I had planned to write this post next anyway, even before the events of the past week, which gave me new evidence of its truth. After all, I’d had a clipping (yes, I still get print newspapers, and I still “clip” articles that spark ideas for discussion topics in my mind) about the importance of shutting down and taking time off in my “topics” folder since last summer. And when better to talk about the importance of taking time off than in the middle of a cold winter, when ads for warm, sunlit places abound? So when I left for a 10-day trip to Southern California two weekends ago, I tucked that clipping, along with six or seven others, into a thick folder of work to do while on the road there.
I had planned to make it a working trip, you see. God forbid that I should take time off myself, even if I was going to suggest that others do exactly that. But the work pile is always so high, and getting uninterrupted time to chip away at it is harder than it used to be. But being a writer, I can always manage to do work on the road, even if the trip is ostensibly for a different purpose.
My mind and the weather, however, had something else in mind. First of all, who would have figured that summer weather would park itself over Los Angeles, even as the east coast got slammed with multiple snowstorms? January is supposed to be the rainy season in LA. I know. I’ve lived there. But all those glorious warm days of clear sunshine made it hard to stay inside on my computer. And as luck would have it, I had to spend two days, without anything on the schedule, in the neighborhood of a couple of good friends (one of whom is actually my aunt). And really, could I stay in LA and not take the time to visit my only niece, who’s a college student in San Diego, only two hours away?
The truth was, no matter what the work pile looked like, my mind and soul were screaming for a break, with as much insistent prodding as a hungry stomach that hasn’t eaten in 16 hours. The lure of just not responding to emails, of not doing my work, of just sitting in that glorious sunshine and doing nothing … had the gravitational pull of a black hole. And so, I finally just gave up and gave in.
I went jogging on a greenbelt lined by palm trees and succulent flower beds. I had really good conversations over lunches and dinners with my husband and friends. I went to a lecture at UCLA. I explored the caves of La Jolla and wandered down the beach at Coronado with my niece. I swam laps and worked out at a Southern California gym that had so many niceties that its members seemed to make it their second home. And I sat outside, drank in the sunshine and warmth, and allowed my brain to shut down completely. I’d actually brought a novel to read (a luxury in and of itself), but even that seemed too much effort, much of the time.
I was reminded of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s discussion of her annual trips to Captiva Island on the Gulf Coast of Florida. She went there each year to write, away from her five children and busy family life. And yet, she said, whenever she first got there, she found herself unable to do anything for a number of days. She’d bring paper and pencil and books to the beach, but would find herself just gazing at the water and walking the shoreline looking at seashells, the books and pencils and paper untouched in her bag. I’m sure Mrs. Lindbergh felt a tad guilty about being so unproductive, just as I did. But that “unproductive” time spent looking at seashells also led to her most successful book, Gift from the Sea. And therein lies the point.
The article I’d clipped last summer was titled “Hit the Reset Button in Your Brain.” Its author, a researcher at McGill University, explained that our brains have two dominant modes of attention: task positive, and task-negative. As you might guess, the “task-positive” mode is active when we’re focusing on a task. The “task-negative” mode is active when we’re daydreaming (including procrastinating by scanning email or the internet for distractions), wandering, or resting our brain.
Task-positive focus is what allows us to keep our attention on problems long enough to execute solutions. But task-negative focus is what allows our mind to regenerate energy for that task-positive work. It’s also where most of our creativity and insight occurs. One more important note: to reap the benefits of either mode, we have to stay in that mode for a stretch of time. Ping-ponging back and forth between the two (as in when you’re ostensibly working on a task but keep clicking out of that window to check email or alerts on internet news items) just makes us tired and cognitively dizzy.
If Anne Morrow Lindbergh had been driving herself to make progress on her next book, instead of letting her mind reset, in those initial days at the beach (or if she’d been constantly looking at the internet and checking her email) she might not have had the insight and creativity to realize that the sea shells she was collecting could symbolize important stages of a woman’s life. It takes space to be creative. And it takes downtime to regenerate the energy necessary to feel enthusiastic about task-positive focus.
I can’t claim to have come up with a best-selling book idea in all that “unproductive” time in Los Angeles. But when I did sit down at my computer the last day there, I churned out an astounding amount of creative work. And I found myself enthusiastic about tackling the projects before me, instead of burdened by the waiting “to do” pile. Something inside me had recharged–partly from the energy of the conversations I had, partly from being able to be outside in nature, being physical and being warm, and partly just from allowing myself to power down and recharge the batteries in my body and mind.
As the callout in that piece from last summer put it, “Vacation isn’t a luxury. Neither is daydreaming. Don’t skimp.” And while you’re at it, take a weekend and leave the computer and smartphones and all that distraction off. Allow yourself big chunks of deep down-time, and maybe you won’t find yourself needing the distraction of your email and internet surfing when you need that “task-positive” focus.
