myself before pushing the button. The realization I almost failed in the first 30 seconds of the day kicked off some anxiety about the day. And this anxiety only grew throughout the day.
You see, I haven't had a proper break in years. The last vacation I took was a 4-day skiing trip, and I spent a few hours every night working and had two model review calls there. Even when I had a double disc herniation on my spine and couldn't get out of bed, I had a friend go and buy me a bed laptop table so I could do some work while I was in bed.
But here I was, with a cup of steaming coffee and nothing to do. It was 9 a.m., and I was already struggling a lot. I think the biggest realization I had throughout this day was that I have a profound lack of understanding regarding the concept of relaxing.
During the day, I tried to occupy my mind with various relaxing activities. I played Hogwarts Legacy on the Switch for a couple of hours. I plopped on the sofa and watched an entire movie without my remarkable/phone/laptop.
I went out with the baby and enjoyed the sounds of the city. I would usually listen to productivity podcasts and reply to emails. Still, I just pushed the stroller around this time and enjoyed the February sun.
It was so hard not to think about work. And you know how brains operate. The more you try not to think about work, the more you think about work. And this was the case for me, especially with the gnawing feeling of wasting time and being unproductive that my workaholism has cultivated within me.
It was so weird to think about that. How can my brain constantly try to classify spending time with my baby as being a waste of time? I was baffled at how broken my way of thinking about anything not work-related is.
The good thing is that I am not starting to see more and more of those patterns; identifying them is the first and most vital step in thinking them through and dismantling them.
Of course, spending time with my family is the best way to spend time there is. I know that, so as soon as I identified the feeling of time being wasted while pushing the stroller around, it was pretty easy to dismantle this belief. I am sure it will reappear, but I hope it will be eradicated with time.
Drawing some conclusions
Overall, it was tough not to open my email or turn on my computer throughout the day. I didn't expect it to be anywhere near that hard, to be honest.
And there was no magical 10x boost in productivity the next day. I did not make any profound discoveries about myself or life-changing decisions.
Overall, my experiment proved my hypothesis was wrong. However, proving it right was never the point. The whole idea was to see where I stand in terms of being able to separate work and life. I have long thought I had a work-life balance, which, as it turns out, was an illusion.
I am not sharing all this because I have a fantastic insight to improve your life. My reason is different. I am going through the experience of re-learning how to relax and take time off because I ultimately want to be around my family for a bit longer.
And in a world where hustle culture and overtime are still on a pedestal, where men are supposed to be tough and go through shit on their own, I simply want to share my journey through this.
At the end of the day, it's not such a big deal, but if one of you is going through something similar, sometimes it helps to know we are not alone.
Feel free to reply to this message or DM me if you want to share about your journey, whatever it may be.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Next week, I promise to write something more tangible and lay off the personal drama for a bit.😅
As always, you get extra brownie points if you share the newsletter with a friend. It helps me grow, and your friend might benefit from joining the community.
I want to end with a quote from one of my favorite creators:
Don't forget you're awesome, Bru!
See you next week,
Dobri