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Earlier on, I understood that the conventional 
productivity systems are doomed to fail in  

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my life. I've tried a lot of them over the 
years, and they worked for a couple of weeks,  

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but then eventually, my inner rebellion would 
always come out. And she's a feisty one. She  

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doesn't like authority, rules, regulations. 
She doesn't like when people tell her what  

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to do. She's a true anarchist in her heart. 
And so, no matter what system I would try,  

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she would always come out, and she would say 
things like, "Who are you to tell me what to do?"

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She would argue, "We only live once! 
Live a little! We're all gonna die.  

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So create some memories! Live a 
full life! Enjoy your life! Let's  

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go and do something spontaneous. 
Life is short. We should live it."

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As a result, when developing my own system that 
was inspired by the Agile framework that I saw  

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being so effective at work, I knew I had to do 
something about that inner rebellion. Otherwise,  

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the system would be yet another system that would 
fail. And that's how I came up with the concept of  

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a cool-off week. Just to make it clear, this 
is not part of the official Agile framework,  

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even though I think it should be. This 
is my own invention that I created for  

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myself to address my own problem, 
to accommodate my inner rebellion.

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So what is a cool-off week? My sprints are three 
weeks in length. And then, after every sprint,  

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I take a week off. It doesn't mean 
I go on vacation. Every fourth week,  

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I still go to work. I still show up, but I 
do the bare minimum—the maintenance level.  

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I do the things that are required of me to do 
for this whole enterprise to not fall apart.

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During my cool-off week, I take a break 
from productivity, from doing extra,  

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from trying to achieve a certain result, from 
going the extra mile, from improving things,  

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from optimizing things. I still 
respond to customers. I still  

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process orders. Everything is happening, but 
there is no extra pushing that is coming.

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And as a result, I have a little bit more 
time. This is a break from the more rigid,  

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intense, focused sprint that I had before. It's 
a break from any expectation of achievement,  

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result, outcome, or metric. I don't push 
myself to do anything extra during this  

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week. When I had a full-time job, 
I still followed the same schedule.

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For three weeks, I was working on important, big 
projects, trying to get them done before the end  

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of the sprint. And then, for the next sprint, I 
showed up to work with the bare minimum to not get  

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fired. They were impressed with the work that I 
did during the three weeks and then didn’t mind if  

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I went home a little earlier or if I took a longer 
lunch on my fourth week. No one really cared.

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So what's the point of a cool-off week? As I said, 
it's an opportunity for my inner rebellion to have  

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it all. She can wake up whenever she wants, 
do spontaneous things, go to the movies in the  

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middle of the day, work on whatever she wants. She 
doesn’t have to follow a prioritized to-do list.

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She can do whatever she wants. There is no 
time-blocking, no schedules, no rules. And  

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the reason why is because during my sprints, I'm 
very focused, organized, and disciplined. I try  

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to avoid distractions as much as possible. 
All the spontaneous ideas that I have,  

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I try my best not to do them right away. I put 
them in my backlog and then review them later.

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It's a very tightly held state of being. And 
if you think about the word "sprint," like  

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when you run, when you sprint, that's how it 
should be. It's very intense and short. So I  

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sprint for three weeks. And then I need a break. 
Like, you can't sprint indefinitely. So after an  

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intense period of work, focus, and discipline, 
it's hard to do this for a long period of time.

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So you need to take a break. It's a 
small investment of time that first  

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allows me to rest from my previous sprint 
and then just mentally and psychologically  

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prepare and rejuvenate myself 
for the upcoming sprint.

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And this is my philosophical 
view on this. A long time ago,  

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I kind of noticed this trend that 
people who work without breaks,  

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who are so disciplined and so organized and 
so go, go, go, like the hustle culture bros...

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Life works in a way where eventually they are 
forced to take a long break. So accidents happen,  

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chronic illnesses, marriages fall 
apart, their businesses fail for  

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some mysterious reason. I saw it 
happen time after time after time,  

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and you probably saw it too. And so it's kind 
of like they didn’t have a break for years.

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And they accumulated that debt. Then life 
forced them to pay off that debt in a way  

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where they had to take a much longer break. 
And I was like, Hmm, I’m wondering if I can  

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avoid all that drama because I don’t want to go 
on that emotional rollercoaster. So I was like,  

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Hmm, what if I have the breaks, 
but I have them on my own terms?

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I scheduled them ahead of these extreme burnouts 
and depressions and overwhelm and all of that.  

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What would happen? And great things happened. 
So what do I do during my cool-off weeks? I try  

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to do the exact opposite of what I do during 
the sprints. And that’s a good framework to  

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use when you are thinking about choosing a 
restful, rejuvenating activity for yourself.

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It should be the opposite of your day-to-day 
living. So, if you're a salesperson who talks  

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to 20 people a day, for you, watching Netflix 
at night alone without talking to anyone  

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can be a very restful and rejuvenating 
activity. But if you work from home, um,  

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if you stare at the screen—maybe you're like 
a data analyst—and you don’t talk to people,  

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you just stare at the screen all day long, 
then staring at another screen at night,  

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being alone, is kind of like 
you’re doing the same thing.

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So for a data analyst, going out, meeting people, 
doing a team sport can be a more rejuvenating  

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activity. For me, the cool-off week is kind of 
doing the opposite of what I do during the sprint.

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My scrum board is empty. I do it on purpose. 
It’s completely empty. I remove all the  

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sticky notes after I’m done with the sprint 
retrospective. I have no schedule, no plan,  

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no to-do lists. I go for longer walks or 
bike rides. I have longer lunches if I  

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want to. I do whatever I feel like doing. I do 
spontaneous things because, during my sprints,  

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I try to limit my spontaneity. I have 
my sprint goals and focus on them,  

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and all the projects and ideas that 
pop up, I put them in the backlog.

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But during my cool-off week, if I have 
a great idea and I feel like doing it,  

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I go and do it. The opposite of my sprint 
behavior. I give myself full permission  

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to start something and not finish it. 
There is no definition of done for this  

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spontaneous project. I can abandon them 
and not feel bad about it. I usually do  

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more things for which I enjoy the 
process, not so much the outcome.

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I can go to the movies in the middle of the 
day. I can meet with friends for lunch and  

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have a longer lunch. Sometimes I like to plan 
my vacations around my cool-off weeks. So,  

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for example, my last cool-off week, 
we went to Italy. It was nice—a way  

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to have a cool-off week. Definitely did 
something very different from my sprint.

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I can beautify a space in my home, declutter 
something, or make something more beautiful. I  

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wrote a post about it recently on the benefits 
of making your space beautiful. But in short,  

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I just do whatever I feel like doing. It’s very 
spontaneous, chaotic, not organized, doesn’t  

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follow a plan. It’s awesome. And it releases all 
the tension that gets built up during the sprint.

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And the benefits that I see from having done the 
cool-off week for the last 10 years are that,  

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well, first of all, and the biggest 
one, is that I haven’t had a single  

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case of severe burnout or depression 
or overwhelm for the last 10 years,  

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even though I did a lot of things. Thankfully, 
I did not have to go through any of that.

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And I think the reason why is because 
my initial experiment, my hypothesis of,  

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But what if I have the breaks on my own 
terms? I agree that breaks are necessary,  

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but what if I have them scheduled on my 
own terms? This hypothesis has worked out  

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and actually prevents the need to take bigger 
breaks. If you don’t accumulate the break debt,  

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if you pay it off on time, you 
don’t have to take the longer break.

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At least that’s how it is in my life. It allows 
me to rest—most of all, emotionally. And it  

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allows me to rest guilt-free. I know for a 
lot of us, the idea of resting guilt-free  

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is kind of revolutionary and unheard of, but 
when you have it—like when you have scheduled  

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breaks and you worked really hard for the sprint 
before—you can have a restful week guilt-free.

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It's possible. I recommend you try 
it. It's very refreshing. Also,  

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another benefit is that by the end of the 
week, I'm actually looking forward to the  

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next sprint. It's kind of the same idea as when 
you go on vacation, especially if it's a two-  

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to three-week vacation. During the first 
week, you're ecstatic about the whole idea  

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that you don't have to work, that you're just 
relaxing, chilling, and not doing anything.

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You're just happy about this whole situation. 
Week two rolls around, and you're kind of like,  

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you know, starting to miss your regular routine 
at home. And if you're there for three weeks,  

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during the third week, you're like, "Oh my 
gosh, I can't wait to come home and actually  

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do something productive with my life. I kind of 
look forward to going back to work." The same  

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idea applies here. During the cool-off week, 
the first two to three days, you're like, "Oh,  

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this is awesome. I can wake up whenever I want. 
I have no schedule. I have no plan. Awesome."  

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The last few days, you're like, "Uh, I'm kind of 
looking forward to some structure and actually  

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getting my hands dirty and doing the work." You're 
actually quite excited about the upcoming sprint.

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And of course, as I mentioned, the whole reason 
why I created the cool-off week is to satisfy  

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my inner rebellion. During this cool-off 
week, she's fed, she's satisfied. She can  

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go to sleep for the next three weeks and not 
ruin my sprint. I'm not afraid of having some  

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emotional revolution in the middle of the sprint 
because my inner rebellion wants to come out. No,  

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she is sleeping, and we can focus and have 
a good, calm, focused, disciplined sprint.

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Also, during the cool-off week, some interesting 
projects come up. We're going to talk about  

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the kinds of things that can get done. I do 
spontaneous things—whatever I feel like doing, I  

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do that. And oftentimes, these things are actually 
quite nice to do. For example, recently during the  

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cool-off week, I did the minimum amount of work. 
I had to check something on the Monthly Method  

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website. While I was browsing there, I thought, 
"I'm so tired of this design. I no longer find it  

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beautiful. I don't like my homepage. I don't like 
the color scheme. It no longer reflects who I am."

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And there was this spontaneous burst to actually 
redesign the website for MonthlyMethod.com. If  

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it had happened during the sprint, I would have 
put it in the backlog. I would not have allowed  

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myself to jump into this because I would 
have had some sprint goals I was working  

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on. But since it was my cool-off week, I 
thought, "Okay, sure. Why not do that?"  

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And I spent the next two or three days working on 
it. Thankfully, my emotional desire to change the  

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website lasted long enough for me to actually 
finish it. I was able to redesign the website  

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and my homepage. It happened in like two or 
three days, and I'm quite happy that it did.

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So, things like that can happen. The cool-off 
weeks also give me time to think and daydream.  

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Because I'm not working all the time, I 
actually have the time to step back and  

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have a wider view of my life. And because I go 
on longer walks and bike rides, I have the time  

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and space to think about things. 
Oftentimes, I have quite meaningful  

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insights during my cool-off weeks 
that improve my life going forward.

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Another benefit I've noticed is that 
cool-off weeks have started to serve  

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as intermittent rewards for my efforts that 
don't necessarily bring immediate results.  

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I like to say that our brains hate infinite 
timelines. Whenever we have to do something  

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for a long period of time or indefinitely, our 
brains are like, "Oh, no way." Imagine running  

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a marathon that doesn't have a finish line. 
How many people would agree to do that? Zero,  

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I think. But a lot of the things we're 
working on as adults don't have an  

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immediate payoff. There's a lot of upfront 
effort before you actually see the outcome.

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And that's a very difficult situation for our 
brains to be in. They don't see the carrot in  

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front of them. The carrot is far, far, far away, 
and yet you kind of want to keep going. So,  

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the cool-off weeks are kind of like 
this reward, this little carrot that  

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I place in front of myself. Yes, they're not 
necessarily the direct outcomes of my effort,  

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but what I've noticed is that my brain doesn't 
really care. As long as there is a carrot. And the  

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way I tell my brain is, "Hey, listen, we're going 
to work really hard for three weeks. But then,  

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we're going to have the time of 
our lives. We're going to rest  

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for the entire week. No schedules, no 
deadlines. We're going to have it all."

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That's the carrot. And then, you enjoy your 
time off, and you can come back and continue  

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working hard till the next carrot, and 
the next carrot. Eventually, looking back,  

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I think, "Okay, well, I just did 10 years of 
this—carrot after carrot after carrot." It's  

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possible to go for a long period of time 
with consistent effort using this approach  

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because this serves as an intermittent 
reward. And the final outcome is that it  

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allows me to have a nice rhythm in my life. 
Sprint, break, sprint, break, sprint, break.

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That's how you build momentum. And you don't have 
to reinvent the wheel. You live in this rhythm. An  

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object in motion stays in motion. The momentum 
builds up, and you keep following this rhythm,  

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this cycle, and things just get a lot easier. 
I think the problem with our generation is that  

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we disregard the power of this rhythm. We 
always try to look for the next big thing,  

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the next method, the next framework, and 
we're constantly starting and stopping.

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This stopping, looking for a new path, and 
then trying the new path wastes so much time  

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and energy. I'm a true believer in building a 
rhythm in your life. It's the same way a nice  

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song isn't possible without a good rhythm or beat. 
And if you've watched some of the videos on this  

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channel about Agile, about these rituals, and you 
like the idea but just can't get into the rhythm,  

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I want to invite you to the community 
that I will be launching in January.

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We're going to do all these Agile rituals 
together—backlog setup, sprint planning,  

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daily standups, deep work sessions, sprint 
retrospectives, and cool-off weeks. You're  

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going to follow the same schedule as mine: 
three weeks of sprinting and one cool-off  

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week. I want you to get into this rhythm and 
actually experience firsthand what it can do  

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in your life. I think we have more than enough 
information. Information is not the solution.

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In this membership, I want to help us actually 
do the things we want to do—not talk about them,  

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not plan them, not write about them, 
but actually do them. Every decision  

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I have made about this community 
has been with this lens in mind:  

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"What do I need to do to increase the 
likelihood of my members actually doing  

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the thing?" I have employed all the mental tricks 
and strategies that I know to guarantee results.

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If you become a member, I will use 
every tool and strategy I've learned  

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in my life—from building my career, managing 
teams, finishing my master's degree early,  

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launching my business, and more. Every 
Agile ritual I've talked about on this  

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channel will be part of the membership. We 
will do them together. I truly believe in this,  

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00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:09,120
and I want you to come and try it for yourself. 
Help me build this community with you.

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It's going to be another way to showcase how to 
build things the Agile way—to start perfectly  

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imperfect with the core functionality in 
mind. We will treat the community as an  

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Agile product that we all work on together, 
shaping it in a way that works for all of us.  

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I'm not going to be a dictator here, telling you 
what to do and how to do it. We are shaping it  

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up together with one bigger goal in mind: 
to actually do the things we want to do.

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I hope you join us. But for now, 
happy sprinting. See you next time.