Try Going Fallow

The cure for productivity burnout

Do you ever have that feeling (or maybe it’s a constant feeling for you, as it is for me) that you need to be productive?

It’s as if I’m not worth anything if I’m not doing things.

Checking off to-do lists. Working on something, anything.

I have an inner lazy part of me that’s strong and I’m always fighting against it, trying to force myself into productivity.

That’s not all bad, but eventually it gets exhausting.

Fallow

I’ve been choosing a word-of-the-month all year and for June, I chose fallow.

When July rolled around, I didn’t want to give up this word, so I kept it for another month.

The idea behind fallow is to regenerate the soil. You stop planting, tending and harvesting and just let it lay undisturbed.

There’s still a lot going on in fallow soil. Microbes and insects and earthworms are all doing their work, building and adding nutrients.

The same is true in life.

In this season of fallow, I’m still productive. I still make lists and I’m still doing things.

But allowing myself the grace of not having to produce anything has been so nice.

It’s summertime and I can spend hours on the porch with a book or nod off for a nap.

I’m not concerned about trying to figure out “the next thing” or building or creating anything.

I’ve let my mind rest.

And what I’ve noticed is I’m starting to have interesting ideas again that pull me forward, but there’s no pressure around doing anything with them.

I still have things that need to get done and I’m doing those things, but I don’t have the feeling that they’re tied to how worthy my life is. They’re just tasks that are interspersed between rest times.

When I was a young teenager, I would spend hours reading on the front porch. My mom hated this. She would make me stop reading and do something. She did not like to see people just sitting around.

Of course, part of that parenting was good. But how many parents would love to see their kids reading for hours on the porch now?

Anyway, this season of fallow is giving me permission to read for hours, to do nothing, to daydream.

And I’m finding that it’s regenerating me in mind, body, and spirit.

We’ve got more summer left and I think it’s the perfect season for fallow.

Let me know if you decide to go fallow for a while and how it goes for you.