Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Rest Days vs Recovery Days, published by Unreal on the LessWrong. Based on a comment I made on this EA Forum Post on Burnout. Related links: Sabbath hard and go home, Bring Back the Sabbath That comment I made generated more positive feedback than usual (in that people seemed to find it helpful to read and found themselves thinking about it months after reading it), so I'm elevating it to a LW post of its own. Consider this an update to the original comment. Like Ben Hoffman, I stumbled upon and rediscovered the Sabbath (although my implementation seems different from both Ben and Zvi). I was experiencing burnout at CFAR, and while I wasn't able to escape the effects entirely, I found some refuge in the following distinction between Rest Days and Recovery Days. Recovery Days A Recovery Day is where you're so tired or under-resourced that you can't do much of anything with yourself other than: stay in bed / sleep a lot, binge on Netflix or video games, stay in your room all day, play with your phone, use social media, and feel unmotivated to do much except easy, stimulating, and/or mind-numbing things. This is a Recovery Day and does not count as a Rest Day, but it is fine to take the time for them. However you aren't going to be refreshed from them. In order to really refresh, you need to take another day that counts as a Rest Day. Another way a person might take time off is to do things that are like work but easier. Video games are a prime example. I play a lot of video games that involve optimizing systems, and I find these really motivating and fun. But I notice that this is a kind of "work"—my mind is trying to solve problems and implement solutions. The difference is that because it's easy and doable, I get addicted to them, and it's a way for me to escape the "real" problems at work, which tend to be harder to solve. This also doesn't count as Resting. Rest Days Rest Days are days where I have enough energy and resources that I feel motivated and able to get out and about. (One way I can tell I have energy is that sometimes I spontaneously feel like cooking, a rare occurrence.) On a Rest Day, your prime directive is to just "follow your gut" for the entire day and just do "what you feel like doing" in the moment. There can be no obligations on a Rest Day. No scheduled calls or meetings. No promises to show up to a party. You can go to the party if you actually feel like going to the party, but you won't be able to know until last-minute. You cannot be "on-call" for anything. No one should depend on you unless it's someone you actively like being depended on for things, like a person you care about. There can be exceptions to these, but I like to make Rest Days "sacred"—aka protected from influences like work pressure, social pressure, pressure from society, incentive gradients created by video games and my phone, incentive gradients created by money, the pressure to be different or better, the pressure to achieve, the pressure to always be going somewhere else, the pressure to "always be closing." Rest Days are for being in the Now. The Now needs to be protected from influences from both the past (obligations) and the future (anxieties). Rest Days will actually refresh and reset you. Unfortunately, many people do not know how to take Rest Days. They instead use weekends and vacation days as Recovery Days or days where their mind is still in "working" mode. But Recovery Days alone are not sufficient for refreshing your energy levels and motivation. You risk burnout if you consistently fail to get any true Rest over a long period of time. Things my gut wants to do on Rest Days: be in the present moment meditate (in a natural, spontaneous way) eat tasty things have a picnic in a park / take walks / enjoy nature chill at a cafe I like go to a museum or an aquarium...