It’s amazing how always being busy blinds you to the fact that it is blinding you. You think that you are clear-headed and thinking rationally while keeping the big picture in mind, but really you’re just reacting in a narrow way to whatever narrow problem is capturing your immediate attention.

I definitely believe our brains were meant to experience healthy alternation between periods of intense mental focus and periods of near total mental relaxation. I think the ideal situation would be very close to binary for most people: you’re either “on” or “off.”

I think that there’s something to be said for applying this at a micro and a macro level. Taking 5–20 minutes of relaxation during every hour of focus, taking one of every seven days off, or like you mention, taking at least one week off a year (and I’d maybe say at least one a quarter).

I almost view focus and concentration as a muscle. You frequently want it to contract, but then afterwards you have to let it relax.