Why You Need to Make Time for Rest + 5 Tips to Help You Do It

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So today, I want to talk about rest. We’re getting into the end of the year, and we’re headed into the busyness of the holiday season.

And for many of us, it’s the end of the review period, so there’s the last push for the billable hours, and just the overall culture of hustle and grind to, you know, “finish the year strong.”

And there’s something to be said for all that, right? But we don’t have to work ourselves into the ground, which is how I feel like it typically goes.

This year, especially, 2020 has been a truly traumatic year. We have seen a global pandemic. We’ve seen all kinds of social unrest, so much hatred, so much division, so much loss. I personally have lost a number of people this year.

And through it all, we just keep hustling, keep grinding, keep working. It’s just a lot. And as we’re going into the end of the year, I want to let you know that it’s okay to rest. You need rest.

Other cultures tend to value rest in a way that America just doesn’t.

I remember having an interaction with counsel in Spain. I do a little bit of international work, and we had a deadline in Spain.

I had sent our counsel some additional evidence and other documents through our secure share platform. And when I got to the office the day this deadline was, I saw that she had emailed me at 1 or 2 am my time saying she was having trouble opening the documents.

I called her, and nobody answered. And I mean, the phone just rang, right.

I sent her an email to let her know I called, and I also asked if she had been able to access the documents. She emailed me back maybe two hours later, and she was like, “Oh yeah, I was able to access the documents. And the reason nobody answered when you called was you called during the lunch hour.”

That was just so mind blowing for me that the entire office, there was no one in the office available to answer my call at all because it was the lunch hour. We just don’t have that in America.

It’s so interesting. America just does not value rest the same way.

And we in the legal profession especially don’t value rest, right? We are on call 24/7 to answer whatever needs our clients might have because we’ve got to show that we’re a good lawyer and we’re in it and we’re committed.

I’ve been thinking about why that happens. And I think obviously the number one is that we’re in this capitalist society where money is the main driver, and we’re constantly looking at how to make more money.

Being in a capitalist society definitely contributes to us devaluing rest because if you’re not resting, or excuse me, if you’re not working, then you’re not making money, right?

I think another thing, especially in the legal profession, is wrapping our identity in our work and idolizing work. We feel valuable because we work hard. And we seek this validation from others.

I’ve done a good job, so I get this pat on the back. We work harder and longer hours to prove ourselves, to measure up to these unattainable standards.

And a lot of times in doing all of that we don’t really know who we are outside of the law, which causes us to cling to the law even more.

I think that doing all of that—working ourselves that way without seeking any sort of rest—is really a detriment to the profession, to our success in the profession.

Get into episodes 4 and episode 16, where we talked a lot about valuing work or wrapping our identities up in work or idolizing work, all of those types of issues. If you’re struggling with them, episodes 4 and 16 will be helpful for you.

Another thing is, I think we have this fear of slowing down, maybe it’s an unconscious fear. But we numb out on being busy.

If I’m busy then I don’t have to sit with my own stuff. I don’t have to think about those things that I don’t really want to think about. I just keep myself busy, so I don’t have to do that.

That also is unhealthy. We’ve got to process things. We’ve got to take time to think about the things that are going on in our lives, to sit with ourselves and our emotions and process them.

So getting into problems that occur when we don’t rest, the first is that we aren’t as productive. You know, although we think that if I just work longer, I bill more hours, I’m getting more done.

There are studies that show that that’s not true. There was a 2014 study that looked at the correlation between work hours and productivity, and productivity significantly declined after 50 hours in a workweek, and just completely dropped off after 55 hours.

So beyond 55 hours, productivity was pretty much non-existent. That disproves this thought that we have that if we just work longer hours, if we work harder, that we will be more successful, and we’ll get more done, because you might be working longer, but you’re probably not getting as much done as if you would take some time and rest.

The second thing is sort of related, but burnout is a big thing. And burnout, of course, leads to even lower productivity.

You’re exhausted and mentally drained, and you don’t want to do your work, and you procrastinate more, and burnout can even spill over into your home life and cause problems there. We don’t want to get to the point of burnout.

The other thing is the health issues that come from not resting. So lawyers tend to operate in this state of chronic stress, right?

Like, we’re just under this constant hum, I’ve heard it described, of stress. And we don’t know how to turn it off.

We’re constantly worried about deadlines and clients and partners and our spouses and our kids and whatever else, and we barely take time to rest. And all of that takes a toll on our health.

You know, we talked about the burnout that could come, but we have to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves and our well-being.

It’s great that you’re putting in all the hours and getting all the clients and all of those things. But what happens when you’ve neglected yourself for so long, that you’re no longer here to enjoy the fruits of your labor?

People end up in the hospital with serious illnesses that could be prevented if we would just take care of our health. Your body literally needs rest. You’re not a machine. You’re not meant to operate like one.

So we’ve got to make sure that we take time to rest and do the things that we need to do to take care of ourselves. Rest is not a luxury. It’s not some reward for working hard. It’s literally essential to your health.

And if you’re regularly working through the night and operating on little sleep, there was a study that showed that getting four hours of sleep a night, for four or five nights in a row, you end up with the same amount of cognitive impairment as if you’d been awake for 24 hours straight, or if you were legally drunk.

Would you work while you’re legally drunk? I would hope not. But many of us are making all of these legal decisions operating on very little sleep all the time.

We may as well be making legal decisions while we’re legally drunk. So just think about all of those issues that come up when you are not getting rest.

How can you make time for more rest?

Well, the first thing is scheduling it. That’s one of my favorite things: put myself on my own calendar, right? So put yourself on your own calendar, schedule in time that you’re going to rest and stick to it.

It doesn’t work if you put the time on your calendar, but you pretend like it’s not really there. Or you don’t treat it the same way that you treat other appointments on your calendar.

Keep your commitments to yourself. Treat yourself just as you would treat anyone else who was on your calendar.

We talked about this when we talked about making yourself a priority in your own life. That was episode 8. So head back to episode 8 for more tips on making yourself a priority.

But the second thing you could do is shift your workload and that means delegating. Lean more on staff and attorneys who are junior to you.

You could even outsource things at home. Get help with tasks around the house. And that could be hiring someone or just talking with your spouse about shifting some things that you typically take on. Everything doesn’t have to fall on you.

At work, you could also ask for some matters or tasks to be taken off your plate. And the worst they can say is “no.” They could also say yes, though, right?

We often jump to the irrational worst case scenarios like, “Oh, well, I can’t ask for that, because they’ll fire me” or “they’ll think I’m a terrible attorney.”

But maybe they’ll just think that you’re human, and they’ll have someone who has more capacity handle it. That’s okay.

The third thing is, if you can’t have work matters or tasks taken off your plate, to get clear on the expectations for when particular assignments or tasks need to be completed. Because sometimes we feel like things have to be done right now, and we feel this pressure to get it all done.

But we have to consider whether the pressure we feel is coming from the firm or the partner or the client, or if it’s pressure that we’re putting on ourselves, which oftentimes it is.

So get clear on the expectations around timing for things that you need to get done, and you might find that you have more time to rest than you thought you did.

The fourth is setting boundaries and being disciplined about sticking to them. Set your work hours. We talk about that all the time. Work is always right in our pocket. It’s so easy for it to bleed into all areas of our lives.

But you just have to be disciplined about not letting that happen. So maybe put your phone away for dinner time when you’re spending time with your family.

Setting boundaries for yourself around social media. Have you seen the social dilemma, that documentary on Netflix? If you haven’t, go watch it.

But how much time do you spend just scrolling, you’re probably spending a lot of time because the apps are designed to be addictive. And seriously go watch that documentary to see what I’m talking about.

But the time that we spend scrolling on our phones is time that we could be using to intentionally rest.

So think about that. Where you are wasting time not being intentional not actually resting? Because that time on the apps is also more stimulating, right? It’s not really restful.

You can also be disciplined about what you commit your time to. Are you saying yes to things just because you don’t want the person asking to feel bad?

Take some time and think about what you want and commit to things around that or that are guided by that.

The fifth thing is more about physical rest, but set a bedtime, or at least a goal of how much sleep you’re going to get each night.

I have been terrible about this lately. I’ve got so much going on with being home, working full time, got two young kids. I started a podcast.

So there’s a lot going on early mornings and late nights. I’m not willing to give up my early mornings, because as you know, I get up early so I’ve got some time to myself before anybody else wakes up, and I love it. So I’m not willing to do that.

But I am willing to pay closer attention to the time that I’m going to bed. And I am willing to go to bed earlier, right, to set an earlier bedtime so that when I get up early in the mornings, I have gotten sufficient rest.

So hopefully you will join me on that. That is one of my goals for this month. Paying attention, being intentional about setting my bedtime or setting the number of hours that I’m going to sleep at night so that I’m getting more sleep because I was doing less and less of that.

And as we talked about, if you get too little sleep, it’s just as bad as being legally drunk. I don’t want to do that.

Okay, so to recap:

1. America doesn’t really value rest, and some reasons why that happens are: we’re in a capitalist society; we wrap our identities in work or idolize work; and we fear slowing down.

2. There are so many problems that can come with not resting, including lower productivity, burnout, and other health issues.

3. How can you make more time for rest? First, schedule it. Second, shift your workload. Third, get clear on expectations for your assignments. Fourth, set boundaries and be disciplined about sticking with them. And fifth, set a bedtime or at least a goal of how much sleep you’re going to get.

That’s it for this episode of Wealthyesque. Join me over in the private Facebook community, The Wealthyesque Community, and let me know your thoughts on this conversation around rest.

Do you think I’ve missed anything? Am I just being naïve about getting more rest? I really want to know so head to rhothomas.com/community, and join us in there.

Also, please, if you got anything valuable from this episode, share with a friend. And if you share on social media, make sure you tag me. I am on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, and you can find me @iamrhothomas.

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As we close out friend, I pray that you will truly evaluate your life and find areas where you need to improve.

I pray that you will be intentional about resting and not get caught up in the typical hustling grind of the end of the year.

And as always, I pray that you will continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth, and live the life of freedom and choice you deserve.

Talk to you later.

Rho

Hi, I’m Rho! I’m a wife, mom, and Biglaw associate who believes that true wealth is having control of your time. I help busy lawyers like you take back control of your time by teaching you how to achieve lifestyle freedom through mindset shifts and financial independence. Read a little more about me here.