When I look back at different times in my life, the amount of downtime I had and what I did with it made a difference in how happy I was.
When I was in college, I would have told you I didn't have a lot of downtime.
Looking back now, I had a lot of downtime, and I spent a lot of it drinking and partying. I didn't really have any outside interests and was kind of lost.
When I graduated from college and started my post-grad life, I had a lot of downtime after work.
I was excited about this because I felt like I had a clean slate and I got to choose what I wanted to do with those hours I wasn't working. This is when I really started digging into my personal development interests with creating my podcast and starting to take yoga.
Now, about 2.5 years post-grad, I have a lot of interests and do a lot of different things.
I do this thing that when it comes to the weekend where I make sure it is a full schedule. I squeeze things in between other things that are already scheduled. I make plans with myself or with others to fill the free time I do have. I want to make the most of the weekend after all, but I have come to the point where I no longer have any downtime.
Often, I have said that having a full weekend like this is productive and makes me happy. That would be considered a successful weekend.
However, I've noticed that although it may be a "productive" weekend with a lot of things scheduled, I'm not necessarily happy. For me lately, it has left me empty.
When I try to fill every hour of my day with something, whether its something I want to do or other people want me to do, my energy gets diminished. I spread myself too thin. I can't be fully there because I just don't have enough energy left to be there. My cup is empty. I don't feel good.
Is there a balance in all of this?
Is there a way I can be productive and still do a lot of things, but do it in a way that feels good, make me happy, and fills my cup up?
My answer: Creating downtime.
Creating downtime to reset. Time to explore. Time to fill my cup back up.
Time to do whatever I feel like doing. Maybe it is napping, checking emails, watching a movie, starting a hobby, calling a friend, or exercising.
Creating downtime can be the difference between a productive day and a productive day that feels good.
Creating downtime, and using it wisely, can be the difference between living a life of burnout and monotony, and life of happiness and growth.
Here are 3 ways creating downtime could be the difference-maker in your day:
Keeps your mental capacity in check.
There is a lot of times where a friend will say, "hey want to do this thing?" It would be during the only 4 hours in my weekend that I have free.
Or a co-worker will send a message saying, "hey sorry to schedule this meeting during lunch, but it was the only time you had open on your calendar."
While I could physically be there for these things, I know mentally I probably won't be.
It took me a lot of times figuring it out the hard way to realize that we all have a capacity point. It is the point where our body and mind tells us we can't do anymore without a little rest.
Downtime can be a tool or boundary to keep our mental capacity in check. It can be our time that we set to reset and recharge so that we can do the other things we want to do.
I realized it is not about how many activities I can get in my day, but how many activities I can fully be there for.
Teaches you what you like, dislike, need, and want.
I'm the rare person that says they enjoyed post-grad life more than they enjoyed college. Don't get me wrong I loved college, but I think I loved post-grad so much because there was a lot of downtime after work to do whatever I wanted and there wasn't some obvious thing I felt like everyone was doing.
That time was mine and mine to learn a lot about myself. My interests, likes and dislikes, and how I really wanted to spend my time.
I noticed that when we have downtime, we get the chance to take ourselves off of autopilot and really look at what we want to do.
We learn what and who makes us feel good vs. what doesn't.
We learn what we actually desire to do vs. what we are just going along with.
We learn what our body and mind actually need to function vs. just accepting that we are going to feel run down all the time.
We learn what sets our hearts on fire vs. what doesn't, and get clarity on how we want to be spending this life.
Having downtime can remind us what keeps us sane and what to keep coming back to.
Allows you to find new things that are going to push your growth forward.
There are periods of times that I feel stuck. The days start looking like work, sleep, work, sleep. The same thing day after day.
These are the times I want something new, even if I don't know what that is. These periods of time can be frustrating and lead us to feel discontent with life.
I've noticed that I usually get in these moods when I'm just following along with the schedule and don't have a lot of downtime.
New things come out of downtime. New people, new activities, and new ideas emerge out of downtime. We don't have time to give any new things attention without downtime.
The new things are usually what push our growth forward. It gets out of our comfort zone and into the place where we can grow as a person.
Even though it feels like the things on our full schedule are going to help us grow, creating downtime accelerates the growth forward.
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I'm noticing that it isn't necessarily how many things we can do, but what we do and how we do them.
Are we going to spend time doing things we actually want to do? Are we going to bring our full energy to them?
It is interesting that the downtime that usually happens behind closed doors could be the difference-maker in how we do things out in the world.
Downtime could be our tool, our boundary, our resource, our check point, or even our secret weapon to creating a life we are proud of.
