What's Your Secret Butter?
Because it's been a year and we all deserve a little treat.
Friday Thread: What’s Your Productivity Rebellion?
On Monday,
texted me a photo of a puzzle. “My childcare is in shambles, I am supposed to be working right now, and I have been doing this for over an hour,” she said. On Tuesday, I texted her a photo of the puzzle-in-progress on my coffee table. “The kids don’t get home for another two hours,” I wrote.During 2020 lockdown life, I wrote a New York Times essay about hiding in my car in the grocery store parking lot to eat sushi by myself. And I still love a secret food ritual as self-care, but I can also see how grasping for that extra 15 minutes(!!!) to myself was not a solution or a rebellion—so much as it was proof of how overwhelmed I was then.
I’m not sure if it’s any better that the most decadent rebellion we can come with during a high burnout week is… a few hours of clandestine puzzling. But it was pretty delightful. (I also watched two episodes of Bridgerton, if that helps spice it up?Yes, very late to that party, but now obsessed.) And I noticed that I was less frazzled by the usual work-to-parenting transition after school, plus our afternoon activities and evening routine went a little more smoothly.
Because I am accountable to you, my paid subscribers, and also a recovering workaholic, I feel compelled to explain that this puzzle break came after a relatively productive work morning, not to mention a wildly productive work year. But even if it hadn’t—I’m trying to break up with the idea that rest has to be earned. Sara needed a puzzling morning. I needed a puzzling afternoon. Sometimes rest needs to happen. No further explanation required.
I’m hoping we’re all about to log off for a chunk of rest, whether that’s happening with your people or by yourself or ideally, a mix of both. (Totally agree with
’s formula for holiday joy.) I’m promising myself at least one very puzzle-y day over winter break, and hopefully also a good amount of lazy reading and movie watching, along with all of the holiday chaos. But wouldn’t it be great if we could fit more breaks into our life all year round, and not only when the school calendar mandates them? I can’t quite imagine what that would look like, but I think it starts by claiming your time and space, without apology.