Sunday, October 14, 2012

time out: why it's ok to take a break

As I mentioned in my previous post, I took off Friday afternoon to enjoy a walk in the woods (not quite as exciting as Bill Bryson's, but a lot more relaxing--no bears!) at a local State Park. Packed the kids, myself, and my husband in the car and enjoyed a perfect fall day: turning leaves, cool temps, sunny skies, migrating pelicans (really!), and lots of wildlife. Oh, and ice cream. (That was our reward for finishing the trail.)

Did I have work I could have done that afternoon? Yup. Should I have stayed home and been "responsible" instead? Nope. 'Cuz I know you've heard this before: sometimes you just gotta take care of you.

But I wasn't only taking care of me--it was an opportunity for our family to spend some quality time together, too. We listened to music on the mp3 player on the drive and take turns calling out requests (my 3-year-old is getting hip to 80s tunes), collected leaves and nuts with plans to make a fall wreath, got some great exercise, and breathed fresh, clean air for a few hours.

After this relaxing kind of afternoon, I'm ready to take on the challenges of a new week. There's a new project to start, one or two waiting in the wings, and of course the continuation of blogging every day for the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Do you make time for a break every now and then? I know it can be difficult, especially when you've got a lot going on: new clients, old clients, deadlines, meetings, presentations...sometimes it seems like the to-do list never ends. But it really does pay to take a moment or a day, or even half a day--whatever you can manage--to do something completely unrelated to your work.

When was the last time you really took a break? Where did you go? What did you do? How did you feel afterwards?



2 comments:

Unknown said...

I took time out to teach (actually, reteach) my 13 yr old daughter how to knit, as the 11 yr old was at a sleepover.

We found a pattern, bought the yarn we needed that we didn't already have in the stash, at dinner, then sat down to learn.

Half way through casting on, she had fallen asleep!

It did feel good being unplugged though!

jazzmom said...

Haha! Well, you tried! And it does feel good to detach from the computer, phone, etc., doesn't it?