My Seven Mental Breaks

I got many directions in a day between work, daily home tasks with my wife, volunteer responsibilities, and a Milky Way of thoughts and things to accomplish. I enjoy daydreaming; I aim to limit my time in this realm only because I can spend more time there than doing what I need to do to get there. Pretty much anything I enjoy, I tend to want too much; that is the lifestyle of an addictive mind. The work it takes to manage everything that changes how you feel pales compared to the chaos and sadness accompanied by excess when left to my mind’s devices.

I’m working on three separate book projects, consistently working to get two published in mid-autumn 2022. I know a year away sounds like a long time for some, but it goes quickly when I’m writing, editing, rewriting, editing, creating covers, and final editing. My rule of thumb is 6-7 months for writing, a month for each of the other parts of the process, for a total of 11-12 months.

I have a more challenging time doing anything else creative when I’m in writing mode in the other piece of my writing. It seems to reduce the creative juice and motivation for closed-the-door sessions, food in a bowl, and & tea and showers as a last resort.

I’ve tried the writing each-day approach, but it didn’t work past day three. Next, I found success in recording my writing and transcribing it into editable and addable text; the exciting thing was that the editing took longer than the writing period, so it was not super-efficient. I’ve attempted using varied tech, writing two books on an iPad and the last one on Google Sheets. I did kind of like the iPad experience at hours in coffee shops, a very old-school with new technology experience I’ll always treasure.

My seven mental breaks during the day are the following I highly recommend:

1. Walk outside into the sunshine

2. Exercise until you sweat a bit

3. Talk to your partner about how you can help them, not about you for change

4. Call someone you’ve not talked with recently

5. Listen to old or new music you’ve not explored much

6. Drink coffee in the shower

7. Watch AGT (Australia’s Got Talent) on YouTube

The little breaks when I remember to do them are priceless at filling my creative well-back up. I enjoy carrying on with whatever I’m doing- work, play, creative, focused, fun, etc. It is a nice shot of goodness; nothing in my seven involves the horrifying news or headline-grabbing sensationalism of someone in decline or a misstep (like them or not). The negative takes more than its fair share of my energy to create things; I feel it’s our natural percentage of survival juice; 70% of human wiring is focused on staying alive. Our remaining 30% is the other good bits like love, patience, kindness, curiosity, guilt, anger, and sadness. I’m grateful I’ve met several people, hopefully, more in my life who have figured out how to set their intention to live in the 30% versus the predetermined 70%. The mental breaks help me live a more creative and joyful existence, and I suppose 30% more. Wishing you all the best in finding your 30. I leave all of you lovely people with this quote:

“I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.” - Mother Teresa

-Bryan