Well, I just wasted half an hour or so (and 99 cents) trying to find an episode of the old Bob Newhart show that illustrates the above principle. I thought I’d found the correct episode and paid Amazon to watch it, but it was the wrong one. I think I’d better quit looking and just talk about what I can remember.
Here’s what happens: Howard, the Hartley’s next-door neighbor, comes over at breakfast time. Bob tells him, “Let’s be careful not to disturb Emily. This is her first day of summer vacation, and she’s had such a stressful year that I know she
wants to sleep in. She really needs some relaxation.” Just at the moment (of course) Emily breezes into the room, all dressed for tennis, saying something to the effect of, “I have an early-morning tennis lesson so I’ve got to get going, but first I’m going to start out with a healthy breakfast, because, Bob, you are what you eat.” To which he says, “You would say that just as I’m sitting here eating a bowl of Froot Loops.” And the laugh track kicks in. (I don’t have to explain who these people are, do I?)
Anyway, for some reason that scene has stayed with me. Of course the point of the scene is to set up the Froot Loops line, but my takeaway was that Emily’s being smart by not just lazing around. She’s off to something active and new, something completely different from her job as school principal. Perhaps I remember the scene because I taught school for so many years and very much looked forward to vacations myself. (Although I usually ended up working all summer to pay the bills.) But often I ended up just wasting time.
Now that I work from home and do a variety of tasks I’m finding it to be more and more true that I have to keep myself on a schedule and get stuff done. So if I need a break, I can’t flop down and read a book or watch an episode of a cooking show or whatever. I need to just switch gears and do something else that’s still profitable. I’ll come back to my original endeavor just as refreshed as if I had flopped.
How do you deal with needing a break but also needing to keep going?