All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy - Part 2

All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy - Part 2

Making modest changes to a busy work routine it will allow you to return to work with more energy

By making modest changes to a busy multitasker’s work routine it will allow the worker to slow down, recharge their batteries, then return to work with more energy, focus, and creativity. There are various ways of adding more free time into a busy work-life, and these include –

• Days off;
• Work-free weekends;
• Vacations from technology;
• Post-lunch catnaps;
• No-work evenings; and
• Regular 10-minute work breaks.

Many translators work long hours into the night, particularly freelance translators with families because sometimes the night hours are the only uninterrupted hours available for translating. It can take time to create a routine whereby you get enough sleep, take care of your family, yet still have sufficient quality time to manage your freelance translation business. Taking days off, post-lunch catnaps, and regular 10-minute work breaks are a good start towards managing your translation business whilst taking good care of your health.

The Brain Needs Downtime

When you give your brain downtime, you’re not only improving mental health, you’re allowing ideas to incubate. Because we’re living in such a networked society, we’re at serious risk of becoming victims of information overload. The temptation to ‘just finish this off’ has become too great to resist, and reflection and introspection have become lost arts. But we should know better! Working harder doesn’t always mean working smarter, and sometimes the best thing we can do to improve our mental health and nurture our imagination is to set aside regular periods of time when we simply do nothing.

But then, it’s never really been acceptable to us to simply do nothing. We consider doing nothing as wasting our life, or with irresponsibility. If we’re not really busy we feel guilty, and when we are really busy we get a familiar buzz. We’re defining our lives with our busyness. Constantly checking our emails is a distraction-induced behavior – our brain becomes stimulated and our bloodstream becomes flooded with dopamine. We get such a rush from this that it makes it almost impossible to stop. What we don’t understand is that, without periods of uninterrupted thought, then we’re less likely to experience creativity, personal growth, and insight

Workplace Productivity

Unfortunately, in the workplace work addicts are usually encouraged, and even rewarded. But we know there’s no relationship between working hard and working smart: what we do know, however, is that a workaholic environment may well encourage serious mental and personal health problems, including depression, low morale, substance abuse, relationship breakdown, work harassment, and above average absenteeism. The most effective workers are those who are capable of both acting and reflecting: this means being able to unplug themselves from the compulsion to continue working.

Allowing Ideas to Grow

Having nothing to do, or forcing yourself to do nothing, promotes amazing opportunities to stimulate unconscious thought processes. We’re more likely to generate new and innovative ideas than if we were consciously focusing on trying to resolve a problem. Ideas take time to incubate, which means that the best way to resolve any complex issue is to take time away from the problem – do nothing – simply relax! Translators know this only too well! If you have a difficult source document to translate, or you’re stuck on a certain word or phrase, sometimes all that’s required is for you to step away from the problem and allow your unconscious mind to resolve the issue for you.