Name: Rest
Rating: 4.5 (307 reviews)
Author: Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

What’s in it for you? A Silicon Valley strategist’s guide to beating burnout.

Overwork is the new work. Today’s world is shaped by near-limitless connectivity. Even when you’re not in the office, you’re never more than a few seconds away from your email account. Then there’s the old dogma that success is all about grinding out long hours at your desk. Combine the two, and you end up with a work culture that encourages burnout.

That’s something Silicon Valley strategist Alex Soojung-Kim Pang knows all about.

After years of pushing himself to the limit, he took a sabbatical. Living a life of leisure for a few months wasn’t just a luxury – he quickly realized that he was getting more serious work done than ever before.

That got him thinking. What would a different, healthier and saner work culture look like?

After sifting through the latest empirical scientific evidence, he came up with an answer: it’d make much more room for rest, relaxation and recovery.

As these blinks will show, getting a good night’s sleep, taking a vacation and nurturing your hobbies doesn’t just keep you in top physical and mental health; it also does wonders for creativity, concentration and cognitive performance.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why your best work often comes when you’re not thinking;
how exercise can boost your cognitive prowess; and
why Winston Churchill took time out from running the United Kingdom to paint.

Choosing the right moment to put down the tools and quit works wonders for your creativity.

There’s a saying that it’s best to quit while you’re ahead. It’s a great motto to remember when you’re working. Choosing the right moment to stop greatly supports your creativity.

That’s because there’s nothing worse than overextending yourself. If you’ve just nailed a brilliant scene in your screenplay, don’t try to top it in the very next scene. Leave the next line half-finished and come back to it tomorrow. Who knows what your subconscious will have come up with by then.

Get a good night’s sleep to prep your brain for tomorrow’s work.

Beauty sleep? More like brain sleep!

Sleep it off isn’t just a miracle cure for hangovers, bad days at the office and break-ups; it also fights brain toxins. In fact, sleep helps repair your whole body. That’s because while you sleep, your body is restoring depleted energy levels and repairing or growing cells.

Prevent burnout by taking time out to rest and recover.

In every company, there’s that guy who’s clocked in every single day and hasn’t taken one vacation day in the last 15 years.

Although this is often celebrated as a great example of hard work and dedication, it’s not healthy. In fact, as we’ll soon find out, he’s probably on the verge of a burnout.

Key ideas in Rest

What is Rest about?

Rest (2016) takes aim at the common misconception that the longer we work, the more we’re able to get done. Written by a Silicon Valley strategist whose punishing regimen of long office hours brought him perilously close to a burnout, this empirically grounded study turns that idea on its head. Hitting your targets and achieving success isn’t about grinding out endless hours at your desk – it’s about finding the best time to work, getting enough rest and nurturing your creativity.

About the Author

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang is the founder of the Restful Company, a consultancy firm based in Silicon Valley that teaches organizations how to cultivate a better work-life balance through talks and workshops. A visiting fellow at Stanford University, Pang is the author of The Distraction Addiction. He has also written for Slate, Wired, Atlantic Monthly and Scientific American.