We work to have leisure, on which happiness depends.
—ARISTOTLE
ONCE I REALIZED THAT I’d modeled my life after my workplace, I was dismayed to see how many of my choices were influenced by the corporate emphasis on efficiency. I saw it everywhere I looked.
I began by tracking my time and reducing my work hours, but it was clear that it would take much more than that to free myself. The effort to disentangle myself and create a clear delineation between job and home is ongoing. I’m like a tree that’s grown next to a chain-link fence and now, decades later, find my roots and branches are enmeshed with the metal. To pull away now will require a gentle touch and plenty of patience.
For me, the next step was to address my addiction to multitasking. Not just address it, but end it. Trying to do several things at once instead of taking advantage of the brain’s natural inclination to pulse between focus and rest is a waste of fertile brainpower. The structure of my work life consisted of hours spent at a computer or in meetings, switching from one task to another until it was time to stop. That structure was not designed for my human brain, and it had to be dismantled.
If you silence your phone, close your inbox, and really focus on getting a report done, research shows you’ll finish 40 percent faster, have fewer errors, and have plenty of time to take a short walk around the building and let your brain relax.
Taking regular breaks is so important that it can’t be left to chance or whim. I found I had to schedule leisure the way I schedule a yoga class or a business meeting.
There are two kinds of rest: leisure and time off, or spare time. Spare time is not true rest. As Sebastian de Grazia explains in his 1962 book, Of Time, Work, and Leisure, what we call “spare time” is the minutes and hours we find in between the work we do. It’s inextricably tied to work and is meant to recharge our batteries so we can get back to work feeling refreshed.
Leisure, on the other hand, is separate from work. It should be unpolluted by work, meaning that you don’t check your emails or answer work calls during this time, nor do you worry about how your activity might impact your work life. The purpose of leisure is not to make you better at your job, but to let you enjoy the life you work so hard to achieve.
However much time you spend in focused work, when it’s time to get up and take a break, make sure you’re really resting your brain. Don’t text or do online shopping. Don’t direct your thoughts toward any task at all. Downtime is healthy for the mind, and it’s also an incredibly fertile neurological state. When you’re not directing your brain to do a specific task, your mind activates the default network.
The default mode network, or DMN, becomes active when we allow our minds to wander. When the DMN is engaged, it works on our memories, putting past events into context and making moral evaluations about things that have happened. It also imagines the future, tries to understand the emotions of others, and reflects on our own emotions and decisions. The default network is crucial for empathy, for self-reflection, and for Theory of Mind, the ability to imagine what others may be thinking.
Allowing our brains to switch into default mode is crucial for our well-being. That’s the source of much of our creativity and innovation, since the brain actively reshuffles the puzzle pieces of our memories and emotions when it’s not directed to solve a problem or complete a task.
In practice, your brain will only switch to default mode if you allow it to ramble without purpose. It’s not idleness, since you could be jogging or wiping down counters during this time.
The psychologists Amanda Conlin and Larissa Barber warn that we often misuse our breaktime during work hours. “One key component of an effective break is psychological detachment,” they wrote in Psychology Today, “which refers to mentally disengaging from work thoughts. By shifting our focus, detachment helps us to directly reduce work demands that are causing fatigue and to naturally recover.”
If you decide to call a loved one or friend during your break, resist the temptation to talk about work. Make a clean break. Certainly, don’t walk into your office kitchen and spend fifteen minutes talking to a coworker about the job. Take a breath and hit pause. I was amused to read a tweet from the media strategist Stu Loeser that said, “I am sitting on an Acela [train] next to someone who is sitting with her hands on her lap, quietly looking out the window. No computer out. No tablet out. No phone out. Just peacefully looking out at the world as we pass it by. Like a psychopath would.” My answer to Stu: “I am sometimes that psychopath.”
When you’re not at work, you can actually enjoy not just time off but true leisure. You can be completely detached from concerns about work, and you should strive to make a complete separation. I realize it feels necessary to answer emails and texts promptly, but that habit is incredibly hard on your body and mind.
Research shows employees who feel more detached from their jobs during their time at home are emotionally healthier and more satisfied with their lives. They’re less likely to feel emotionally exhausted, and they report getting better sleep.
I think that of all the changes I recommend, this is the easiest to achieve. I only ask that you take it easy and relax, and that you schedule time out of every day in which to do this. As the economist Joseph Stiglitz says, we learn how to enjoy leisure “by enjoying leisure.”
Set aside a chunk of time every day to do nothing productive. Take a walk without a destination and without worrying about the number of steps you’ll take. Go outside. Group walks in nature lower stress and decrease symptoms of depression, so walk through a park.
I often put my phone into Do Not Disturb mode for hours at a time and allow only calls and texts from friends and family to come through. The work calls can, and do, wait. I have even started setting aside one day per week as an “untouchable day,” when I don’t look at my email inbox or social media and simply go about my day without interruption.
Every Monday, I don’t check social media or email and texts. I’ll pick up the phone if someone calls, but almost no one does. Since starting this practice, I’ve gotten better at shutting out distractions and using that day for writing and other tasks that require focus. But the first few weeks were rough, I have to admit.
On my first untouchable day, I checked my email more than fourteen times. Twice, I didn’t even realize that I was doing it until someone sent me an email saying, “Aren’t you supposed to be off of email today?” The truth is, my life was centered around email in more ways than I realized.
Although I’d turned off notifications from almost all of the apps on my phone, I was still seeing that number of unread items next to the envelope icon every time I glanced at the screen. What’s more, my internet browser included the email page in its startup screens, so the inbox opened automatically.
Depending on which research you consult, the average adult spends two to six hours a day answering email and at least a third of that isn’t urgent. I’d imagine much, much more than a third is neither important nor time sensitive. I could cite studies and surveys all day, but it comes down to this: Email kills productivity. So breaking my addiction to it was crucial if I wanted to really get things done on my untouchable day.
Still, I found I could not address the problem in isolation. I also had to reckon with the expectations of others. People expect a quick response. At this point, anything less than immediate response over text or email is cause for concern. Most texts are read within three minutes of being received, and the most common email response time is two minutes, according to analysis from the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering.
Here’s how I’ve solved (most of) these problems. First, on Sunday night I check my email one last time and turn on a vacation responder that says, “On Mondays, I don’t answer emails or texts because I’m writing. If it’s urgent, call me.” By the way, it’s been nearly a year and no one has ever called.
Second, I changed my email signature in order to manage response time expectations. Now, instead of a pithy quote, all of my messages end with the following note: “I only check email 2–3 times a day. If it’s urgent, call me. But how urgent is it, really?” Over time, I hope people will stop expecting an immediate reply from me and will feel more comfortable when it takes hours, if not days, to receive a reply.
Third, I changed the settings on my phone so that I no longer see how many unread emails are in my inbox, and every Monday, I put the phone on Do Not Disturb mode so that only phone calls come through.
The result? During one of my untouchable days, I wrote 4,000 words before my brain overheated. Then I baked some scones and took my dog for an hour-long walk, and still had time to watch some Netflix before reading a book and falling asleep at a reasonable hour. I slept well, too.
I know it’s scary to lift your foot off the gas pedal, but trust me that you’ll enjoy the ride much more. You don’t need a special app or a guide from an expert to “hack your leisure time.” Sometimes striving to improve on everything we do can impede progress. Stop becoming and just be for a moment.
You certainly don’t have to take a walk. It’s often my choice but doesn’t have to be yours. You can choose to watch a movie while your phone is turned off or sit at a coffee shop and read a novel. Do a puzzle or a crossword, work on your car, or just take a hot bath and listen to music. Whatever it is that you like to do when you have nothing on your calendar, do it and don’t think about work.
There’s even scientific evidence that shows watching cat videos is good for you. A growing body of evidence suggests that quality leisure time, meaning leisure time that is truly disengaged from work concerns, will ultimately make you better at and more satisfied with your job. “Productivity science seems like an organized conspiracy to justify laziness,” wrote Derek Thompson in the Atlantic. He calls the findings on leisure and vacation and cute animal videos “nearly too good to be true.”
Work is necessary and can be fulfilling when you feel a sense of purpose in what you do, but it is not the justification for your existence. Remember that we are not biologically and evolutionarily “born to work.”
We are, however, designed to relate with other people and form intimate bonds with friends and family. While work is a tool used to gain other necessary things, belongingness is a fundamental need. That’s why it’s important to also set aside time to be social.