If you’re caught in a cycle of constant work, you might feel like you can't afford even a short break. But that only leads to burnout, so what do you do if you feel you’re too busy to take a break?

Links

• How to Avoid Amygdala Hijack Part 1 – Episode 169
• How to Avoid Amygdala Hijack Part 2 – Episode 171
• Download your THRIVE Week Planner
• Download your Overwhelm SOS guide

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A couple of years ago, I was speaking at a conference and there was a table full of practice managers at the back of the room.

And halfway through the talk.

I got the distinct impression that they were not happy with what I was talking about.

I was talking about the importance of taking coffee breaks in practices and how they really increased informal connections, they increased wellbeing, they increased productivity, but I was just getting glared, at daggers and daggers from this table at the back.

So in the coffee break.

I went up to them and I said did I say something wrong?

And one of them said to me I'm sorry, Rachel, you've got this all wrong.

We are just too busy to take a break.

None of our GPs can possibly take a break.

And I was astounded.

There was me just having done a talk about productivity and they really believed what they were saying.

And I did a quick straw poll of most of the people in that organization.

And most of them in their surgeries were not having coffee breaks.

And most of them were not having lunch breaks either.

Because in their mind, any time spent away from seeing patients, away from doing paperwork, away from me, things was just totally unproductive, was a waste of time.

Now it's very, very easy to see how we can get into that pattern of working.

I totally know how that feels.

And there have been days recently where I have just done meetings and podcasts and talks back to back without any break.

And at the end of the day, I felt completely strung out.

And also by the end of the day, if I'm honest, I've become totally unproductive.

I've become incredibly reactive.

And my performance has just nose dived.

I've talked about this on the podcast before, how stress is actually quite helpful when it comes to performance, because it will promote us to perform.

And under increasing pressure, our performance actually starts to go up, but it parties pretty quick.

And if you keep pining on the pressure, you don't stop.

You don't take a break.

There's no, let up, your performance will crash.

Somehow.

In health care and another high stress, high stakes jobs, we don't think this applies to us.

We think that we can carry on without taking a break, without pausing.

But in this episode today, I just want to talk about a few reasons why taking a pause is so important, not just for wellbeing.

But actually for productivity.

For performance and for problem solving.

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Now in health care, it's very easy to get the idea that everything needs our immediate attention.

And it's not just healthcare.

In business in general, people want answers to their emails.

There are accounts to do.

There are podcasts to get out.

There are conferences to speak at.

And absolutely we should do things in a timely fashion.

But so often, particularly when we're overwhelmed, we get into this thing called the urgency trap, where we are so busy and we've got so many tasks to tick off our list that we're busy going down and picking off our urgency and important tasks, and we focus on getting stuff done, rather than doing the things that are actually important to us.

And when we're stuck in the agency trap, if we take a pause or we stop to do something, that's not urgent, we feel really guilty.

Like this, all this stuff just piling up.

And in my mind, I've got that image of a cartoon, you know, when people are running along and someone at the front stops that everyone just pals into them.

And that's how I sometimes feel.

Well, I take a pause when there's all that stuff to do that, all my tasks are just piling into each other, and suddenly there's going to be a massive onslaught of all these urgent tasks I didn't get to.

But in reality, it's very rarely like that.

In fact, sometimes leaving tasks alone and not getting to them urgently means that they either disappear, or get done by somebody else, or just resolve themselves and end up heading into a different type of task.

So, is it the case that we need to get on to stuff as quickly as possible, and if we take a break that will just really mess with our productivity?

Well, we do know that's not the case.

Don't we?

I mean, all the research shows us that taking a break is so important and it's not just about wellbeing.

So yes, absolutely we need to take a break to have lunch, to have a cup of tea.

We need to take a break in order to exercise.

We need to pause, to have a coffee and build a connection with somebody.

But for me, that's not the main reason why we pause.

For me, the main reason that we pause is because we activate our default mode network.

And this is a way of thinking.

So if you just think about when you're doing a task, you're in this very focused mode.

So your brainwaves are very linear.

You're really focused on what you're doing at the time.

Now that helps you be productive and it helps you get the task done.

But it doesn't help you solve problems and it doesn't help you think outside the box or be creative.

To do that, you need your default mode network, and you need to be able to be making connections across both of your cerebral hemispheres.

The best way to do that is to pause and take a break.

So your brain will then go into default mode.

So you'll be making a cup of tea and it will just be working along in the background, solving problems or coming up with new ideas.

I don't know about you, but I have my best ideas in the shower.

And in fact, when we were on the retreat a couple of years ago, I was walking along, talking to someone.

I went for a wild wee and whilst I was coming back, I was chasing someone go.

I just had a eureka moment.

Something has just come to me.

Honestly.

I was not thinking about it at the time.

But it's weird.

Isn't it?

How often we have these Eureka moments when we're absolutely not thinking about work.

And we know how important resting and sleeping is for learning and being creative.

But just taking a pause, doing something that isn't focusing down on work, that will also create the same environment for you to solve problems.

And get creative.

And if we're saying that we are too busy to take a pause, then we are losing all of those opportunities that actually solved the problems that we're probably working on in the first place.

Now taking a pause means we can see all sorts of other things too.

And I defy you to try and build up really good connections with the people that you work with if you are never taking a pause with them, if you are only interacting with them in the context of doing work.

And sadly that is what's happening.

Isn't it?

So when you're meeting people in a virtual setting, getting those informal connections in is even more important than when it's face-to-face because those informal connections will happen anyway.

But giving people, the pause and chance to get creative, even online is really, really important.

I don't know about you, but I can't do any exercise if I'm working.

I need to be pausing and resting in order to get the chance to put the wellbeing factors in place, to go for a run or do some yoga or connect with people or to sleep well.

If I'm constantly working.

I'm not going to manage that.

But aside from the wellbeing factors, taking a pause helps you look at your task lesson, actually prioritize and think What out of this is really urgent?

What out of this truly matters?

So we can start to interrogate our perceived urgency of the problem.

Because it's not until we pause the we're able to prioritize.

So, how do you actually go about building in pauses even when you're totally overwhelmed with work?

Well, they don't just happen.

Naturally, so you're gonna have to plan these in.

So what can you do to pause once every hour?

Maybe you can think about putting in a five or 10 minute pause in your clinic.

I remember when I was working as a GP.

I would actively schedule in 10 minute breaks where patients couldn't be booked in.

Now, I still saw the same amount of patients, so my clinic got really long, but I knew I had those pauses in there.

And I made sure that when I had those pauses, I got up out of my chair.

I'd go to the bathroom, I'd go and make a cup of tea.

But I did something that actively turned my brain from that focus mode into the default mode.

Now you can plan to play Tetris on your phone or go and look at a tree or do some mindful breathing.

Something that's going to mean that you're not actually just focusing and doing the work.

If you plan a 10 minute pause into your surgery and you spend it writing letters that isn't going to have the same effect.

So you've got the, the short pauses that you've got throughout the day.

You also need some longer pauses.

I was once coaching, somebody who told me that he was feeding really strung out at the end of the day.

He was senior partner at practice and he felt really responsible for everybody and everything.

And after some coaching sessions, he decided he was going to try and get out of the surgery at lunchtime because he really needed to take a pause.

Six months later, I got an email from him.

And he said that every day now at the practice, he would leave the practice, go to the local park.

He'd sit and retrieve for 45 minutes and eat his lunch.

He'd then come back, and he said that he was getting home sooner than he ever got home.

His income had gone up.

And he was feeling much calmer.

And that is amazing.

Now that is a 45 minute break.

Most of us probably say we couldn't even afford a 10 minute break.

But my challenge to you is this, try it.

How about you try a 10 minute break for lunch every single day by getting out of your chair, walking outside and just see what happens?

And sometimes you have to hack it.

So sometimes you have to make it so that you've got to get up out of your chair.

So try leaving your lunch in the car or try working out where you're going to go for lunch every day and make yourself walk there.

Do it so you actually have to.

So you've got your many pauses every hour.

You've got your lunchtime pauses.

Hopefully you're going to build in an evening pause as well, perhaps between when you get home from work and then when you start to engage in normal life, perhaps you can put in that, that decompression zone, which is that buffer space between work and homework, which you can use to rest and to reset.

But every week, you also need to put in a pause.

If you can manage a day without working, you will feel refreshed.

You will get some perspective on life.

Is not until you step back from the work that you can start to see what's really important and what really matters.

I distinctly remember about six months ago, we were in the kitchen and my other half had been working quite late on his laptop.

And I said to them that we've got to stop.

Just put your laptop away.

Let's have some tea.

And he said, okay, but I'm going to have to do all this after tea,, I've got so much to do.

So, put his laptop away.

We sat down, we had some dinner, and after about half an hour, I got to clear up and he got up and started clearing up and, and then he said, okay, let's should we go and watch something on telly?

I said, well, don't you have loads of work to do.

And he said, now, you know what?

I think that can wait.

And it was just that moment of stopping of stepping back of getting some food, that made him able to think.

You know, what is that truly important right now?

Does that really need doing now?

And perhaps that would be better if I did that tomorrow.

So unless you stop and take that step back, it's very difficult to work out what's urgent and what's not.

And when you're in the work often, you are in that sympathetic state of thinking, well, I've just got to do this straight away, just got to keep going.

And you're a MIGS that are just pushing you on, rather than your sort of rational reason that's pushing you to do things.

And side notes.

Whenever I think I should do something really, really quickly, I've got to go in and I can't possibly pause, that's probably the sign that the last thing I should be doing.

Is guessing on it right then.

It means I'm well, and truly in the corner, my inner chimp is out, I'm in my sympathetic stress zone and I'm not thinking straight, I'm thinking a very black and white way, and I'm very, very unlikely to be empathetic.

So when you are feeding, there's something you absolutely must do, just check in with yourself that you're not in your stress zone and you're not going to be making things a lot, lot worse.

Now I talk about the power of pressing pause in those chimp moments, in that sympathetic, amygdala hijack moment in another episode, and I'll put the link there in the show notes.

But make sure you recognize when you are in that mode.

So you need to put something in weekly as well.

And I'm becoming a firm believer in taking a day off, even when I think, oh, I really want to plan that new podcast or I want to do that.

I think to myself, actually, what's going to be better, taking a whole day off here and just letting my brain rest, getting my energy back and coming to it with an renewed enthusiasm, or just constantly doing lots of little bits of work throughout the weekend?

And if you'd see that you get what's called time confetti, where you've chopped time and said lots of little slivers where you're doing work, a bit of not doing work, a bit of rest, a bit of play, a bit of work, and it never feels like you've had a really lovely long stretch of time to either rest or to work.

So it's really important that we start to actually have long chunks when we pause.

And I've said this in previous podcast, but there's a reason why most of the world's major religion have at least one day off a week, where humans are supposed to rest.

Now I am recording this podcast in Wales where I've come away for the Easter break.

And I've been really, really busy.

Last month we had FrogFest, we had lots of Shapes Toolkits, I had loads of conferences.

I had a really good month, but it was really hard work and I was tired.

I was really tired, and I still have a lot to do.

And if I'm honest, it probably took me a good three days to decompress when I got here.

I think sometimes when we try and pause after period of really intense work, we get frustrated because we expect ourselves to be able to go, oh, that's it.

I'm done.

I'm I'm resting now.

And we expect to spit all fine and all good and to feel absolutely great.

Actually in reality, I felt quite angsty.

I felt quite restless for the first few days.

I arrived here.

Because I think it's very difficult for human beings just to turn the pause on just like that, particularly when you've been going and going.

Very fast for a long time.

It takes us a while to decelerate, doesn't it?

You can't stop a car just like that.

So recognizing that we need these periods of deceleration before we can rest for a long time.

So what I did, I got the new book by Cal Newport called slow productivity that I've been reading.

I've been jotting down a few thoughts, but very slowly I found myself shifting.

It's one scenes go for long walks, and just sit around, looking at the mountains.

So I've been able to just slow my brain down now, and to start to think, and I'm getting all sorts of ideas about podcasts and things I could do differently and things I could do next.

But when I first arrived here, I was not in that mode at all.

All I wants to do was watch telly and, and read books and talk, and all that sort of thing.

So we do need those longer pauses to help our brains slow down, but recognize that our brains aren't going to slow down immediately.

And sometimes you might need a bit of stimulation before we can just start to rest.

So, so planning these longer pauses, really important.

And I do think you need to plan them.

You need to plan to go away if at all possible.

Or do something that means it's going to hold you to it.

In this case, I was coming up here with relatives and I had committed to do that.

And I'd blocked it off in my diary.

So you've booked a holiday or a flight or a place to stay, or so you're going to go and see a friend.

It will mean that you do it.

If you just leave it til you've got a day free in your diary, you will never do it because you will book other work stuff into your diary.

So hack your diary, hack your life so that you're already committed to serving.

It, and you will actually go and do it.

You see, I think we need to use the pause as a productivity tool.

Instead of thinking I'm too busy to take a break, you need to think actually own too busy, not to take a pause.

It will help you get perspective.

It will help you be far more productive.

And it will helps us solve those tricky problems that you've been grappling with in your professional life.

Now, this does come with a little bit of a warning, because there are some things that we get wrong when we think about resting and taking a pause.

There are some times when we take a pause when things are truly urgent and we should be getting to them.

Now, am I talking about urgent tasks?

Not so much.

I'm actually talking about relationships.

So I think sometimes we end up taking a pause and thinking about things for too long when actually there are things that we need to address straight away.

So if you've said something or done something and you sense that you've damaged the relationship and you need to apologize, then rather than leaving it for a couple of weeks and taking a really long pause, you need to go sort it out.

If you've witnessed some difficult behavior, it's much better to give feedback in the moment than leave it for a couple of months and have a massive pause and then feed back to someone later on.

If you've been misunderstood by somebody, and you're worried that it's going to disrupt your working relationship, then going to them and clarifying what your intention really is, is really important.

So there are some times where we leave a pause because that's the addressing stuff straight away.

It's just too difficult.

But then there are other times where we don't take a pause because everything just seems so urgent and we should be addressing it straight away.

And like I said earlier, when I think that I know that probably that is the one time I need to take a pause.

We need to learn to let things incubate.

Problems incubate priorities, incubate.

Creative things incubate.

And we can't see that when we're just focused on the work.

So if you want to be productive, you want to get perspective and you want to solve problems, then the best thing you can do is to take that pause.

So if you're struggling to take the pause, then download our thrive week planner.

That will help you work out in your week, where you can start to take a pause.

And if you're feeling overwhelmed right now, we also have the overwhelm SOS toolkit, which will help you download everything that's in your brain right now, and start to prioritize it so that you start to feel that you've got some time and headspace.

And can I just encourage everybody?

And I'm going to do this the minute I start recording this podcast to get into that diary and to schedule the pause is in hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.