There Are Enough Hours in the Day
The problem is your brain doesn’t want to fill them all
This morning I woke up at 7 a.m. and it felt like sleeping in until noon.
I have just finished working 7 days straight on the early morning news shift, which means waking at 3 a.m. every day for literally a week. Shift work is tough. It’s challenging to force your body to operate on a schedule it’s not designed to follow. Sure, there are some bio-hacks you can try for more energy throughout the day, but it’s still not quite natural.
Yesterday I started my day at 3 a.m. and didn’t fall asleep until 10 p.m. That’s 19 straight hours of awake time. Here’s how I filled it:
- Worked an 8-hour shift
- Had an annual physical
- Picked up groceries
- Worked with a client
- Researched upcoming segments for said client
- Took care of some admin work (invoicing)
- Laundry
- Long walk with the dog
- Made dinner
- Washed dishes
- Connected with friends
- Self-care soak in the tub
A pretty full list, if you ask me, and plenty in my top priorities: work, health and home. But there were still things I needed to strike from my to-do list or put off until tomorrow.
Ever since a bout with burnout forced me to take a mental health leave I’ve become more sensitive to hitting the “wall”. That moment where you brace yourself to take on a task and a part of your brain simply says “no”.
For most of my 20’s and 30’s I would push through that wall, telling myself I “have to” do this. And there was a list of reasons to draw from as motivation.
- I have to do this for work or I won’t hit my deadline
- I have to do this for my health otherwise my jeans won’t fit
- I have to do this because I’m running out of clean underwear
But when you’re someone who usually operates at 100% all the time, the part of your brain that pops up and says “no” is a vital part of self-protection. Your brain needs to take breaks.
I had to learn when to take a step back so I could keep moving forward. It’s a strategy I used for years in marathon and distance-running training. I managed to run 42 kilometres by scheduling run breaks. I still adopt the 10 minute run, 1 minute walk training approach. And now I’m applying this to my work.
Whenever I hit the wall, the “have-to’s” still exist. But now I follow each with a question: do I have to do this right now?
Being self-employed I’m in charge of my own deadlines, so I always build a two-day buffer window in case mental exhaustion means I need to move something to tomorrow. Sometimes a client will bring a deadline I have no control over, so I need to factor this in to. But knowing everything else has wiggle room takes the pressure off.
I’ve tried scheduling downtime and that helps too. But your brain knows what it needs, so don’t neglect those moments where it really needs you to listen. There’s no need to burn out today when there’s still tomorrow.
