I have a confession to make. Before I was gone on vacation, I hadn’t written a single word of fiction in months. It wasn’t for lack of effort, either, but I was struggling because I just plain couldn’t get my head into it. No matter what I did, the words weren’t happening.
About a week before I left, I realized what the problem was: burnout.
As a physically disabled autistic person, I am constantly fighting against burnout because of the demands of life. As much as I love all the things I do, I am a very busy person. I am constantly wrestling with free time and allowing myself to rest. I’m sure you are too, if I’m honest. Even if you’re not disabled in any way, the world is busy, and we are pulled in so many different directions constantly.
One of the things I have been thinking about pretty deeply is what rest is. It’s more than just lying down and sleeping or not working.
While everyone’s experience may be different, mine has to include not being constantly available. As much as I adore my friends (and I do), and as much as I appreciate my colleagues (and I do!), and as much as I find the things you all say and send me fascinating, funny, uplifting, and rewarding, there are times when I just need to… not.
Our world has things constantly demanding attention. I have been working on this blog post for about an hour, and the amount of messages and notifications I’ve received during that time is a little overwhelming. Before I was gone for a week, I just dealt with it, and it was background noise. Now that I’m freshly back from a place where I have none of that at all, I realize just how much noise it is. Background or not, it’s a constant litany of phone notifications or messages.
The general advice is to turn on “do not disturb” and close out of messaging apps and what have you. That’s true and helpful, but it only goes so far because I frequently miss important messages from people I want to talk to or need to be aware of. While I can allow certain messages through with texting and phone calls, or I can only allow certain apps to send me notifications during work hours, I can’t be so selective about what people within those apps can send me messages when.
I have clients and colleagues contacting me about work things (important ones) at all hours since my client and associate pool is quite international. I love that, by the way. It’s one of my favorite things. I learn so much and feel so much richer for it. That said, it means I’m getting pings at all hours.
So just answer during work hours!
I do, mostly, but since apps like Facebook Messenger and Discord don’t have the ability to tag people as friends, associates, etc. (and it would be a nightmare to do so after so many years without that; I’d have to go through and tag thousands of people). And with how my brain works, if I don’t answer when I see something, I will forget forever. Seriously. Forever.
That means leaving a lot of messages unread until the next day, and that notification stays in my orbit, a little ping constantly reminding me that I have to attend to that thing. It’s a challenge to ignore it, and while I practice “inbox zero” with my email most mornings (or my version of it, anyway) and clear notifications and everything, it’s still a lot.
So what does all of this have to do with rest?
The place I go in New York has absolutely nothing for signal. There’s no cell phone signal, no internet, no radio, no television. We have a landline and can drive to town if we need to use our cell phones. During that time, the thing I noticed most was the quiet.
That quiet allowed the chaos in my mind to settle, the havoc I typically live in to calm. There was stillness, and I could sit on the deck and listen to the wind in the trees, hear the birds, and write quietly in the sun without anyone else intruding except my husband (who usually was asking me if I needed some water or checking in that I’d put on sunblock).
It was when that happened that the words came. The fighting I’d been doing to get any story at all out onto paper evaporated, and I started writing. The first day, I wrote 5k. The second, I wrote 7k. Then the next two, I wrote 10k or more.
Now, I’m not saying you need to drop everything and go out to a cabin in the mountains where there’s no contact with the world. For a lot of you, I know that sounds like hell even for me it’s absolute zen. However, I think the thing we need to pursue is that rest. The quiet. The space where there aren’t constant notifications circling and things trying to grab our attention without mercy or regard.
How you create that space for yourself, I don’t know. It might look like setting up “do not disturb” hours on your phone. It could look like taking a drink and sitting in a chair on the deck (or going to a park) and turning off your Wi-Fi while you write. It could look like going for a walk and leaving your phone on silent.
For a while now, I’ve been trying to sort out how to handle having an office and setting up work hours for myself. Which I’ve been pretty successful with. My office isn’t finished yet, but I am making strong and consistent progress toward making it look like I want it to look and feel how I want it to feel. My next step, I think, is going to be finding ways to chase the silence. Find the quiet and negotiate how to make silent spaces for myself.
If you’re struggling with work or writing or life in general, maybe make the decision to chase some quiet for yourself. Even if it’s just ten minutes a day. I think that quiet, that rest from the constant demands and attention the world wants from us, is absolutely required for creativity. Furthermore, it’s of extreme importance for us as humans. We were never built for this.
Let me know in the comments below here how you chase the quiet, how you find some stillness for yourself amongst the noise. Maybe we can all help each other pursue this process.
Find The Quiet