Sabbaticals can profoundly change your life.
During this year’s holiday break (about two weeks for me) I chose to take a sabbatical and not work on anything I normally would have. No writing, no tweeting, no technical reviews.
The thought of taking two weeks off and being forgotten amongst the crowd kinda terrified me, but that’s how I knew it might be worth it.
Here’s what I did and how it went.
What I did
While most online entrepreneurs kept tweeting and hustling, I:
Played board games with the gf and kids
Painted the dining room (Behr, English Channel)
Learned how to make pancakes and my mom’s famous hash brown potatoes
Bought a reverse hyper machine and started strengthening my posterior chain
Stretched my psoas…a lot (google ‘frog pose’ and you’ll catch a glimpse of my routine)
Drove back-and-forth several times to my dad’s and listened to a bunch of podcasts
Laid around and played a ton of video games, mainly Teamfight Tactics and Metroid Dread
Taught myself how to maneuver tokens on DeFi, taking advantage of crypto protocols and their insane APR
Finally took the plunge into Crypto Raiders (by far one of the coolest games/communities I’ve ever been a part of)
How it went
I really f*cking enjoyed my time off. Also:
100+ new article and twitter thread ideas in my notebook
Gained clarity on where I want to focus my efforts in 2022
Made a few thousand $$ from Crypto Raiders and other DeFi protocols
I’ve been waking up with fewer aches and pains as a result of stretching
Woke up this Monday morning with a fiery passion to kick off the year strong
‘Sabbatical’ comes from the word Sabbath meaning ‘day of rest’, and though I definitely got plenty of that, I was kinda shocked at how well things turned out.
It was like pressing the refresh button at the top of my browser. By engaging in new and sometimes uncomfortable activities, I forced my brain to think differently. I’ve already noticed more creativity in how I’ve been solving problems, and I can tell just from writing this essay that my brain is operating better than before.
But above all, I gave my mind a rest from all the go-go-go of modern society and just let it do its thing for a while. My god, what a difference two weeks off makes.
100% will be doing this every year.