Do It Today: Overcome Procrastination, Improve Productivity, and Achieve More Meaningful Things

Prevent Rather Than Cure
It’s one of the biggest clichés in the book. But how often do
we really prevent things? Instead, we put our head down
and, “deal with it later.” Bad strategy. Instead, it’s much
better to prevent burn-out or a decrease in your overall
work performance.
Dale Carnegie, a self-help pioneer, and author of 
How to
Stop Worrying and Start Living
, said it best:
“So, to prevent fatigue and worry, the first rule is: Rest
often. Rest before you get tired.”
So take time off work strategically throughout the year.
That’s what I just did too, and I experienced 5 benefits as a
consequence:
1. You Can Check Whether You Did The Right Things
At work, I know two modes:
1. Execution
2. Thinking
When you are in execution mode, you can work for hours,
days or months in a row. In fact, I know people who’ve been
in execution mode for years. They never took time off to
reflect or think about their work. Result? A midlife crisis. Or,
young folks who experience a quarter-life crisis.
That’s what you get when you put your head down and
execute without thinking. You might get results. But are
those results what you WANT? When you take time off work,

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you have more inner-conversations. But when you execute,
you don’t. That’s one of the most important benefits of
doing nothing. Sure, you might fall behind on work. But who
cares? Would you rather go through your career with tunnel
vision?
I need at least ten days off to reflect seriously. For the first
five days, I’m still somewhere between execution and
thinking mode. It’s hard to switch to thinking and doing
nothing if you’re used to doing work. But I always learn new
things about myself after a more extended break. I tend to
read a lot. Over the past two weeks, I’ve read five books.
But I didn’t write at all. Also, I journaled very little.
Just some reading, watching movies, documentaries,
hanging out with friends, talking, daydreaming. That kind of
stuff. Neither does it cost much. But the return is enormous.
Now, I feel better, have more energy, and I’m excited to get
back to work. That’s also the next lesson I learned.