James: Hello, and welcome to another episode of behind the madness.
I'm your host, James Roberts, founder, and owner of method.
We're a growth agency who are hell bent on unlocking company's
potential through graphic design branding, web design development,
digital marketing, lead generation, automation and time-saving techniques.
Today, we're talking about rest and why it's important for business
owners, marketing managers, directors, in fact, any professional.
But before we jump in, I wanted to thank all of you, all of our listeners
for helping our podcast grow.
I don't think we're going to be in the top 10 on apple quite yet, but we're growing,
we're reaching more people and helping more companies reach their potential.
I think however, we can do more and getting in that Christmas spirit,
let's give the gift of a podcast.
Share this podcast with at least one person who you think it will help.
Today's subject will be a great one to share with someone who
you think has had a busy year and might now need to focus on rest.
Okay.
With that done.
Let's dive into today's subject rest.
with Christmas only a few days away.
We should now be shifting our focus away from work and
towards our family and friends.
It's a time to recharge our batteries and relax.
Now we all say this across emails, phone calls, and even on all of
those zoom calls, we're now doing.
But what do we actually mean?
Now most business owners have this mentality that we can rest
when we die or we'll be working all hours with little to no rest.
But this ethos has been proven by much more intelligent people than
me to be really counter-intuitive.
As you know, I love improving workflows.
Creating better, more streamlined ways of working.
I love to improve productivity, optimize the time we have in a day.
But I've learned that prioritizing rest will actually boost my productivity.
Now some research actually proves that you can work better for fewer hours in a day.
But I don't think this works for all industries and I'm not quite sure that
businesses are really ready for it yet.
However here at method, we have a balance of work and home life.
I've tried to maximize productivity from our team by, by not being fixed
by this nine to five working day.
And instead having a much more flexible way of working.
If someone isn't feeling it, then what's the point in keeping
them chained to their desk.
They're not going to get anything done.
They're not going to get anything from it and they're just
going to struggle for longer.
So go for a walk, go for a run, do some exercise or play with the kids
for a bit then come back, rested and ready to take on that challenge.
Over time I've hacked my own day to provide me with
the best possible advantage.
And to do this, I focused on where I need to boost myself and
how I can work rest into that.
So my day looks a little bit like this.
I get up at 6:00 AM.
This gives me an hour or so of work to, to go over my emails plan my day.
All of which is undisturbed.
So I can really get into that zone for that hour or hour and a half.
Around 7, 7 30.
I'll then work out for an hour.
This gives me all of those endorphins from exercise that I can carry
with me throughout my morning.
Then around about 1230, I'll have some lunch, and with a full belly, I
will have a rest for about 20 minutes.
This tends to be a nap, but it could also just be a meditation, something
to remove me from the workplace.
This also helps get rid of that afternoon lull that we all get and helps me stay on
top of my game for the whole afternoon.
Around 9:00 PM.
I'll start to wind down and I'll start to get sleep around about nine 30.
Now my routine is suited for me and over the years, I've optimized
it to make me as strong as I actually can throughout the day.
I actually prefer to go to bed a little bit later and over the holiday period,
I'll stay up a little bit later, I'll spend time with family and friends and
I will sleep in a little bit longer.
But come the new year, I'll go back into this routine that I've developed and that
provides me with the best optimized day.
Now with my own routine, there were a couple of points I don't want to bring up.
The first is what rest actually is rest doesn't have to be sleep.
So my afternoon nap is perfect for me.
But that has to be around 20 to 25 minutes is about my limit.
And I think more than that, and I drift into a deeper sleep.
When we fall into deep asleep, you actually struggle to come out of that
deeper sleep, it's not as easy to come out of as light sleep is, and that then
has a negative effect where I become a little bit more foggy and struggle
to get into that working ethos again.
But rest can actually be anything that takes you away from that office or
work environment and allows you to rest now, some top business owners or CEO.
Take up rock climbing, they play chess, they have activities that actually
occupy their brain in a similar way to when they're working, but it keeps
them fully focused on that subject, but it's more of a hobby or a game.
One more recent hack that I've found is during my wind down, I make use
of the focus mode within my iPhone.
Just before nine, it automatically comes on and removes all notifications, it
also hides all of my badge notifications.
My OCD cannot cope with seeing a little number on an app and I just have to
open up that email or the other app to clear that notification, I can't
leave a badge number on an app.
This is not good when you're trying to wind down.
Because you automatically are going back into your emails, you're going
back into this, this state of work.
So with this focus mode on, I can't see any of these notifications.
And.
I can also set it so important messages from certain people can come through.
But as a whole, everything can wait until the morning.
Now both of these ideas lead me nicely onto the Christmas and the holiday break.
When we focus on rest, we actually get more ideas.
Our brain has room to grow.
And we are then better at problem solving.
It allows ideas to come into our mind that could actually completely
change how you run your business or even a new marketing strategy.
We've all heard the expression that you can't see the wood from the trees.
Yes.
Well, this is exactly that point.
So during this Christmas break, relax, pick up the guitar, get back to running.
Make use of focus on your iPhone.
It can all wait until next year.
And with this.
Our mind can be cleared you can be ready to hit the new year with new
ideas and a new focus for your business.
One thing I want to emphasize here is, is focusing on rest.
Isn't being lazy.
We aren't doing this because we can't be bothered with the day we're doing
this because we want to hack our lives and get the most out of our day.
A quote from Winston Churchill, encapsulates this nicely.
The rest and the spell of sleep in the middle of the day, refresh the human
frame far more than a long night.
We're not made by nature to work or even play from eight o'clock
in the morning until midnight.
We throw a strain upon our system, which is unfair and in provident
For every purpose of business or pleasure, mental or physical.
We ought to break our days and our marches into two.
So when we rest our body actually repairs itself from the strain
we've done throughout that day.
It also allows our brain to back up that information.
It's like a computer filing system.
Giving us more Ram to continue when we wake up.
Now, why am I bringing this all up before the Christmas holiday and with
new year just being around the corner.
Well, Christmas is a time to relax.
We all love making new year's resolutions.
So why not make rest?
One of them?
Thanks for listening to this snippet of a podcast.
And remember, give your brain a break.
Focus on rest.
And be the best version of yourself.
Be there with your family after all.
At work, you can be replaced.
At home you can't.
Have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year from me and
the whole team here at method.