The Break That Breaks Your Day.

A lot of people are trying to learn something. A lot of people are trying to get good productive work done. They have a productive morning, a good first work block, and then they seemingly fall off - but every signal said they would be dialed in for the rest of the day. They do amazing deep work, super focused, and then for some reason, when it's time for the next work block, they slip into a lack of focus and that snowballs.

When someone is asked to start a project, big or small, the easiest way to get started is picking the smallest, most manageable step. Sometimes you have to read a whole book (that you don't want to), or go through all these slideshows - through every single slide - 78 slides. How am I going to memorize all this information for the upcoming test? This is an important book. How am I going to get all the key takeaways when there's so much packed into it?

You can cram, but you can't shove every single slide into your brain at once. But you can go line by line, slide by slide, and in time, absorb all of that information. And it all starts with that first slide. It all starts with that first line, and the momentum carries through. The hardest part is actually reading that first one, doing that first problem.

There's always a sort of activation energy required to start anything. You might notice that once you're into great work for a good chunk of time, you're in the zone, and it feels almost effortless to keep working. It's not like it's grueling to keep going and going. But you still have to start, and that's always the hardest part. And once you're done with that first work block, the second one is usually gonna be easier - unless the pattern I've been noticing kicks in.

This pattern is dangerous for students, learners, doers who start their day super productive; they fall off after feeling that initial reward of doing great work. And then they're like, "You know what? I should take a break. I deserve a break. Let me just watch one video. Let me just do one game."

If you feed into your so-called mental fatigue - even though, if you really ask yourself, you probably could continue - you're like, "No, it makes sense, I just did this [amount] of work, so now it's time to take a break." That can be completely reasonable in many instances. However, is this break really giving your mind a break, or is it overstimulating you? A lot of times, you don't even necessarily want to scroll on your phone, but it just feels like it makes sense: "Oh, I just did all this hard work."

Let's say you set out to do four hours of deep work. Most likely, you're not just going to straight up, boom, four hours, no breaks - and a lot of the time, that's not the most productive thing. What I like to do is 50 minutes of work, 10-minute break, 50 minutes of work, 10-minute break, and so on. But let's say in that 10-minute break, you just start scrolling online. You see this video, then you're down a whole internet rabbit hole. And then you're like, "Well, what if I just do five more minutes?" Then it's a 15-minute break, then it's 20 minutes, then it's 30 minutes, and then you end up not doing the other three work blocks. Then you're sitting there wondering what's wrong, wondering, "How do I get back at it?" It's even harder to get out of that loop, because it's like a snowball.

How do you feel after doing something difficult that helps your growth?

Amazing, usually. When you get a couple hours of great focused work done on something you care about - whether that's your volunteering, your job, your business, your schoolwork - you feel great. How do you feel after consuming, consuming, consuming, consuming, and not doing? If you're reading this essay, then you probably feel foggy after all that consuming. You probably feel restless or worked up. You probably feel like you don't know what to do. You don't know how to get out of that loop.

We're not giving ourselves the right type of break to continue the next session of great work. It doesn't mean you need to torture yourself and stare at a wall all day - stare at a wall, work, stare at a wall, work. Ironically, you'd probably get your great work done. And if that's what you're about and you're in a hard season, that could definitely make you move the needle, and be fulfilling for the right type of person.

We all want to work on something meaningful. We're all working towards certain goals, and that takes intentional work - especially on the work we keep putting off. When we're not working, that's okay, because there's a lot more to life than work. But if what we're doing while we're not working is stopping us from doing the work we said we'd do in the next hour, after our break - that's going to be an issue for us achieving our goals. If you don't use your breaks correctly, your lack of focus starts snowballing, and that could feed into the next day - and then what if you start doing those instant gratification things instead of starting your work at all? Then you have a real problem.

You can do those things - but after all of your work blocks are finished. Breaks shouldn't involve hyper-stimulating activities; you're actually trying to rest your brain, so that the next work block can be even more productive than the one before. If you're not doing this, that next work block might not even happen.

On my breaks, I like to doodle. That's why, on aquaedge.co (my AI teacher), I created a game called SWAT. It's a very simple game where you use this pencil and you pop these little confusions. You pop them with the doodle pencil trailing, it takes a few minutes, and then there's nothing left to do - the game just ends. It won't stop you from going back to your work. Anything like doodling - little simple games that are not endless loops - works. Something like breathing rests your brain, making you feel more present. There are enjoyable things that will help you reset - they don't always have to be hyper-stimulating.

Then you go back to the book - back to slide 12 of 78 - and you are focused and ready to work. What makes every single next page easier and easier is that your brain doesn't have anything more stimulating to focus on, so each new page is stimulating enough to keep going. And it's deeply rewarding, too, when you look back on it: you have knowledge, and that's a whole other type of joy from learning.