The importance of balancing work and rest: why taking time off is essential for creative success

Balancing work and rest is essential for both productivity and creativity. First of all, it’s essential to put in the time and effort to do the work and pursue our creative projects.

Pablo Picasso said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” But then, on the other hand, it’s also important to take breaks and give ourselves time to relax and recharge. As Seneca wrote, “Consult with wisdom, it will advise you not to sit forever at your desk.” Does anyone remember Celebrity Death Match? I’d like to see a contest between Pablo Picasso and Seneca on the subject:

Seneca enters, with a sling, “Do not sit forever at your desk!” he yells, unleashing hell in the form of a few boulders at Picasso. Picasso shields himself with an easel, and in response chucks a volley of cubes at Seneca (I may be missing the point of cubism here). Seneca skids hopelessly on a thousand tiny dice, falls down and breaks his coccyx.

This idea of balance is particularly relevant when it comes to creativity. In a TED talk (thank you Helen, Maker of Things for recommending this to me), Elizabeth Gilbert discusses the idea of “genius” and how it has changed over time*.

In ancient Greece and Rome, citizens believed that genius would visit them rather than being something that they possessed themselves. Gilbert argues that this perspective can be helpful in reducing the pressure we put on ourselves to be “brilliant” or “genius.” By thinking of genius as something that visits us rather than something that we are, we can have a more realistic and healthy relationship with our own creativity.

Ultimately, it’s important to find a balance between putting in the work and taking breaks. If we work too hard and never take a break, we risk burnout and decreased productivity. On the other hand, if we take too many breaks and don’t put in the work, we won’t be able to take advantage of the opportunities for inspiration and creativity that come our way. By finding a balance between work and rest, we can produce our best work and maintain an ability to exist with contentment in the world.

What’s worked for you in terms of a balance between work and rest? Let me know in the comments. Thank you for reading.

*In the early 2000’s, I was lucky enough to appear on an episode of Dave Gorman’s Genius, a Radio 4 show in which Dave Gorman assessed various ideas to see whether they were “genius” or not. Stewart Lee was the guest judge on the programme, and decided that my idea (which wasn’t even mine, it was my then boyfriend’s, who didn’t want to speak on the radio) was not genius at all. The idea was, what if you invented a telephone that allowed you to hear what the person on the other end of the line said just after they hung up the phone. “Genius” it seems, is in any case, highly subjective.

Walk the Pod Series 24 Episode 2 – Transcript

WtP S24E2 | Do not fuss

Introduction

Hello and welcome to Walk the Pod, your daily walking show where I take my podcast for a walk because I don’t have a dog. You take 10 minutes out of the day, to walk in nature and pay attention to what’s directly in front of you. My name is Rachel Wheeley, a podcaster and human in the world trying to figure out how to be. I’m on the cycle path in SW19, Wimbledon, as a cyclist zooms past on the bike track to my left.

Kids are whooping and hollering in the Wimbledon Chase Primary School to my right. And the trees are resplendent above me with their little buds. No leaves, but those little buds promises what’s to come. absolutely delighted to be here walking with you again this lunchtime as a very tall person comes towards me with a tiny baby attached to their chest by means of a sling and somebody behind them pushing a pram.

I’ve got Stoics on the Cycle Path for you today, Poddies. Not Seneca today, but Marcus Aurelius, another wise person who knew how to survive 2022 2000 years ago and will be paying attention to what’s directly in front of us of course, as we always do.

Welcome to Walk the Pod.

Paying attention to what’s directly in front of me

My lovely friend Ariana sent me a message just now saying it’s mild out and it is mild out. So actually, it’s really quite pleasant out here today and can’t see the sun. It’s kind of grey and mis. Or at least it looks grey from inside but it’s actually actually warm. And I can see a tiny speck of blue sky. A little pinhole in the clouds shows me that the blue sky is still up there. And there’s some kids kicking a football around on the field. The Thameslink train is going over the railway bridge in the distance very much business as usual on the cycle path this afternoon.

There are 1000 million scooters parked up just inside the chain link fence in the primary school and walking past a prescription on the floor sure we’ll see what it’s for. I don’t know whether Can you read other people’s prescriptions? I think if they’ve dropped them on the floor you can cite slight dizziness other thing I don’t know.

Stoics on the Cycle Path

We were talking yesterday about friendship. Seneca was advising his friend to be very slow, to make a friend to spend a good while passing judgement on somebody before accepting them as a friend. But then to embrace them wholeheartedly.

And today’s Stoics on the Cycle Path is from Marcus Aurelius. Now another very, very wise person who I’ve often gone to for advice. Marcus Aurelius wrote a book called Meditations, which essentially was him just jotting down things to himself. sayings that he’d heard from other places. Wise mottos he had picked up from around the place and at the beginning of Meditations, he lists all his mentors and people who’ve given him wise advice over the years.

And he just kept writing these things down until you had books and books and books of them. This one is from book six. And it is the 27th entry in book six. He says,

“How cruel it is not to allow people to strive for what seems to them, their interest and advantage. And yet in a way, you are forbidding them to do this. When you fast that they are wrong. They are surely drawn to their own interest in advantage. But it is not actually so well then teach them show them do not fuss.”

And this is a big theme of Marcus’s Meditations, the idea that he should just be a good person. Don’t wang on to other people about how good you are. Or try to try to sort of humble brag your way through life, explaining to people how wise you are just just demonstrate it by being a good person.

And here, I think he’s saying, let other people pursue whatever seems right to them, even if it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to you. And that is pretty good advice, I think because we can expend an enormous amount of energy wondering why other people do and say all the things other people do and say. It’s, ultimately, wasted energy that we’re never gonna get back. best just to think well, different people like different things. Get on with our own lives.

If you have a favourite piece of Stoic philosophy, do share it with me because I’m very happy to share other people’s favourite bits of Stoic philosophy. And let’s see whether we can glean any wisdom together out of it.

You can email: rach@rachelwheeley.com. You can go to walkthepod.com and press the button marked ‘message.’ And you can leave me 59 seconds of your beautiful voice. You can go to my Instagram @walkthepod you can press the button marked contact. And I was really hoping that will take you to my whatsapp, but apparently it isn’t quite that straightforward.

But see if you can see if you can navigate that. Nigel of Galicia very kindly had a go at that for me yesterday, it doesn’t entirely work. I’m gonna keep working on it, but he’s gonna keep working on it

Daily walking is good for you

it’s nice having a walk. I don’t know whether you’re in the habit of having a daily walk away from your desk at lunchtime. But I highly recommend it. If you’re listening to this podcast while you’re indoors, that is allowed. I’m not going to ban you from listening. But I would much prefer you to use the podcast as an excuse to get out the door at lunchtime have a walk.

Only listen to the podcast while you’re walking and just see what happens. I think you might be surprised by the mental health and physical health benefits of daily walking around your local area particularly if you have some nature around you. And particularly if you have a dog.

I don’t have a dog but I might just take my podcast for walks as if it’s a dog. That’s a normal thing to do. I can see loads of pups in the distance over there. My favourite type of dog little brown dogs are not good at identifying dogs, little brown dogs saying hello to each other.

New kittens on the block

Also, very excitingly, have some kittens, new kittens on my block where I live. So I was watching them this morning. One of them which is white with grey splodges likes to sit under the hedge and watch people walking around. And so it goes and sits in its usual spot every morning and has a good has a good look at everybody whilst keeping nice and safe under the hedge so that was entertaining.

And then of course we also have many squirrels that live where I live so I always have fun watching them as well. I managed to get a picture of one this morning, but it will my lens clips going if you know lens, it’s like Instagram stories, but it’s for Patreon. So, the pod walking club got pictures of the squirrel.

Every squirrel is called Peanut by the way, I don’t know whether you know that. But I’m got the pictures of peanuts this morning. So it’s quite proud to have captured it. One of them is have a picture of a squirrel the other one is a half a squirrel as it leapt out of the out of the shot as I was trying to take a second picture of it just walking under the railway bridge now as you can probably hear sound changes ever so slightly.

It’s kind of windy today. So if you’re getting a lot of wind noise I apologise why I’m trying to trying to baffle it with my very high tech solution of the cuff of a gardening glove which I’ve cut off the bottom of the said garden glove and have looped over the bottom of my phone in order to create a bit of a baffle from wind noise. This is what this is what 10 years of BBC sound engineering teaches you how to baffle with noise from your podcast. That was not time wasted, was it?

Outro

Anyway, listen, I think it’s time I went now I’ve got to go and do a few errands. But um, because I’m not working this week, I’m resting this week. Getting better from the surgery I had a couple of weeks ago. And so I’ve got a few errands to do not actually working afternoon. But thank you for walking with me as ever.

And I am going to be back tomorrow with another daily episode of Walk the Pod. So remember, if you want to take me up on my challenge, to listen to the next episode, on a lunchtime walk, and then you can always report back to me how it went. And one of the ways that I mentioned earlier you can also tweet me @rachelwheeley if you like that sort of thing. So take care of your beautiful mind this afternoon. And I look forward to speaking to you again tomorrow.

https://anchor.fm/rachelwheeleyisfunny/episodes/WtP-S24E2–Do-not-fuss-e1e3rh0

Walk the Pod Series 24 Episode 1 – Transcript

Introduction

Hello and welcome to Walk the Pod, your daily walking show where I take my podcast for a walk because I don’t have a dog, you take 10 minutes out of the day, to walk in nature and to pay attention to what’s directly in front of you.

My name is Rachel Wheeley, a comedian and human in the world trying to figure out how to be. Welcome to Series 24. Very, very excited to bring you this brand new series, a series which I’m recording while I’m off work. I am not working at the moment because I am sick.

Now I’m not 100% sick, not bed bound sick, but I was in hospital last week following some breathing difficulties I was having in the previous few series. Some of you pointed out to me at various points, Rach, you need to sort your breathing out because it’s getting a bit worrying.

And I’ve now had it sorted out but I’m resting because it takes a while to recover from surgery it turns out, despite my hopes that I would just bounce back and be back, completely better by this point. It’s not quite that simple. So I think I sound okay, I sound well but I’m I’m tired, I’m tiring easily. And so I’ve got to take it a little bit easy.

Leaving the flat

So I’m starting recording this episode in my flat and I’m going to open the front door now step out into my little patch of grass outside my flat and lock up, obviously, very important.

Got to lock up properly.

And here we are right now I am on the road, just outside my flat and proceeding towards the bike track. Very exciting to be going back towards my beloved bike track for the beginning of a brand new series. Welcome to walk the pod.

Welcome to Series 24

If you’re new to the podcast, welcome along. I’ve been Instagramming my butt off. So I hope that a few people have come to listen to the show having found my Instagram account. Social media can get in a bin obviously, but Instagram seems to be okay. It does seem to be doing my head in a bit less than some of the other ones. So I’m sticking with that.

Apologies for any coughing on the podcast

Now I’ve got to apologise in advance for any coughing and spluttering if that happens on the episode today. I’m not 100% better and still a little bit prone to the occasional coughing fit. But I’ll try and keep that to an absolute minimum, Poddies, obviously. How the devil are you. I hope you are having a good day – Monday the beginning of a new week. And as you can hear, the kids are out in the Wimbledon Chase primary school playground, whooping and hollering and running around, which is always lovely to hear.

It’s the most beautiful day in the world

It’s the most beautiful day in the world, the sun is shining.

And there’s lots of fluffy clouds in the sky.

Couple of vapour trails and there’s a little bit of a breeze as well. A little bit breezy today as I walk past a Type II mask on the floor. This is going to be the next problem we have to deal with is how we cope with all of the masks and all of the little tiny bits of lateral flow device tests that are all over the place now. Got to clean all of that up at some stage. Not the pandemic is over yet. But you know, it’s gonna be it’s gonna be an ongoing issue.

An oak tree, in bud

Walking under an oak tree, which has got some beautiful sticky buds on the end of all the branches. Which is exciting because it’s like, this is the new the new spring life that’s going to be exploding onto the scene in a few weeks time. So really, really exciting to see that. I was reading an amazing article by somebody called now can I remember her name? Beronda Montgomery who wrote this article, which was saying that in the winter, we get to see the naked trunks of the trees.

And what we can see from the naked trunks of the trees, is basically the history of that tree. The architecture of the trunk tells us so much about the trauma that that tree has suffered in the course of its life. And the point she was making is that trees don’t rush to heal from trauma, they take their time. Quite often, they’re trying to balance sort of protection of a wound from the environment with the sort of ongoing restructuring that it might want to do in order to avoid rushing to heal a wound to quickly and cause problems in the long term.

And I read that article on a day when I was considering whether I go straight back to work or not after my time in hospital, whether could I actually do a day’s work? I mean, I probably just about good. I read this article, and I was like, No, absolutely not. I need to take more time to heal because the the impact, the long term impact of rushing back to work could be significant in ways that I can’t really predict.

For those of you who who haven’t been following this entire story, I was suffering from some breathlessness. Like, for months and months I’ve been suffering from breathlessness and people listening to the podcast have noticed me taking this huge deep breath in the middle of sentences.

And it all came to a head a couple of weeks ago, and I went to hospital and was diagnosed with subglottic stenosis, which basically means my windpipe was narrow, which all stems back to an operation I had when I was 15 months old, apparently, which is absolutely insane.

But that apart from anything else that just goes to show that something can have a kind of a long term impact on your health.You know, I mean, it’s kind of, not really when you think about it. But apparently, that’s what’s happened.

Chatsworth Avenue

Just walking past the end of Chatsworth Avenue in the Wimbledon Chase Conservation Area. Anyway, I wanted to welcome you all very warmly to a new series of the podcast. I’m so excited to be bringing you a new series, I’ve got some new things I want to include. In every episode of this series.

There’ll be 15 episodes, five episodes a week, Monday to Friday, daily walking episode for you. My challenge to you is to take a break from your desk at lunchtime. Use the podcast as a reason to get out the front door. Don’t listen to this podcast in your house. Tell yourself you’re only going to listen to this podcast whilst on your lunchtime walks. And I’m going to bring you Stoics on the Cycle Path which is the new What Would Marcus Do? For those who remember the series where we read from Marcus Aurelius Meditations everyday? Well, this series I am going to be adding in other Stoic philosophers. So I’m going to call it Stoics on the Cycle Path instead, that’s okay. And today’s Stoics on the Cycle Path comes from not Marcus Aurelius, but Lucia Seneca.

Stoics on the Cycle Path

This is from Lucius Seneca and is from a letter that Seneca wrote on friendship.

“I would encourage you to discuss everything with a friend, but first of all, discuss the person themselves. When friendship has just begun, you must trust before friendship is formed, you must pass judgement. Most people pass the judgement after the friendship is formed, violating the rules instead of making him their friend after they have judged him. Contemplate for a long time, whether you shall grant a person your friendship, but when you have decided to allow it, welcome him or her with all your heart and soul.”

So Seneca goes on to talk about in his letter, the idea that you should talk to your friends as you talk to yourself. Now in order to talk to your friends, as you talk to yourself, you need to choose very wisely the friends you wish to keep because friends not just everybody we meet, you know, Facebook would tell you that friends are anyone you’ve ever met, or random people that you have worked with 20 years ago, you know, all of this thing, but actually actual friends like real friends, we need to be quite discerning about who we decide to have as our friends. And arguably, I think Seneca saying we need to spend quite a bit of time deciding whether someone is going to be our friend or not, before we decide that they are going to be joining, joining us in that in that way, and then sort of throw yourself wholeheartedly into it. I think it’s the point he’s trying to make. Which is interesting.

You know, the modern world kind of suggests that we just sort of casually make acquaintances and all of those people are our friends. But Seneca is arguing that we need to be a bit more careful.

What We Do in the Shadows

And I’ve been watching a brilliant TV series recently called What We Do In The Shadows, the Walk the Pod walking club is actually going to be watching what we do in the Shadows, the film, which is a 2014 film on Friday evening, this week, but I’ve been watching the TV series as well, because I’m saving the film for Friday Night Film Club having not seen it before. And in that series is an energy vampire. And I’m fascinated by this idea.

Colin

Now the energy vampire in What We Do In The Shadows is called Colin, and is the kind of classic Energy Vampire, a white balding, middle aged man who bores people that he’s talking to, to death, literally, with his tedious conversation now, I would argue that there are many other kinds of energy vampires. Or you could say Emotional Vampires out there people who, people who are extremely charismatic.

Charismatic energy vampires

So it’s, it’s not always boring people to death, you can be an extremely charismatic energy vampire. I think the thing that classifies energy vampires to me is somebody who has lots of problems and takes responsibility for none of it, putting all of those problems onto other people who have let them down in various ways.

And those people will continue to find that people let them down. And something which I’ve been very interested in over the last couple of years is the extent to which there are people you meet, who for whom nothing is a problem, they make heavy weather of precisely nothing at all. Nothing that you do, can possibly bother them, nothing that happens to them can possibly bother them.

And they find ways of exploring. They find ways of exploring the joys available in the situation available to them, as opposed to dreaming of joys in a situation that they are not placed in. And then there are other people for whom the things I do as a casual acquaintance are very problematic to them, they make very heavy weather, if at all, this is terrible thing that you’ve done, oh, you’ve really let me down, you’ve really made everything awful, you’ve ruined my life.

And then, it’s just interesting that that there are some people for whom that is never something they would say, and other people for whom that is always something they would say. Thus, we find ourselves surrounded by emotional and energy vampires.

And I think it’s, it’s just, it’s just fascinating that Seneca, writing 2000 years ago, knew about this, and has written it all down for us to read. And yet none of us really are aware of it. So that’s just something to think about. Today.

That’s your stoics from the psychopath section today.

Get in touch

If you have any thoughts about that, you can email me: rach@rachelwheeley.com, you can go to walkthepod.com you can press the button marked message and you can leave me 59 seconds of your beautiful voice on friendship, emotional Vampires or anything else is makes you think of and I’ve managed somehow in a way that has completely broken my WhatsApp account, but I’ve managed somehow to put my WhatsApp account on my Instagram so if you want to send me a voice message, which is longer than 59 seconds of your beautiful voice. You can go to @walkthepod on Instagram, press contact, choose the WhatsApp option and you can leave me a voice note there.

This may have put my mobile phone number on the internet for all to see. I’m not entirely sure. It’s certainly broken my WhatsApp account because it now won’t let me into the original WhatsApp account. I’m only allowed into the business WhatsApp it down. But look, I love you guys and it’s worth it. Okay, so leave me a voice note via WhatsApp if you’d like to.

Outro

Well, I’ve walked most of the length of the cycle path and most of the way back and I feel fine. So that’s very good. I think that’s a very good start, I apologise again, for coughing, spluttering and generally not being quite 100% on this episode, but I’m keen to bring you this new series. And I think it’s worth pushing through any sort of temporary problems in order to get the new series up and running.

A formal invitation to join the Walk the Pod walking club

So thank you so much for walking with me. As ever. I want to make a formal invitation to you to join the Walk the Pod walking club because it’s ideal to get in at the beginning of a new series so you can take advantage of the new series energy that there is on the Discord server, go to rachelwheeleyisfunny.com and join up on the walking club for daily Lens clips behind the scenes of The Walking of the podcast. For access to the Walk the Pod Discord server, where you can chat to walkers all over the world and seasonal postcards from the cycle path which I have posted this morning to everyone in this in the walking club in the moment but it is not too late. He joined up today. I will send you your very own seasonal postcard from the bike track today.

Take care of your beautiful mind.

I have a an Eleanor Roosevelt, quote to leave you with which is “Happiness is not a goal. It’s a byproduct of a life well lived.”

I’ll speak to you tomorrow

S35E14 | Nature for two hours a week – Walk the Pod

Nature can be highly beneficial for the mental and physical health, and you only need access to it for a couple of hours a week. — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rachelwheeleyisfunny/message

1. S35E14 | Nature for two hours a week 12:08
2. S35E13 | Local nature 11:27
3. S35E12 | Nature deficit disorder 11:06
4. S35E11 | Ecopsychology – proof that nature helps 13:04
5. S35E10 | What counts as nature? 11:35