Show notes
If we keep operating at maximum intensity we won’t continue to perform at maximum intensity. Without intermittent periods of rest creativity and productivity suffer in both teams and individuals. This episode explores the need for recovery time after intense projects and look what happens when we don’t pause, slow down, and let ourselves rest.
What You’ll Learn
* Why recovery time for your brain is important for creativity
* What happens when we don’t slow down, take vacations, and give our brain time to rest.
Resources
* Podcast: Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert
* Episode 52: On Multitasking with Darcy Luoma
* Book: Art of Thought by Graham Wallas, 1926
The Weekly Challenge
Figure out your “end game” with the current projects and other things that are causing stress for you. Is there an end date? If so, what will change? If not, how can you make some changes to your life to allow more space and recovery time for your brain. This will increase your creativity! Share your comments below.
Transcript
Feel like reading instead of listening? Download the free PDF Transcript or read it below. Enjoy!
Transcript for Episode #053:
The Importance of Recovery Time for Creativity
Amy Climer: Welcome to The Deliberate Creative Podcast Episode 53. In today’s episode, I want to talk about this concept of giving your brain time to recover, which is very important if you want to be creative and really even if you just want to be productive.
Have you ever had that experience where you have a conversation with someone and then the topic of that conversation pops up in your life multiple times in a short period of time? Maybe you see an article about it, maybe you end up having a conversation with somebody else about the same topic and you just see this theme going on.
Well, that happened to me this week. I was having a great conversation with a good friend of mine a few days ago. And we were talking about how we can work really intensely for a while and then we need to take time to recover and to work less intensely or to not work at all even. In the last few months, she has been working intensely and has done some really cool things; giving amazing presentations, she wrote a book and published it in a month. Which was kind of awesome and a little crazy at the same time.
But I remember when she was doing it back in April and I was so inspired, I was like, “This is cool.” For that month, she was working super hard, 12-16 hours a day, but she finished. She met her goal. And I remember when she was doing it I was thinking this is so cool because I know when she is done, she is going to pull back and be able to relax. So even though it is intense right now, it is short-lived and that is okay. But it did not quite work out that way. That is how it goes sometimes. So now here we are a few months later and she is really tired and so we were talking about that.
I recently had a similar experience. Those of you who are regular listeners you know that a few months ago I finished my PhD. Finishing that dissertation, that was really intense. The whole experience of getting a PhD is a lot of work, but that last push there, the last couple of months were really hard and I was working a lot. Because not only was I doing that, I also had my business and was doing other things. I am not saying this to say, “Oh my gosh, my life is so busy,” no. I am saying this because I had this intensity and then right after I defended my dissertation, my partner and I spent three days doing nothing. We went kayaking but it was like this really mellow kayak,
What You’ll Learn
* Why recovery time for your brain is important for creativity
* What happens when we don’t slow down, take vacations, and give our brain time to rest.
Resources
* Podcast: Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert
* Episode 52: On Multitasking with Darcy Luoma
* Book: Art of Thought by Graham Wallas, 1926
The Weekly Challenge
Figure out your “end game” with the current projects and other things that are causing stress for you. Is there an end date? If so, what will change? If not, how can you make some changes to your life to allow more space and recovery time for your brain. This will increase your creativity! Share your comments below.
Transcript
Feel like reading instead of listening? Download the free PDF Transcript or read it below. Enjoy!
Transcript for Episode #053:
The Importance of Recovery Time for Creativity
Amy Climer: Welcome to The Deliberate Creative Podcast Episode 53. In today’s episode, I want to talk about this concept of giving your brain time to recover, which is very important if you want to be creative and really even if you just want to be productive.
Have you ever had that experience where you have a conversation with someone and then the topic of that conversation pops up in your life multiple times in a short period of time? Maybe you see an article about it, maybe you end up having a conversation with somebody else about the same topic and you just see this theme going on.
Well, that happened to me this week. I was having a great conversation with a good friend of mine a few days ago. And we were talking about how we can work really intensely for a while and then we need to take time to recover and to work less intensely or to not work at all even. In the last few months, she has been working intensely and has done some really cool things; giving amazing presentations, she wrote a book and published it in a month. Which was kind of awesome and a little crazy at the same time.
But I remember when she was doing it back in April and I was so inspired, I was like, “This is cool.” For that month, she was working super hard, 12-16 hours a day, but she finished. She met her goal. And I remember when she was doing it I was thinking this is so cool because I know when she is done, she is going to pull back and be able to relax. So even though it is intense right now, it is short-lived and that is okay. But it did not quite work out that way. That is how it goes sometimes. So now here we are a few months later and she is really tired and so we were talking about that.
I recently had a similar experience. Those of you who are regular listeners you know that a few months ago I finished my PhD. Finishing that dissertation, that was really intense. The whole experience of getting a PhD is a lot of work, but that last push there, the last couple of months were really hard and I was working a lot. Because not only was I doing that, I also had my business and was doing other things. I am not saying this to say, “Oh my gosh, my life is so busy,” no. I am saying this because I had this intensity and then right after I defended my dissertation, my partner and I spent three days doing nothing. We went kayaking but it was like this really mellow kayak,