Behavior #5: Decompress with intention
When you work, you should be maximally productive within the firm boundaries of the time allotted, allowing concentrated output and tight bouts of focus to take the place of the untethered semi-efficacy common in knowledge work.
You must minimize distraction, set boundaries, and get more done in less time — displaying mastery over your craft.
For this blueprint to succeed, you must arrive at work unburdened by fatigue, all-in on the task at hand. This dictates you’ve taken steps to recover in the interim, decompressing, revitalizing, and creating reserves of mental energy — a practice that must be pursued with intention.
Too often, we exist in a liminal state between work and rest, allowing our thoughts to be occupied by tomorrow’s tasks while running or cycling, idly checking email when talking with friends, or thoughtlessly ping-ponging between family time and business meetings (as if the two could happily coexist). We rob rest of its benefits with every violation of its natural boundaries.
Instead, treat your rest as sacrosanct, as vital to your projection of Agency as your time spent working. Your decompression is not to be hijacked by others, nor by yourself. It is not a time to sneak in a bit of phantom productivity, nor to engage in work disguised as leisure — and it is never to be cut short.
Your decompression is deep breaths, perfect presence, and freedom from obligation. It is your servant, your wellspring of tomorrow’s productivity arriving in the clothing of uninterrupted relaxation, and you would do well to allow it to proceed uninterrupted.
Decompress with intention.
READ ALL THE BEHAVIORS OF THE TIME AWARE
