There are few things in life as a complete change of pace, to re-energize everything you do. You need and want to have this change of pace. In fact, it should be the first thing you place on your annual calendar each year. If you don't put it on the calendar then the chances are very very high that you will NOT get this change of pace that your psyche and your innovating brain cells so desperately need.
You say that you don't have time for vacation, or a change of pace or a break. That you are entirely too busy to even seriously consider it. Some of you would argue that such breaks are more work than staying hard at work. Some of you would suggest that the grind of returning after such a break is more difficult than not going at all.
I would say to you that you cannot afford to not take this break. The cost of NOT doing this is far higher than you can feel or see on a day to day basis. There is a large body of research backing this up, and my own testing in this area is amazingly consistent. The more breaks you factor into your work day and your annual work schedule the more creative, productive and innovative you can actually be hour after hour, day after day.
Timothy Ferris first tweaked my brain about this some 7 years ago in his blockbuster, "The 4 Hour Work Week". While I neither need nor want a 4 Hour Work Week, the productivity that can be achieved with the right balance of breaks and focused high intensity work, is consistently far more and far better than I produced in my two decades of 70 hour work weeks. In fact I am aiming toward, and slowly reconstructing my work cycle to be: personal development for the first third of the work day, intense production in the second third of the day, and slow percolating of ideas and relationships in the final third of the day. I am consistently amazed at the quality of what I can create now.
This requires (demands) regular unplugging - from the internet, email, phone, media, news, computer, ipad, keyboard, itunes, ipod and any other form of connectedness. It demands moments of quiet, peace, deep breaths, and change of pace. After your heart rate settles, your blood pressure falls, you can ask yourself, "What beautiful thing can I create or produce now" as you transition back to full intensity. Unplug now.
