ProTips - How a Week Off and Vacations are Productive
Hi Everybody !
So I believe that some of you after watching the title may be thinking "What? Being productive by not-working?? That doesn't make any sense!". But indeed it does and I want to explain to you how it is even possible...
So if you are a workaholic like myself you may feel that spending any time doing anything that is not related to getting better or your profession is a loss of time, even resting. At least, I do. And that is something pretty conterproductive, because we are not cold robots: we have some time a day that we can use to max-focus on one thing (around 2 hours, give or take) and then the rest of the day you will be a goo of infraproductivity.
See, this is something I learned not so long ago... basically I used all my batteries a day, focusing the 18-20 hours a day I am awake in my profession and passion, but then at the next day I was always feeling destroyed, completely more tired than the previous day. Multiply that for months (including weekends) and you got the result of what I was looking like. Pretty much like a contemporary zombie.
I also always avoided to play videogames because that was a complete loss of time for me. Therefore after few das of this unhealthy routine I was getting distracted with the most simple things or suddenly a question hit my mind and wanted to evacuate it with youtube science videos. And then I ended up watching videos for hours before even realizing it. That's because my brain couldn't handle the focus anymore and needed to disconnect for a while.
It is something completely normal and healthy to disconnect
See, this weekend I had the amazing opportunity to try that out. After weeks of working very focused on a lot of different projects I ended up waking up on a Friday and not even recalling that I had a trip on kayak into the wild with friends. Luckily enough my girl made me remember, and I was like... "But I don't even feel that tired or in need of going, I can't wait to come back home!" Which is even funnier if you take in consideration that I didn't even left my place by when I said that. I was so into my work and few different pieces I was doing that I couldn't even conceive to leave them unfinished.
But it happened, I turned off my computer, packed my things, turned off my cellphone, left my glasses at home and enjoyed the whole trip. Which I will probably describe soon since it was an unforgettable experience.
Nice story, but how is that being productive?
Since I came back I've been working non-stop and the quality of my work improved INCREDIBLY since the previous week. Not to say that my speed of making those artworks and coming up with solutions and new ideas (Even writting this post... I I started writing it 5 to 10 minutes ago and I have wrote somethign around seven paragraphs. When usually writting the half takes me like half hour!).
The definitive proof of this, was that yesterday, before going to sleep (around 2-3AM, that I've been working since then). Listen to this:
I turned off my computer and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Suddenly an idea hit my head regarding to an old project of mine with a great idea for a character, an illustration and a foe for it with a pretty epic layout.
I rapidly came back to my desk but my computer was turned off so I took few stick-notes and a pencil and drew down the layout and composition with some thumbnails and a very rough shape exploration of the foe. Then I took it aside and went to sleep, leaving the idea to rest for the night.
Today I woke up and saw again those ideas, and they were still looking awesome!!
As many of you know already, when an idea hits you, even if you think it is at the moment, it is most likely that this is not the best idea ever. This is why you leave it for the night or even few days. But that didn't happen this time.
The conclusion of my experience
(All the images are my own creation and therefore I own their rights)
