Harnessing the strategic power of breaks 🏖️

on a island holiday

If you're anything like me with an A type personality, you love to keep going and building. If we are truly honest with ourselves, sometimes the thing we want the least is to stop and take a break. Or we want that holiday but then when we get it we actually don't know what to do with all that spare time or how to enjoy it and so we end up filling up our "off time" doing all sorts of tasks so that we can feel productive. The truth is that while taking a break is important, it is something that becomes less and less practical as life goes on. But, maybe if we understand more about how they can help us and if we change our automatic assumptions that a break needs to look like cocktails and a hotel on the beach then perhaps we will find them easier to integrate into our lives. The reality is, whether we like it or not, that if we want to show up as the most strategic and productive version of ourselves then we need to give our brain the space and time it needs to becomes this and that means integrating breaks into our life.

The easiest way to create even a microchasm of space into our busy lives is through what I call micro breaks. These are just pauses in our day that are optional and flexible. Rather than having a set way of doing this I find that the best is to have a list of options that I can choose from on any given day. This prevents it from becoming prescriptive and then totally unpractical. For me, some of my favourite micro breaks look like moving from my home office to a different location - a coffee shop, a co-working space- to change my environment and get me around new people. Other options are getting fresh air - a walk or a run, a cup of coffee outside (not in front of my computer) and, my favourite, a daydream - simply letting my mind run mindlessly for a few minute and not focusing on anything specific. The benefits of just five minutes of downtime between focused tasks are lower cortisol, improved mental clarity and increased creativity.

The next step up for me if I am feeling that I can no longer think as strategically as I like to is a weekend break. Whether it is a few hours away with time to myself or a night or two spent away from home travelling locally with my husband, time to reset over the weekend is critical. When I take a break like this I try to be very intentional about not spending time on my phone or my computer. Although it is not always possible to be completely disconnected it certainly impacts my clarity of thought if I am able to put my phone on to airplane mode and create that mental disconnection from technology. I find that it also improves my connection with the people I am with or the environment I am in when my phone is off. These breaks allow for us to integrate other aspects of life and naturally I find myself filling the time with activities or things that fill my cup - reading a book, exercsiing, spending time outdoors or connecting with those that I am closest to. All of these things stimulate different areas of our brains and create different chemicals within our body which in turn help us to show up more strategically and more productively when we do return on a Monday.

Lastly, there is the traditional break - a holiday or vacation - where we log off (well that is the plan usually at least) for an extended period of time. As life goes though the expectation has become more and more that despite us being on holiday that we are connected and checking our emails and phones regardless of the fact that we are on holiday. It has become a luxury to disconnect fully from the working world and to truly have a break but this has made it even more critical. When we disconnect for an extended period of time (usually around two or three weeks), our non conscious brain has the chance to integrate & file away various insights and patterns that we have picked up on but maybe have not conciously been aware of. On our return this gives us new insights and new vision which in turn enables us to find strategic ways to move forward and create change.

Breaks aren't just nice or fun, they are essential to our ability to show up as leaders and strategic thinkers. We consistently fall into the trap of thinking if we do more and just finish the next thing it will get us where we need to be but the truth is that it is in the spaces between projects and the spaces between initatives that we truely can find new insights and uncover new patterns that wil enable us to drive organisations forward and create change. How can you effectively add some breaks into your life so that you are able to show up better and drive your vision forward?