How down time makes you more productive

Last year, I worked with an English professor named Tracy who taught me a big lesson about down time.

She arrived late to her first session, bustling in with a backpack and a pile of papers in her hand. "I'm sorry I'm late," she said, trying to shove all the papers into her bag. "I had four meetings back to back this morning."

I looked at the clock, which said 11:30 a.m. She's had four meetings already?

"What would you like to work on today?" I asked.

Tracy rubbed her eyes. "You can probably tell," she said. "I'm so overwhelmed. I have a thousand and one things on my plate. I'm always working, so my husband and cats barely know me anymore. I haven't seen my friends in ages. But I'm ready to hit my head against a wall, if it'll help. Because even though I work every second I can…I feel like nothing's working."

"Oh, is that all?” I said, and she smiled. "It sounds like you're doing a lot. I’m curious what makes you feel like nothing is working out?

Tracy explained how she'd been working on creating a ghostwriting business that would bring together her best students with clients who wanted help writing a book. "I know it's a solid model," she said confidently. "I've made several matches already, and they're going great. But it's just not growing like it should. I'm stuck. Plus, my own writing has stalled – I haven't published a word in over a year. I work so freaking hard. Why is nothing working out?"

Tracy's conundrum struck a chord with me. I see this all the time, with friends, with colleagues, with myself. How is it that you can put so much time and heart and effort into something, and still get no results?

That day, I sent Tracy home with "homework" – to go for a run (her favorite morning workout) along with some powerful questions that I thought might give her a new perspective. Among them was one of my favorites: What do you have? and What do you need?

The following week, Tracy returned, still looking frazzled, but with a smile on her face. "Sonia," she said. "I ran four days this week, and every time, I took your questions along with me. 'What do you need' resonated with me especially. In fact, think I uncovered something."

"What's that?" I said, smiling.

"Well, at first, a bunch of stuff came up. I need to call X. Schedule meeting with Y. Look at web analytics and meet with webmaster. And so on. I'm sure you get the picture," she said. "But then, something hit me. Yesterday, as I was running over the bridge by my apartment, a totally new answer came to me: I need to sit back. I need to breathe. I need a break.

"Right away, I knew that was right," said Tracy. "I've been go-go-go for as long as I can remember. I thought being productive meant I had to be so busy I couldn't even sit down. But now…I wonder if I need to totally different approach."

And so that's what she did. For the next few weeks, Tracy experimented with putting a little space in her calendar. She scheduled time between meetings to decompress, and she resolved to stop working every day at 6 p.m. so she could have dinner with her husband. She even set her alarm clock twenty minutes later than usual (at the oh-so-indulgent time of 5:20a.m.). Two weeks in, she decided to start meditating, committing to five minutes a day.

Two months later, Tracy got to our session five minutes early. Her energy felt different now: instead of frazzled, she looked calm and centered. She even spoke more slowly.

"What a difference a little downtime makes," she said. "Not only am I more productive when I work less. But also, I'm starting to see the fruits of my labors. In the past two weeks alone I've signed four new clients, and just yesterday I found out an essay of mine will be published in a major lit journal. This is what I've been working for. It's finally happening."

Rest, downtime, "stepping back" – whatever you call it, the yin side of life is crucial. Yet it's often the piece we ignore, precisely because we think it means we're slacking, or falling behind.

In today's culture, which prizes busy-ness and eighty-hour work weeks, many of us see rest as a barrier to our success. But it's anything but that. It's not a barrier; it's a necessary part of the path.

Why is that? A few reasons:

• We all need time to recoup. Both our minds and bodies require rest in order to function well. Rest is vital for our muscles, which need time to rebuild after a strenuous workout. In yoga, the last pose, savasana, is known for its rejuvenating qualities – it's where our bodies really soak in the benefits of all the other poses.

• Of course, the brain is a muscle – so it needs rest, too. If we're too busy, always engaged in some task, our brains don't have time to process all the information we're receiving, and that hurts their ability to function. When we're in an overactive, strung-out state, trying to solve everything and do everything and be everything, we're literally short-circuiting our abilities to make good decisions, think creatively, and solve problems.

In contrast, when our brains are calm and contemplative, our neural circuits run smoothly. Then, our brains are like well-oiled machines, ready to provide us with the answers we need.

• Also, outside of minds and bodies, work needs time to grow. Like seeds, our projects – whether they're in business, our health, our relationships, whatever – require time and patience. Seeds don't sprout faster if you slave over them. Rather, they flourish when we give them what they need: water, nutrients, light, and of course, time.

So what about you? Do you ever feel like Tracy did?

In what area of your life could you use some downtime?

What might that look like for you? Maybe it's adding time between meetings. Maybe it's meditating. Maybe it's giving your brain a rest while you work out – instead of obsessing over your to-do list, you can visualize your goal or ask yourself powerful questions!

Maybe it's getting more sleep, taking a rest day from working out, or simply stepping back from a work project that doesn't seem to be yielding any results, to let it grow in its own time.

I invite you to try it –one of those suggestions, or one of your own – for the next week, and see what happens.

Then tell me about it below! I love hearing your stories and learning from you about what works and what you've learned.

Then go out, relax, and shine.