Taking regular breaks to improve productivity and motivation is a hack most High Performers LOVE to know about in January!

We tend to remember it in January but forget it by February, yes?

We forget it because when we are in our CREATIVE FLOW the last thing we want to do is to take a break.

And soon we find that hours have gone and we have not eaten or slept.

If we are writers, what we have written is incoherent.

If we are entrepreneurs what we have designed is complex and difficult to sell.

If we are creatives what we have created is a seed of an idea that needs more nurturing.

If we are Leaders we are already running with it burning ourselves out and our team most probably causing resentment that we could have prevented.

Perhaps it is the perfectionist in us that stops us from taking the regular break.

And the perfectionist in us will by February trash the first shitty draft we did in January.

But it is the first shitty draft and from the shit the flowers grow yes?

Being The Muslim Alchemist I am going to say let us transform the shit into GOLD….yes that shitty draft to a second draft then to a third to the thousandth and then edited a thousand times to the final published version…the GOLD.

Imagine if JK Rowling had trashed her first shitty draft of Harry Potter we never would have experienced the magical world that GOLD!

Can you see taking regular breaks provides us with the final version?

Can you understand she took breaks and that is how Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone was published?

An Empire was not built in a day so why do we think we can write a book or build a business or build a relationship in a day?

I know a writer who has been working on a book for more than ten years. I speak to her often as she is my accountability partner. She tells me she works on it most weeks but there are weeks she takes off to replenish and let her creative brain rest.

This is in contrast to an Online Coach who I knew who used to do Livestreams that lasted hours.

Come on one needs a toilet break at least but this Coach and her audience clearly didn’t?

Well they did but clearly they thought they didn’t.

I watched one that went on for three hours but I left it after the third hour. She was gripping. I was enthralled but never enough not to think about my physical comfort. She actually boasted that the content that she created meant she did not eat or sleep for days.

3 years later she confided how those livestreams burnt her out. She confided how spiritually confused she was and how she attracted the spiritually confused. I witnessed how she lost the motivation of selling a modality that she had made millions from.

So this is a lesson and reminder for you the visionary entrepreneur or innovative leader. Or perhaps you are both.

If you are FLOWING remember to take regular breaks for meals, toilet breaks, sleep, exercise, family and friends.

I know this may seem like common sense but common sense is not very common especially when your creative juices are FLOWING.

I recall in October 2023 I was in full flow writing these articles for this very website and I wrote 4 in 3 hours.

Guess what that evening on 12th October 2023 I went to wash my feet in the basin and lost balance and falling on my wrist, broke my wrist.

My arm was in plaster for the next month.

I now am suffering from Carpal tunnel syndrome.

Now I am The Muslim Alchemist that is what I am known as Online.

However I am not God. I am still a human being who falls, makes mistakes and gets hurt.

And like most Workaholics like you tend to need reminding of the importance of taking regular breaks.

Yes even recovered workaholics like me and you need this reminder because we can easily fall off the wagon.

Unlike alcohol which can be physically seen our addiction is so invisible sometimes we can fool ourselves that it is not work when it is.

Our poison is what we gravitate towards….work.

It feels like our medicine.

But it is our poison because we are human beings not machines that need to pace ourselves and take regular breaks. 

So we can replenish our minds, bodies and spirit.

Even machines need charging.

What is an Alchemist you ask?

Well it is one who can transform base metals into GOLD. In other words the shit in your life into GOLD.

But let me tell you this even though I am the Muslim Alchemist.

We are all alchemists actually.

Most of us just don’t know this.

And even when we do.

This is what you need to remember.

That transformation cannot happen without the break.

That transformation cannot happen without the rest.

That transformation cannot happen without the reflection and the replenishment.

So let us remind ourselves to take the regular break by using these smart phones we have and instead of scrolling Facebook let us set an alarm for lunch, breakfast and dinner, for meditation and physical exercise.

I have alarms since my accident and breaking my wrist for my physiotherapy exercises for my carpal tunnel syndrome.

And that reminds me I need to go and do them. And take a break now from writing.

If you find it a real challenge taking regular breaks from the work you are doing right now because you are in the middle of a very interesting creative project,  why don’t you book a consultation with me. I can give you some simple strategies that will enable you to take those regular breaks and I will give you some other productivity hacks too.

Some of those strategies may be the ones I gave to client L a Coach I worked with in 2020. She found it hard to take breaks and when she worked with me after taking a month off saw her business revenue soar. Due to the Pandemic she had made 0 dollars between March and June. However from July to December learning some simple mindset strategies she generated 45000 Dollars in business revenue.

And so there are productivity hacks and there are those who actually generate business revenue.

As I said, feel free to book a consultation with me.

The fee is £497 and you will walk away with at least one strategy to increase your productivity.