Do Your Best, Take a Rest

The best nap I ever had came after completing a series of difficult finals in college.

I had given it my all for the week—waking up early to study, turning down invitations to celebrate with those that had finished, and ignoring a persistent thought in my head that I “deserved” a break. When the last exam was over I dropped onto a mattress on the apartment floor (it was college, after all). With the warm sunlight streaming through the window, fell into a deep trance for one hour.

There’s nothing like the satisfaction and rest that comes after knowing you’ve done your best. I thought about this on an early morning run, where I saw a sign advertising the neighborhood clean-up day with the title “Do Your Best, Take a Rest”.

I pondered that as my feet hit the pavement. Both elements are important. But so is the order.

The Unordered Day

Too many people experience something like this:

You know you need to leave work early tomorrow for a personal appointment, so you decide to go in early.

When the alarm rings you realize you are really, really tired and hit the snooze button a few times. You decide you’ll skip breakfast to make up some time.

There was a lot of Twitter and Instagram activity since last night and you lose track of time before jumping in the car.

You wanted to be early, but you arrive at the office later than usual. Your first meeting is in 20 minutes. No time to get much done and you’re hungry, so you invite a coworker to grab a coffee.

Your meeting goes long and when it finishes, you spend 30 minutes working through your inbox.

One hour before lunch (you would skip, but it’s Tom’s 5-year anniversary celebration) you finally start your most important task of the day.

When it comes time to leave early, your task isn’t completed so you announce to the team you’ll be back online later tonight to finish.

Home at 9 PM, your spouse launches Netflix and wants you to join. And you think to yourself, “Why should I have to work now? I know no one else is online.” In fact, you even resent it and decide it would be better to wake up early tomorrow and take care of things before the others arrive.

But when that alarm rings, you realize you are really, really tired…

Breaking the Cycle

It’s a vicious cycle that requires discipline and self-sacrifice to break. But the outcome is so much better: accomplishment instead of guilt; satisfaction instead of resentment, confidence instead of insecurity.

Habits comprise a cue, a routine and a reward. When I finish a meal, that’s a cue. My routine is to brush my teeth. A clean, fresh-feeling mouth is my reward. I don’t even think about it; it’s a habit.

To break your rest-first cycle, consider not only the routine to change. Also, identify your cue and reward. Consider the previous scenario – you want to get up early. The cue is obvious – your alarm. Decide ahead of time (otherwise the hit-the-snooze-button habit will win) your new routine, such as swinging your legs out of bed. Your reward? Perhaps a cup of favorite Nespresso.

You frequently launch Twitter when you see unread notifications. Instead, use that cue but change your routine: clean out 10 emails from your inbox. Once done, timebox Twitter to 5 minutes.

By using the cue, routine, reward technique you are training yourself to take care of the effort first, and the ease second. And that ease will be so much sweeter.

You Got This!

Decide now how you will liftoff your day tomorrow, giving your best at the start. Select a specific cue you will use to start your day, the new routine you want to follow, and commit to giving yourself a reward that matters.

A sustainable job requires you to have rest. A meaningful job will require you to give your best. Both are possible…in the right order.