One Thing A Day: Rest

They say you should do one thing a day for your career. Some days, I do as many as 10 things. Some days, I am uber productive, focused, relentless, passionate, and cut-throat. I submit resumes, shoot emails, make phone calls, have meetings. Some days, though, I feel like I don't manage to do even one thing. I'm trying to learn how to make every day count.

Today I am pushing through my reflexive guilt and doing something very important for my career, something I hardly ever do, something that Americans generally probably suck at...

REST.

My one thing today is to rest. To take an actual weekend day. To sleep in. To watch a movie. To wear mismatching house clothes and not brush my hair. To have a skype date or talk on the phone with my mom. To hang out somewhere with friends maybe. Or, maybe, not do any of those things. Maybe do nothing. To rest for me means to reclaim space in my mind, declutter my soul, and touch the things that make me myself, dust them off, and let them shine again.

As a New Yorker and an extremely ambitious gal, it's hard for me to justify staying at home all day. The pace of the city and the drive of my heart's desires usually thump and pulse and propel me down my stairs and onto the streets. As much as I love sitting on my couch watching "Waiting for Superman," I feel like I'm missing things when I make myself rest. However, I think it's really important that I learn how to do this now in my 20s, before my film bookings and family things have me flying all over the world or whatever. Perhaps this rest is less for my career and more for my personal pleasure, but you know? I think those two things should intertwine. Resting not only makes me healthy, it makes me strong. It will allow me to hit the ground running.

I'm making rest part of my career strategy.