So many times in my life I have heard if you want to be more successful than your peers, you need to work harder, smarter, and stay locked in. You need to pay more time into the skill you are building than anyone else in the room; while the others are spending time watching television, keep drilling. While they are scrolling through the internet helplessly, keep drilling and making sure you wake up earlier than the others to begin your day.
Effectiveness is always being preached about soaking yourself into work but less about finding time to refuel with losing that spark or energy in you.
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MY STORY
For a long time in my life, I have always spent a lot of my time working all day and waking up as early as 5 am the next day. Most of the time, I go to bed at 1am or even 2am, getting a total of 3 to 4 hours alone.
Now the question is this:
I exposed myself to this risk, and I felt burned out a lot of times. I felt drawn out, and most times, I often have catarrh during these periods. I fall sick, and ultimately I break down and lose momentum unexpectedly.
This is why giving yourself rest and planning days to rest, giving yourself breaks from workloads, will make you a highly effective person as compared to sleeping fewer hours and also soaking yourself into work every time.
I remember someone giving an analogy in a story. Suppose you are given a job to cut down trees and given a very sharp axe. You keep using the axe every time, every day, without giving time to sharpen the axe.
One day, you will pick that axe to cut a tree, and you will find out it has lost its effectiveness. It does not perform as great as it used to. Then it causes delay on the job.
This explains the reason why rest, as in sleeping, and taking a break to refuel are paramount to your effectiveness as a person.