Being *busy* is not the same thing as being *productive.* I talk a lot about productivity, but the real secret to being productive is not sticky notes or time tracking (those are super helpful tools to get you there), it’s prioritizing rest and play. If you’re anything like me, this is a lesson I had to learn the hard way. Sacrificing sleep and running at a full sprint from dusk till dawn *felt* productive. I did that for YEARS. I couldn’t sit still to save my life. Three years ago, I would have been the first one to tell you I was too busy to take a day off, and prided myself on the minuscule amount of sleep I needed to survive. Being busy made me feel like I was important, like what I was doing mattered. Sleep was a luxury I simply couldn’t afford. And a day off? Unheard of. I burned myself out, lost my ability to think, made enormously costly mistakes in life and in business, and hit rock bottom, marinating in a horrible soup of depression, shame, guilt, and confusion about how I’d completely lost my ability to be the productive, joyful, creative person I used to be. It turns out, learning to sit still has literally, saved my life. Sleep enhances our ability to think clearly and make good decisions. Play develops and encourages our sense of creativity which is not just important for artistic reasons, it also aids in problem solving and every day decision making. Prioritizing rest and sleep increases our ability to develop clarity about what is and is not important so we can ditch the busywork and focus our time and energy on the important things that will take less work and have a bigger impact. Thanks to a lot of reading, research, therapy, and lots of sweet, nothing moments, I’m able to do, as the Essentialists say, less, but BETTER. I’m militant about my sleep and I schedule 15 minutes every day in my calendar to do something simply for the joy of doing it. Though I still have a million things to do, (hello, I run a farm, a business, and am building a school), I finally see the value in getting enough rest and scheduling play. Though hard to do in the moment, the longterm payoffs in clarity and productivity are massive. - @anneofalltrades