Rest in Progress
When we wrote about tension in our last issue, we were looking to get to the heart of what it means to accept struggle as a part of any worthwhile process. And while it’s true that focus is everyone’s problem when it comes to work and learning, it turns out, so is rest and regulation.
In discussions with Focusable users over the last month, among questions about how their work habits have changed with the tool, I’ve also been asking them if they have used it to practice their focus on anything else. Most people look kind of surprised, but when I say “for example, like a hobby, or resting,” they perk up. “I actually never thought of it that way.”
And so I want to ask: why don’t we? And to challenge: can we?
Healthy rest cycles are the key to learning, motivation, and enjoyment. It’s easy to forget this in the face of constant streams of work and personal notifications engaging you. And even amongst the mainstream mindfulness movement that has emerged in recent years, we don’t yet prioritize rest in the same way that we do sitting down and getting to work - we separate them. But in a highly-stimulating world, both rest and work require focus.
We hear a lot of people say they don’t know how to not be engaged with something. Resisting notifications, messages, and other impulses in order to take a break is a real struggle. Pair that with the endless variety of things to watch or play, and we find ourselves constantly in the middle of something - valuable or not. Something that you aren’t really sure if you chose, or if it was chosen for you.
We find real restorative rest so difficult because of the parallels it has to the skill of focus, believe it or not. The rest that calms, the rest that builds self-awareness, is a struggle to achieve regularly. It takes effort to bring our complete awareness to activities meant for calm and centeredness - breathing, stretching, moving outside. In fact, we might even call it focused rest - an intentional break from engaging experiences.
And when we practice focused rest, we can learn to sense overstimulation and create routines to counter these effects and restore our energy. If overstimulation takes us out of touch with our mind and body, awareness brings us back. This is mental health in the modern world.
Does this mean that teachers, if they care about focus, should be interested in the self-regulatory rest routines of their students? Well, we believe that a teacher who wants to teach focus also has to teach effective rest. Students who are calm and energized are also primed for struggle in other areas - like controlling attention, and performing well in cognitively demanding tasks.
So where does more focused rest become transformative for schools? How can we use it to cultivate more focused attention where it matters most? Students (and teachers) who are equipped with self-regulation strategies, are better prepared for social situations, task-switching, emotional stressors, flexibility, new ideas, and focus on a single activity. They are also less likely to become overwhelmed and overworked. And as a product of it all, they are more likely to feel joy in doing things.
We have fallen into something like a cognitive disrepair. We can’t remember a time when we didn’t look for constant stimulation/relief from boredom - which is triggered by the fact that we are already overstimulated. There is a way forward, and it’s imperative, but it will take focus from all of us. In light of this thinking, we’ll be exploring the concept of rest more and more as we further develop Focusable.
The Optima List
The best possible list of opportunities
📱Newest Focusable Feature
Over the past few weeks, we’ve spoken to a lot of you about the challenges you face in schools around privacy agreements when implementing new tech. And we heard you! This week, we introduced Just Focus mode in Focusable, a registration-free experience for timed work and self-regulation.
No registration, no login, no tricky privacy issues to sort out. Just Focus is also for anyone who wants to just give timed work a shot without any barriers. Read the full scoop, and try it out, here.
🧠 Professional Learning Initiative Update
Coming soon! Do you want to learn how to bring more focused rest and attention to your life and your classroom? Our plans for launching Professional Learning are only a little delayed - but for an awesome reason. We think our latest expanded research on the importance of rest is critical, and we want to make sure we do a bit more homework to build it into our plans. So, we are moving this launch to January.
Registration for our first Professional Learning sessions will open in December. We can’t wait to share more information soon!
💬 #Optimalist Chat
This past week we began a month of chats dedicated to topics in self awareness. As we’ve expanded our talks about focus and the meta awareness it takes to get there, we’ve been surprised at how often self awareness is confused with metacognition. On Thursday, Jillian DuBois kicked off this series by leading us in the conversation How Do We Get to the Heart of Self Awareness? Check out the chat by clicking on the tweet below - and don’t be afraid to jump in and add your own thoughts!
📚 Book Study Update
We have reached the home stretch of what will be our last book study for the time being! The image here is a small retrospective on what we’ve been reading and discussing over the last few months (since April!). After November 7, we turn our attention to planning our more formal Professional Learning initiatives - see the section above! We are so grateful for the community of optimalists that has formed around this book study. We wouldn’t be building anything without you!
📰 The Optimalist Recommends…
A big part of our motivation in building Focusable & this community is the very noticeable impact that our overworked and overstimulated culture has on the way we learn, spend our time, and progress towards joy and success.
Taking Breaks Is Key to Learning, Research Shows
Also, we’re proud to introduce a growing foundation of User Stories on our blog! We are calling them Focus Stories, and they chronicle the journey of individual educators as they use Focusable to transform their work and the way they think about learning.
Bonus: Check out our newest feature from Monica Burns on Class Tech Tips!
🐦 Follow us on Twitter
Let’s connect and explore the world of focus together. Are you ready to join our school of fish? 🐠
Follow → Sara // Arlen // Brian // Ali // Alli // focusable
Don’t be afraid to say hi, and use the tag → #optimalist
💭 Thought of the Week
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