When You're Lethargic in your Free Time
This article's one-minute meditative melody
(Right or left-click depending on your computer)
Have you ever found yourself in the following situation:
You've got a window of free time coming up in your schedule. That holy grail where you have a few hours to yourself and nothing and no one to be accountable to.
Sometimes it's hard to let go of work, but this is one of those times where you feel able to stop and let yourself have the free time. There's so much in your personal life to catch up on and you're chomping at the bit for it- friends to call, books to read, or whatever's important to you.
The window of time comes, but you hit an unforeseen snag...
Here you are with this allotment of free time and it seems all you can do is sit and stare at the wall. You've got fun things on the agenda, but it's like trying to motivate dead weight. Your precious free time is ticking away and you're wasting it! Arrrrghhh. What's going on?
=====================
The art of the meander
=====================
You know how folks who run marathons or races do that period of slow walking after they've crossed the finish line? They don't just come to a complete stop, they meander around for a while, cooling down.
This cooling down gives their bodies time to transition from intense work to a state of rest and rejuvenation. They don't hop right into that state of rest. Instead, there's an in-between phase that comes first.
It's the same with your free time. After a period of work and business focus, you're like that runner who's been moving with intensity. Before you're ready to do whatever you've got planned for fun, you've got to have your form of cool-down.
And that's where the Zombie Zone comes in...
===============
The Zombie Zone
===============
The Zombie Zone is exactly that period of time where you're sitting and staring at the wall, feeling like dead weight with no motivation to do all the fun things you had wanted to do. If you haven't recognized it for what it is, it feels wrong and you fight against it. But if you know it's coming and unavoidable, you can embrace it instead. Here's how:
1) When you've got free time coming, remember to include the Zombie Zone. If you've got a couple of free hours on the horizon, plan to let yourself go "jello brain" for the first 15 minutes. If you've got an actual whole weekend coming up, see if you can factor in an hour or two to be mindless and not hold yourself to anything- even if it's something fun you've got planned.
2) The Zombie Zone looks different for every go-getting woman, so here's where you get to exercise your unique style. It also depends on what suits your fancy in the moment. Here are some examples from my own life:
a. My Zombie Zone time mostly looks like me laid out in front of the t.v. watching mindless sitcoms.
b. Or sometimes I do the dishes, which for some reason can be mindless and relaxing for me.
c. The other day I had an unusual Zombie Zone- I felt like driving on the highway while eating one of my favorite kinds of popsicles. Go figure, but it worked!
You usually don't know what your Zombie Zone time is going to look like until you get there- you just plan the time for it and see what happens (or doesn't happen :0)
=========================
The natural transition
=========================
You'll know when you're done "zombie-ing" because you'll feel a natural shift away from wanting to be a dead weight to feeling motivated for whatever you had on your free time agenda.
I won't lie, sometimes you're coming off a period of such intense work that it takes the full-length of your free time to satisfy the Zombie Zone. That's every once in a while. But most times if you just recognize the Zombie Zone for what it is rather than resisting, it contributes to your rejuvenation process and segues you beautifully into the real meat of your free time.
And if you're not getting enough free time to even worry about the Zombie Zone, well that's another article. Stay tuned!