WEEK 46 - Rest and Intention - A Quick Reminder

Week 46, and 6 more weeks to go before the end of this challenge. This week’s newsletter will be a bit of a short one in the middle of what I would call one of my busiest and most mentally draining weeks at the day job.

So let’s just get straight to business, shall we?

General Update

With the Singapore Writers’ Festival (SWF) now done and dusted and still in the middle of the National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo), I’m grateful for each day when I’m still waking up and excited to see what I’ll be writing for that day. So while on the Nanowrimo front, I’m doing quite okay (and can afford to miss days), the day job has been upping its hectic levels. Which means I’m having to prioritise some responsibilities over personal updates (journalling) and a bit of writing each day. Especially when I may have pockets of time here and there, but have no mental capacity or energy to do what I want. That said...

Rest

Our culture perpetuates productivity and “being on” all the time demonises or shames rest, which ends up being counter-productive when you get sub-par productivity and end up having to waste time and more effort to correct or readjust what could be done better with more time and/or a clearer, well-rested mind.

“I woke up, looked at what I wrote late last night and was utterly confused. What was I thinking / writing?!” - sound familiar? That’s when our physical capacities are going through the motions but our mental and emotional capacities are screaming for sleep and proper rest.

Contrast this to when you have a good night’s sleep and wake up refreshed.

Rushing rarely helps matters.

Intention

Does this mean that rest means making yourself do nothing until you recover? What if you take forever? What about your responsibilities?

No, but just because you have responsibilities and a list of things to do doesn’t mean you need to forego rest. Perhaps we can try an exercise on this:

1. Write down a list of things to do for the coming week.

2. Include every step and detail - even if you have to write ‘breakfast’ seven times.

3. Big items (e.g. write my book) need to be split into individual items.

And once you have this list, take a look. That’s when you get to decide:

• What needs to be done at the bare minimum

• What needs to be done now so that future you will not shaking their fist at past you

Here’s what has helped me instead:

Intention

We only have limited time each day and let me say this - food, rest, and staying clean are not overrated. Therefore, setting an intention on your bare minimum for the day (and no, you don’t need to do everything) helps with scheduling your rest and dealing with the guilt of “doing nothing”.

It’s often a process we need to practice, but it’s essential.

How do we do things intentionally or set intentions though? That’s going to be another newsletter on its own. As I mentioned, this week’s newsletter is going to be a short little reminder - EVEN AS CREATIVES, REST IS IMPORTANT. AND INTENTION IS ONE OF THE THINGS THAT CAN HELP YOU WITH REST.

###

And that’s it from me! See you all next week!

I hope that all of you are getting the rest you need as the year winds down. In the meantime, what do you do to rejuvenate? Let us know in the comments!