Have you spent too many anxiety-filled days in a row—say, 10 years’ worth? Or, perhaps you try to maintain some monomaniacal quest to fill up every minute with “meaningful” activities? Conversely, do the strains of the work week prompt you to covet your weekends and other days off? If you answer yes to any of these questions, your enthusiasm and eagerness to excel in your job is probably lagging. 

Clearly, it’s time to recharge your batteries—and maybe even jump-start your career. Indeed, finding time to relax can be just as important as putting time in at work. 

Who Sped Up This Merry-Go-Round?

Author and historian Arnold Toynbee once said, “To be able to fill leisure intelligently is that last product of civilization.” So true! Unfortunately, as I discuss in Breathing Space: Living and Working at a Comfortable Pace in a Sped-Up Society, many calculate leisure simply as “total hours of the day minus work hours.” 

To be sure, an increasing number of people have a real problem relaxing. In fact, the concept of leisure time itself is on the rocks. However, most experts agree that true leisure is vital for personal success. I’m talking about when you enjoy rewarding activities, free from work and preoccupation with work. 

Give Yourself a Real Break 

If you seek to relax but are hounded by pressures, it’s hard to get legitimate rest, even when you’ve got the hours to do so. If you’ve forgotten how to take a break, try a few ideas from this list: 

• Give yourself permission to go a whole weekend without reading anything.

• Leave your cell phone at home or in the car more often.

• Collect all the magazines piling up around your house, and give them away to a retirement community, library, or school.

• Go ahead and schedule that spa treatment you’ve been dying to take.

• Exchange photos with a friend you haven’t seen in years.

• Get schedules of your favorite professional or amateur teams, and mark your calendar for the key games.

• Stroll the grounds of a botanical garden and enjoy the variety of flowers. Let your sense of smell, rather than your eyes and ears, dominate.

• Attend the graduation ceremonies of your local high school, even if you don’t know anyone who’s graduating. Recapture the spirit of what it’s like to complete an important passage in life.

• Pick up a bouquet of fresh flowers at the grocery store or flower shop and display them somewhere in your home.

• Walk around your yard barefoot, the way you did when you were a kid. Feel the grass between your toes. Stick your feet in dirt or in a puddle.

• Visit a historical monument and let yourself become immersed in the challenges that people of that era faced.

• Sit in on a free lecture some evening about a topic outside your professional interests.

Everyone deserves a little bit leisure—including you. What’s more, your mind, body, and career will benefit from a break.