Most business owners work, work work. Even play gets somehow turned into work. But are you actually getting things done during the work, work, work phase? Reports show that in an eight hour day, most employees work about three hours. The rest of it is taken up with eating, texting, searching for new jobs. Lots of diversions that don’t necessarily make us feel good because they are not quality downtime or even considered downtime.

What if you realized you blow a lot of good time and instead decided to carve out that time to do something you really wanted to do?

Parents can feel guilty doing anything for themselves. Business owners can be feel guilty not being available 24/7 for clients. Employees can feel guilty for not looking like they are uber-working even if they are actually working.Why don’t we just admit that humans need quality downtime and that is a good thing? And if we live in a nation of overschedulers, something many learn in the crazed school system with its ringing of the Pavlovian Bells and constant learning metrics, why not schedule it in?

Try scheduling quality downtime into your week. There are 168 hours in a week and 10,080 minutes in a week. Certainly, you can start out by carving out 10 hours for your own rejuvenation?

If you add up all the time you spend doing things you don’t even care about, it will astonish you. Try doing this for even one day. And a lot it occurs during times you have convinced yourself you need to be productive or a working as an employee or on your business. (more…)