The Positively Living® Podcast brings you shame-free productivity conversations for the overwhelmed multi-passionate creatives, caregivers, and multi-taskers who never clock out, juggle countless responsibilities, and quietly wonder if there's a better way.
Hosted by Lisa Zawrotny, Productivity Coach and founder of Positively Productive Systems, the show replaces rigid productivity rules with flexible approaches that respect your energy and priorities. Through solo episodes, expert interviews, and live coaching sessions, Lisa covers the topics that actually affect your ability to move forward: stress management, habits and systems, decluttering, self-awareness, boundaries, mindset, entrepreneurship, and more.
This is productivity for real life, helping you breathe easier, move forward sustainably, and make space for what matters most to you.
Do you ever tell yourself you'll rest after you finish everything on your to-do list—only to discover the list never actually ends? Or find yourself feeling guilty the moment you slow down, convinced you haven't earned a break yet?
Many of us understand that rest is important, but knowing we need it and actually making space for it are two very different things. Productivity culture has taught us to see rest as a reward instead of a requirement, leaving us exhausted, overwhelmed, and wondering why we're still running on empty.
In this episode, Lisa explores the biggest barriers that keep us from getting the rest we truly need and shares practical strategies for making rest part of everyday life. Building on last week's conversation with Gary Ware, she explains why rest isn't something you have to earn, how to identify the types of rest that genuinely restore you, and simple ways to weave meaningful breaks into even the busiest schedule. You'll discover that sustainable productivity begins with rest—not after it.
This week, episode 324 of the Positively Living® Podcast explores how to find time to rest and shares practical strategies for making restorative rest a realistic part of your daily life.
Key Takeaways:
Understand why rest is a necessity—not a reward you have to earn.
Recognize the mindset shifts that make prioritizing rest feel so difficult.
Learn why productivity actually depends on consistent, restorative rest.
Discover why rest looks different for everyone and how to identify what truly restores you.
Explore how your Joy List can help you reconnect with activities that energize you.
Learn to notice which activities leave you feeling refreshed versus more depleted.
Understand Gary Ware's Macro, Micro, and Mezzo Rest framework and how to apply it.
Discover simple ways to improve the quality of your sleep through better sleep hygiene.
Learn how a consistent wind-down routine prepares your nervous system for deeper rest.
Explore practical five-minute micro breaks that actually help you recharge.
Understand why scrolling or checking email doesn't count as true rest.
Learn how transition rituals between tasks reduce stress and improve focus.
Discover how "When-Then" habit triggers make restorative breaks easier to maintain.
Learn why scheduling larger blocks of restorative time requires intentional planning.
Recognize how starting with one small, consistent change creates lasting habits around rest.
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Intro: Why You Don't Have to Earn Your Rest
The Hidden Beliefs That Keep Us From Resting
Defining What Rest Actually Means for You
Using the Joy List to Discover What Restores You
Macro Rest: Improving Sleep Quality Over Quantity
Micro Rest: Five-Minute Breaks That Actually Recharge You
Transition Rituals to Reset Your Nervous System
Using "When-Then" Triggers to Make Rest a Habit
Mezzo Rest: Creating Larger Spaces for Restoration
Protecting Time for Joy, Self-Care, and Recovery
Start Small: One Rest Habit That Changes Everything
Coaching Resources and Free Tools to Support Your Rest
Final Thoughts: Rest Is the Foundation of Sustainable Productivity
Lisa Zawrotny:
Rest is not the reward at the end of a productive day. It might be what you do and what you need, but the productive part isn't a prerequisite. Rest is what makes a productive day possible. It's the starting point. You are listening to the Positively Living podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Zorotne, founder of Positively Productive Systems, and a productivity coach certified in positive psychology and stress management. Join me as we explore ways to live a more proactive, positive life with episodes on productivity, self-awareness, mindset, entrepreneur life, habits and systems, simplicity, fun, and more. I understand overwhelm personally as a multi-passionate entrepreneur, wife and mom to kids and cats, and as a caregiver. I'm here to help you choose what's right for you, so you can do less, live more, and breathe easier. Sound good? Let's get to it. Welcome to the Positively Living podcast. I'm your host Lisa. Last episode, I brought back my conversation with Gary Ware, and he made a compelling case for why rest isn't optional, and introduced a framework for thinking about it in three sizes: macro, micro, and mezzo. If you haven't heard that one yet, I'd encourage you to go back to episode 323 and check it out. It's a strong foundation for what we're doing today, which is getting practical. Knowing you need rest, wanting to get rest, and actually building it into your life are far different things. Most of us don't struggle with the concept. We struggle with the permission, the prioritization, and the moment we finally sit down to do nothing, which is invariably when our brains hand us a to-do list and tell us we shouldn't be resting. So let's talk about what gets in the way of the rest that we need, and how to figure out what rest actually looks like for you, and how to start building it in without overhauling your whole life. Even after hearing all the reasons why rest matters-the nervous system science, the creativity research, the data on micro breaks-a lot of us still don't do it. I see you, elder millennials, who can't let go of being productive, and I'm with you. So let's talk about why. Because I think this is so important. It's not that you don't believe it. It's that somewhere underneath all of that, there's still a voice saying you haven't done enough yet, you haven't earned it, that you'll rest when things settle down, when you finish. That taking a break is a luxury you can't quite justify right now. That voice has been with most of us for a long time. It got there through messages we absorbed about what it means to be productive, responsible, serious about your goals, a dedicated person, and knowing the logic and justification behind resting doesn't automatically make that voice go quiet. So, before we talk about how to build rest in,
I want to state very plainly:
you don't need to earn your rest. Let me say that one more time, slightly louder for the people in the back. You don't need to earn your rest. Rest is not the reward at the end of a productive day. It might be what you do and what you need, but the productive part isn't a prerequisite. Rest is what makes a productive day possible. It's the starting point. If you're ready to make rest a real priority, it's time to figure out what rest means for you. This is the step most people skip, and it's why a lot of rest-I'm using air quotes-doesn't actually feel restful. You take a break, but you still feel depleted. You sleep, but you wake up tired. You have a free afternoon, and somehow you feel worse than when it started. Rest is personal. What genuinely restores one person can drain another. An introvert who's been in back-to-back calls all day might need silence and solitude following that. Very likely, I have some of those in my house. Someone who's been alone working solo all week, but who's an extrovert, might need connection. Actually, very likely, I've lived that. A person who's been doing highly analytical work might need something physical or creative, engaging a completely different kind of energy. It's like balancing things out when you're working out and you stretch muscles in one way, and then you need to stretch in the other way. And there's a deep relief in that. So there's no universal answer to what rest is. It's going to depend upon a lot of factors in your life. And an answer can change for the same person from day to day as well. One of the best tools I have for starting to figure this out is my joy list. It's a simple exercise that helps you reconnect with what actually brings you joy and energizes you. This is not what you think should restore you. What someone told you would be a good idea. What works for someone else. This is what genuinely lights you up. What nourishes you from the inside out. You can find this workbook at positivelyproductive.com/resources, and if you want an audio guide on how to use it, check out episode 297 the Joy List, your key to self care. That'll walk you through the whole thing. Beyond the joy list, pay attention to how you feel after different rest activities. Sometimes things that feel indulgent in the moment leave you more depleted than before, and sometimes things that feel almost too simple. A short walk, 10 minutes of reading, sitting outside for a bit can leave you noticeably more settled. They can have a big impact for a short amount of time, and being so simple-that's important information you want to start collecting. Ask yourself, when did I last feel genuinely restored. What was I doing? What wasn't I doing? You're building a picture of what rest looks like specifically for you, and that picture is what makes the practical steps work. Once you have a sense of what restores you, or at least a starting point, the next question is where it fits. Gary Ware's macro, micro, mezzo framework is useful here because each size requires a different approach and different amount of time, so that builds in flexibility. You can fit different types of rests where it makes sense for your schedule and needs, and that's a great starting point. Macro rest is about your sleep. This is what we think of the most, and the most important shift Gary offers is this: if you can't increase the quantity, focus on the quality. What you do in the hour before bed matters significantly. Devices, unresolved stress, erasing mind-these all interfere with the depth of sleep you get. And even if the hours look fine on paper, you're still going to wake tired. A wind-down routine doesn't have to be elaborate for it to really help. It just has to signal to your nervous system that the day is done and it's time to rest. You want to put a boundary between the work you're doing and how much your mind is engaged, and your sleep and your rest time when you're shutting it all down. One of the first things you can do to help this is something called sleep hygiene, which is what the environment is like: cool temps, soft sheets and lighting, comfy PJs-all of these things contribute to better sleep. Think about what feels the best for you, where everything can shut down and you can let go. For me, I love using a fan for cool air and white noise. That's how I sleep best. You might also want to consider having a notebook or a journal by your bed, so you can do a mind sweep at night, or if something comes to mind and it starts to engage you and stress you out, you can write it down, set it to the side, and then deal with it in the morning. Clearing your mind before sleep, especially if you're someone like me, where when it does get quiet, you start to solve the world's problems. That's really helpful. Micro rest is where most people have the most immediate opportunity because these are the five-minute windows that you can start doing today. The key is that they actually have to be breaks. This does not mean checking email, scrolling, doing a lighter version of the same thing you've been doing. That's not an actual break. Gary's suggestion of keeping something tactile nearby, like he uses Legos, that's a good one because it occupies your hands and gets your eyes off the screen without requiring any special planning. In our house, we like puzzles in the winter and musical instruments year-round. Some other options could be stepping outside for a few minutes, doing a few stretches, like having a little routine. One of my clients had that, where she had like a set of stretches and like movement that she would do in between, and it would get the blood flowing, and it would also take her away from screens and thinking. You could make a cup of tea or coffee, some kind of favorite beverage, with your full attention, almost like a mindfulness practice. And again, five minutes, but it makes a difference because it takes you away from where you were engaged and potentially stressed. Doing something you really enjoy that takes you somewhere else. Entirely is the key. That's what music does for me. Transitions could be considered a version of this, where they kind of connect together. Going directly from one demanding thing into the next carries the stress forward. You take whatever stress you had and you bring it into the next thing, and that compounds over the course of the day and causes a lot of problems. You don't show up your best this way. Creating a transition practice is so helpful because it builds a bridge that lets your nervous system reset, so you show up your best. That's really the key to rest. So, building even a two-minute pause between tasks, a deliberate moment of reset before the next thing begins, changes how you approach what's next, and the reason I say two minutes is because it's that short but that effective. I have a two minute transition meditation on the free resources page specifically for this. It's short enough to actually use between almost any call or task or project that you're doing, and you can use it over and over again. Find it at positivelyproductive.com/transition, or when you go to the resources page, you can find it there along with all the other resources we talked about, including the positively productive toolkit, where the JoyList workbook is. Also, the when then trigger that Gary mentions is one of the most practical ways to make micro breaks happen. It sounds like
this:
When I finish my client call, I will step outside for five minutes because it helps me reset. So you fill in the blanks. When I finish X, I will Y because Z. and that because part matters. Your brain is more likely to follow through when it knows the reason, knows your why. You're not just scheduling a break. You're reminding yourself why it's worth it, what it's going to do for you. And then the third one, mezzo rest, is the one most people resist the longest because it requires stepping away from the work for a more extended time. This could be a half day, a full day, a real vacation, or even a recurring block of time that belongs to something other than your to-do list that maybe happens every week. Gary mentioned the vacuum effect. If you clear the time but don't have something specific to step into, you'll drift back to work almost without noticing. That's a really good point. This is where your joy list becomes really helpful because that will be a list of things you can look at and choose from, and that's the direction you're going. So before you block that time, know at least loosely what you're going to do with it. It doesn't have to be planned to the minute or overly specific, and you can change your mind, especially if you have a list to choose from. But having that direction and destination for your rest will help you from falling into the work trap. And if a full day feels impossible right now, or even a week of vacation, start with a half afternoon. It's just a more significant chunk of time. Pick one recurring window in your week that belongs to restoration. Protect it. Treat it the same way that you would treat a client appointment, a doctor's appointment, an appointment for someone else that you love. Theme days can work well for this. I've used Tuesdays as my dedicated self-care day for years now, and I prioritize rest of different kinds as well as having fun. I give myself permission that day to back off work, and while I do fill it with practical self-care things like doctor's appointments, I also give myself enjoyable downtime, like reading and music, and even an extra nap. At the risk of repeating myself, when you're ready to make a change like this, pick one type and one change and start there. If macro rest is where you're most depleted, start with a wind down routine. Start with adjusting some of that sleep hygiene I mentioned. If you're running from task to task all day with no breathing room, start with that when then micro break trigger. If you haven't had real time away from work in well longer than you can remember. Block a half afternoon sometime soon, and put something from your joy list into it. And one starting place could be simply grabbing the joy list and doing that. And it will only take a couple of minutes. It's a set of prompts that's actually fun and maybe unique for you. Finally, asking you what you want, what lights you up. Some of my clients have had a lovely time of it. It's been kind of a rest for them. It's an engaged rest, I should say. I want to be careful here because we're saying you're not trying to do something specific during this time. But I will say the joy list has been fun for them. Approached consistently will change everything, including and perhaps most importantly, you. If you'd like more support building these kinds of habits, try the DIY stuff I mentioned. But also, let's chat. I'd love to work with you. You can learn about Async Coaching, which is a calendar-free on-demand coaching option, perfect for the situation where you're trying to find time to do this in the first place, and trying to find time for coaching is going to be frustrating. This doesn't require that. It's on demand. It's through a messaging app, and it's on your time and when you need it most. You can check out that as well as other coaching package options at positivelyproductive.com/coaching. As we close this episode, remember: small and consistent steps will always be ambitious and abandoned. Rest that actually happens, no matter how much, even the smallest amounts does way more than a perfect rest plan that you never get to. You know rest matters. Now you have a place to begin.
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