Rafter 11 is an unusual cafe in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Olive and balsamic oils line the walls. Rich dark wood, comfortable chairs, and an outdoor sitting area make this ideal for a place to meet a friend, but not a great place to bring a computer or a book to do some light work in the afternoon. On the dark counters, glass domes cover baked goods.
We ordered our coffee drinks and found a table nearby.
“My husband says I work too much.” I laughed and continued talking. “But being creative IS resting.”
I told her a story about the day I chose to experiment and do nothing. To truly rest and not have a computer in my hands. Rest according to other people’s definitions.
“I was so exhausted,” I said after I talked about lacking energy, getting a headache at the end of the day, and feeling unproductive. “When you take a rest day in relation to exercise, there’s something called active rest. You are walking, but you aren’t trying to run a tough, 3-mile uphill workout. You are active, but not pushing it.”
People knit.
People do crafts.
People do something while on their day off.
When you enjoy what you do, how can it be called work? But this is not the first conversation I’ve had on this topic. Rest for me is creating something. Or maybe it’s mindlessly pulling words together or using a drawing program to just draw without any agenda. A study I found one day said we aren’t more productive just because we put in more hours. In fact, just the opposite was true.
People rested and were more productive during work than if they put in hours of overtime. How you spend that time you are given is up to you. You decide on the priority of a project based on the effort you put into it.