The most important post about productivity: how to actually rest

The most important post about productivity!

Productivity isn't about pomodoro, deep work and the rest of the guides on Twitter. If you're constantly grinding and never resting properly, your brain will tell you to fuck off and just shut down.

That happened to me a couple of times and ended with a conversation with a therapist who delivered a brilliant diagnosis: "you're just fucking exhausted. Go to the beach and don't think about work." I listened, and holy shit, it actually worked. Now I tell everyone how the basic and simultaneously brilliant framework of real rest works, so you don't drive yourself into that state again.

Here's the short pipeline for not dying from work:

1/ Blowout. This is about a sharp context switch and total distraction. Ideally something completely new and high-dopamine. Go to a rave, learn kitesurfing, drink tequila with locals in Rio or in Voronezh. The goal is to forget about work entirely, and about reality in general. The more novelty and emotion, the faster your brain flips into rest mode.

2/ Idling. After the blowout, just do everything that normally counts as procrastination and shame: shows, reels, greasy food, TikTok. I'm finally going to finish the second part of The Last of Us. The task is to stuff your brain with simple pleasures until at some point it's actually full and says: "Dude, enough, I'm tired of resting."

3/ Chill. Here you just zone out and do exactly nothing: stare at the ceiling, sleep a lot, walk around with no purpose. It matters that you're genuinely bored. That boredom is where your brain finally comes back to normal. Best case, you're zoning out somewhere with a view of mountains, the sea, or anything else beautiful.

Important!

These three stages have to go strictly in that order. Skip the blowout and you'll lie on the beach thinking about sprints and tickets. Skip the idling and your hands will reach for the shows instead of actual rest. Skip the chill and your brain won't digest any of it, and you'll come home feeling like you never rested at all.

So: if you want productivity, learn to rest at full scale. Once every couple of months, run the full cycle: blowout, idling, chill. Tested)

Stay tuned 🥷🥷🥷