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Play, Work, Rest
written by SAI
filed under CAREER | LIFESTYLE | MINDSET
published MAY 6, 2024
TLDR
Become aware of the Play → Work → Rest Cycle and your place in it
intro
I originally wrote this piece for an online community I recently joined: Confidently Creative. Hence the lean towards creativity. (If you want to join it, hit me up.)
"The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both." - James Michener
I felt burned out. I felt frustrated. I felt like there was no other option.
Concurrently, I felt energized by coaching. I felt invigorated by transforming young adults. I felt fulfilled by my work.
I put in my resignation at my full-time job on June 1st, 2023. To go all-in on my coaching business helping young adults figure out who they are.
To not just talk about the quote above, but to actually live it! I wanted to experience how work and play could be the same.
But it wasn’t until only very recently in the spring of 2024 that I have felt a sense of energy propelling me in a clear sense of direction. A direction I didn’t feel when I left that job in the summer of 2023.
What gives? Shouldn’t I have hit the ground running with my coaching business? I thought I had planned out and timed the on and off ramps for each of these perfectly. But it seemed like that wasn’t the case.
What may have been going on? And how does it relate with creativity?
Play-Work-Rest Cycle
To do that, let’s explore the cycle of Play, Work, and Rest.
To understand the relation between these terms, using a quadrant can help. The two axes are Action and Structure.
note: When Work is capitalized below, it refers to the intersection of Action and Structure. Not just what we think of as our job or profession.
As adults, we’re REALLY good at Work! What is incentivized is valued. So we value work.
Work results in money, in resources, in assets, etc. We are “productive.” We have productive days when we get a lot of Work done. If we don’t get a lot of work done, we feel unproductive.
As the quadrant depicts, Work is the intersection of Action and Structure. We take some action within some structure. Usually, our work is what we get paid to do. The structure is providing of value to others in exchange for money.
We’re SOO good at Work that we’ve even Work-ified Play and Rest. Let’s take vacations as an example. I can’t be the only one who feels that after many ‘vacations’, I feel more tired after the trip than I did before.
Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?
Not only has our work time increased (hours into our job), but we’ve translated the principles of Work (Action and Structure) into the other areas of our life that should otherwise be free from it.
We’ve gone from Human Beings to Human Workings.
With all this time and energy towards Work, where is the time for anything else? Great question!
Let’s bring in the scarcity principle - the less you have of something, the more valuable it becomes.
So the less Play (and Rest) we have in our life, the more valuable each time we Play (and Rest) becomes.
Play and Rest More Effectively
How can we Play and Rest more effectively then?
It’s a simple answer, but much harder to put into practice: know when you’re in which phase.
It’s just having the awareness of this cycle all around us.
For example, you’ve heard of people who go on a 7 week trip to India and Indonesia and rediscover their inner truth. The people who take a sabbatical and backpack across Europe for a summer. The people who go on a 14 day meditation retreat.
There’s nothing that special about any of the places. Of course each have their unique aspects to marvel at.
But zooming out a bit, what do these experiences represent? It represents a removal from our daily structure. It provides a different perspective.
What is that perspective?
No structure. Taking Action without Structure. Sometimes it’s even No Action at all aka Rest.
Those people’s minds are able to Play during that time. They get vastly new experiences from their previous day-to-day world. For what purpose? Well there is no purpose. It’s just to enjoy their present moment. That’s it.
When the heart and mind were in Work mode, it can’t Play as often, as well, or as easily. But after those experiences of exploration, it can.
Bringing it back to my story, I wasn’t aware of this natural cycle. I was in Work mode not just for the past 3.5 years at my previous full-time job, but 1.5 years before that and 16 years before that as a student.
Why did I feel burned out? Because I was in Work mode endlessly.
Why was I not getting the traction that I desired? Because I didn’t realize that Rest and Play comes after Work. Work doesn’t come after Work, in this cycle.
Understanding this principle, I created more time for Rest and Play. I did things that I truly enjoy, two of which are writing and creating deep connection.
The less Play (and Rest) we have in our life, the more valuable each time we Play (and Rest) becomes.
play in action
That’s how me writing this newsletter honestly came about. I was curious (big aspect of Play) about talking to as many people as I could in Q1. I met Hana Gausfain (founder of the Confidently Creative community) quite randomly on LinkedIn. Sent her a connection request. We had a 1 hour call that easily could have been 3 and bonded over many things.
She told me about Confidently Creative, she shared how community members could help, I raised my hand, and here we are! 😀
You may ask yourself, or others may ask you, questions like
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“Does this seem like a good use of time?”
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“Are you being productive?”
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“Quit playing, are you being serious?”
Your answer can be definitively, “YES!”
Why? Because you’re following the natural cycle of things.
How does all this relate with creativity though?
We’ve talked about this Play-Work-Rest cycle on the macro scale. But creativity is the manifestation of it on a smaller scale.
Creativity, to me, is simply the byproduct of being in a simultaneous state of Work + Play + Rest.
Have you ever tried ‘being creative’? Or worse, someone tells you to think of something creative. You can’t think of anything in the moment. But the moment you’re in the car ride back, you think of the best things.
Apply that principle here. You don’t try to ‘be creative’.
If you can
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be aware of this Play-Work-Rest cycle
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discern when you need which energy
then you’ll be in a constant effortless state of Creativity!
As you relate this to your own life, I challenge you to inspect the cycle of Play-Work-Rest-Play-Work-Rest-etc. within your daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly time horizons.
your turn
→ Are you in a season of Work? Season of Play? Season of Rest?
→ At this exact moment (minute-to-minute basis), are you in a Play, Work, or Rest mode?
Creativity is number of ideas generated per unit of input.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sai is a Life Coach for Young Adults seeking to Live their Quarter Life on Easy Mode!