school work the demands of life
it all seems to be going well until one
day we hit a wall
and it's as if we can't even muster up
the energy to perform the most basic of
tasks like getting up
from being horizontal for anyone who's
feeling this way
i don't want to do anything
i feel you
[Music]
when we think of the word productivity
we often think of getting as much work
done as
possible but what if i told you one of
the secrets to optimal productivity
and one of the secrets to some of the
most productive people
is actually learning how to rest
think back to the last time you slowed
down listened to your body
and gave yourself space to breathe and
just be
i'm guessing for most of us it was some
time in the distant past
a past that may seem like a lifetime ago
which is
why our paths crossed in the making
and the watching of this video so what
can we do
when we don't feel like doing anything
the first thing for deep rest is
to really carve out time i had
so much resistance even just five
minutes before i turned on the camera
and started filming where i felt like i
just didn't want to do anything
i didn't want to film i didn't want to
film myself relaxing i just wanted to
lay there but i reminded myself
this is actually the worst state to be
in which is you don't want to do
anything but you feel like you're forced
to do something
so you end up doing that thing in a very
like upset
mood and upset state when i change my
when i change my thinking on this and
refrain myself to remind myself that the
first thing
is to be very intentional with when you
choose to potato
i was like yes i'm gonna spend the rest
of the afternoon potatoing
without any guilt without any shame and
just
enjoy it reminding myself that the very
first thing
is to be intentional with resting
completely changed
my outlook and just made me excited to
want to start cleaning and want to start
filming myself cleaning and doing the
things i'm going to be doing throughout
this video
whether it's a day half a day an hour or
even 10 minutes we all got 10 minutes
commit to giving yourself a break
not this kind of break though we're
gonna address this enough in a second as
cal newport mentioned in his tedx talk
that i'll link down below
the less fragmented our attention is the
more we're able to preserve our ability
to concentrate
whether we're working or resting this
will help us work deeply when we're
working
so that we can rest deeply when we rest
which brings us to the second point of
putting away
technology including cal newport once
again the author of deep work and
digital minimalism
he defines solitude deprivation as a
state in which you spend close to zero
time alone with your own thoughts
and free from input from other minds i
feel like this is how
we've all more or less been spending our
days yes
although i often listen to audiobooks
while flailing around my apartment and
cleaning doing whatever it is that i do
in the name of deep resting let's spend
that afternoon in silence so that i can
bask in the glory of my own thoughts
it should come to no one's surprise that
cleaning is something that
sparks immense joy to me it's a form of
active resting because it gives me time
to think
all the while helping me create an
environment that i'll be able to
eventually
rest deeply in i'm the type of person
who won't be able to truly rest until my
space is relatively tidy but if you're
not this type of person you can skip the
cleaning and go straight to setting the
mood for
your deep resting activities whatever
you know will help you rest deeply
do that you can even skip all of the
above turn off your
lights and start deep hibernating
why not now that we've committed to
resting we put our phones away and we've
set the mood
continue to sway teeth run or
go with the flow and go where your heart
leads you even though your deep rest may
be intentional
and or scheduled it doesn't mean you
have to plan for everything you need to
do ahead of time and make sure you stick
on schedule and check all the boxes off
that's not the rest that we're looking
for and that's not true
rest so leave room to be spontaneous
like unboxing silly things are they
excited about
let's put this up all these beads
are apparently supposed to dissolve over
time
and fall into here these
are from a brand called i cannot
pronounce it
h b i s k
i saw it on kaya kinda cool's
youtube channel and there's also these
other bags that i saw that are woven
they're so cute
so i also got those i do this thing
where i don't spend any money for
extended periods of time and i save all
of my money and then
there will be a day where i'll spend
like more than i should
here is this one i'm not sure if i'm a
fan of this color
this one was the one that was super
excited to get
i discovered very recently that green is
my color
like this bag i love the detail here
and how it's this
package is from all right
two necklaces and a couple of rings
one thing i'm saying while editing these
clips is how genuinely happy i look
it's less about the things really and
more about the endless possibilities of
putting outfits together
this is something i used to spend
countless hours on in my childhood
bedroom before getting lost
in the busyness of life anyway i got so
excited putting on these pieces that i
forgot to utter a single word
jewelry is also something i've been
meaning to look into so i'm incredibly
grateful to all right for sponsoring
today's video
they're a fine jolie brand with pieces
ranging from classics to statements that
could be just
up or down to add a little oomph to any
outfit i love that i never have to take
these off because they're made from real
gold
to me aure is like the warby parker of
jewelry hacking the market and cutting
out the middleman to make gold more
accessible while giving women high
quality pieces with
beautiful designs at affordable price
points while doing good
and giving back other materials are
ethically sourced and sustainably made
if you'd like to check out or write for
yourself you can get 15
off your first purchase go to ora
newyork.com
a-u-r-a-t-e newyork.com
rowena and use my code rowena alrighty
we've done a lot in the apartment the
sun's about to set
i want to go catch the sunset all for
being spontaneous right
what it's what deep resting means you
can plan to de-breast
but what you do during the periods of
deep resting
can be up to you you can be spontaneous
let's go
and like the art of doing nothing when
was the last time
you were bored i remember
growing up in the 90s i was constantly
bored with my cousins so we'd come up
with all these games
all these imaginary friends and just we
would just play
and we would be creative because we were
bored and it's in those moments of
boredom
where it just it forces you in a good
way
to be as creative as you can and it's
truly in boredom where some of the best
ideas
come from when we're young we needed to
rest deeply in the form of sleep so we
can physically grow
now that we're older we need to rest
deeply for us to mentally
and spiritually grow quoting an article
i'll link down below
believe it or not being fine with being
bored can be one of the toughest things
to achieve these days
our culture of connectivity means that
whenever we have any downtime whatsoever
we should strive to fill it in any way
possible be that consciously
or subconsciously but that's the trick
having some time to simply daydream or
stare into space
has real value in the road to deep rest
as boredom by definition is deep
[Music]
rest
let's try this one more time
so something that i've been background
processing a lot lately
and something that's been low-key
painting me
i feel like like there's a generation of
kids
that feel like they need to be like they
feel like they need to have everything
together by the time they're like 13.
there's high schoolers applying for
internships at tech startups there's
high schoolers reaching out to me to
help work on my channel which i think
it's amazing they want to work hard they
want to
learn they want to grow professionally
in all of these ways
but a part of me can't help but feel
like it pains me like it actually pains
me to
see how
to see where i was a few years ago and
like how hard i was working
as like a young adult the burnouts that
i'm going through all the stresses all
of like the mental health stuff that i
was trying to balance along with all of
this
as a 20 something year old almost 30
year old trying to navigate
your life who you are what you want to
do with your life and trying to balance
all of that with work that's already
hard
but thinking back to like 13 or even
high school
it's such a pivotal time in your life to
explore to enjoy to discover
to meet people to talk to people to
learn about things that you want to
learn about
but during this time i feel like if
you're
just so focused on working on your
career
on school on getting good grades on all
of these things which honestly there's
nothing wrong with
but this takes us back to the deep work
and the deep rest i think a lot of us
myself included for most of my life or
know for most of the past
like five years every single egg that i
have was put
in the deep working basket or like the
work productivity
trying to do something with my life
basket no eggs were put into the resting
bask and i think this is
this is the imbalance and this is
probably what's leading
generations of us like multi generations
into the state that we're currently in
we're super stressed
we're always almost burning out we feel
like we need to do all of these things
we feel like we need to be all of these
people all at once and we feel like we
need to be perfect we feel like we need
to do
all of these things so that we can live
up to our peers we seldom take the time
to go inward and ask ourselves
what do you want and who do you want to
be and what is important to you and i
think
it is through this inward journey
of sitting yourself down can be a quiet
place
can be after a day of deep resting and
you're like
what do i want to do who do i want to be
and if the answer is i don't know
that's totally fine totally fine the
older i've gotten the more that i've
realized
truly that cliche quote of the more you
know
the more you know you don't know and
there's also beauty in
accepting that that it's okay to not
know
that we don't need to know despite what
society may tell us despite what our
parents may tell us
is by what our peers may tell us at the
end of the day
so long as you're trying to do your best
exactly where you are with what you have
that is more than enough
and i feel like if i can go back even in
a little time capsule back to five years
ago when rowena first started this
youtube journey
and started making videos i would tell
her that
you know like yes it's important to work
hard and it's important to
be productive and optimize your schedule
it's more important
to take good care of yourself and to
take good care of your heart because at
the end of the day
we say this all the time works always
going to be there
and like yeah our hearts always going to
be there too but the state of our heart
whether our heart is in a good place
whether it's in a bad place
whether it's stress all the time whether
it's joyful and happy all the time like
that's
it's important to check in with their
hearts our mind our body and our hearts
stay young
stay fun stay happy
and yeah just don't don't work yourself
too hard
if no one's told you recently you're
doing great
exactly where you are it's okay if you
do two less things you'll be just as
awesome as you currently are
you could see yourself be kind to
yourselves be kind to each other
if you see your friends stressing if you
see your friends struggling
remind them that they're good that
they're doing great sweetie you're doing
great sweetie we're doing great sweetie
with that oh here's a hug
just knock my candle over all right
remember to
deep rest as hard as you try to deep
work
see you guys in the next episode
all right see ya