The last few days I got a tremendous amount of work done, and I figured I was on a roll. I made lists of next things to do, started to organize for the next big push, and generally geared up for a really productive weekend.
And then something funny happened — funny but not totally surprising. My mind pushed back. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t turn today into a work day. Instead I found myself hanging out, reading the paper, doing the crossword, watching the occasional silly TV episode.
Something in my mind was, it seems, forcing me to take a day off, to put in some down time, kick back, relax, whatever.
At first it seemed a bit frustrating. “Hey,” I said to myself, “come on, we’re on a roll here. Just keep on moving, write that code, take that hill!”
But it was not to be. And eventually I realized that there was a good reason for it all. There seems to be some sort of conservation law at work here — a kind of optimal balance between up time and down time. Unless I make room from time to time to just chill, I can’t approach the sort of work I’m doing with the right mind set.
OK, glad we got that out of the way. Now it’s time to go back to my TV show…