Wyatt Fair, a Los Angeles–based comedian with a remote customer-service job, tells SELF that, after big work projects, he sets aside discrete blocks of time for video games, creative projects, and hanging out with his friends and girlfriend. “If you’re gonna be high-strung for three days about something that ‘matters,’ take that equal amount of time after that to unwind,” he says.
Sheila Liming, author of Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time, tells SELF she’s a proponent of scheduling leisure. “For a lot of people, downtime is a scary proposition,” she says—so making it feel like an obligation can ease that a bit. That said: Try not to jam-pack your designated chilling time with activities or super-complex plans. “One of the things I explore in the book is how to get good with the idea that you don’t always have to be productive, without internalizing negative thoughts about laziness,” Liming says. To do that, she makes time to hang out without a specific agenda, which she believes is necessary for building a self-image that isn’t tied to work.
It can be helpful to set a recurring relaxation time—that way, you know respite is coming. Grace, whose last name has been withheld for privacy reasons, is a Philadelphia-based graduate student with an editorial job. She tells SELF that she designates Saturdays as work-free. “I need to have one day of the week where I’m not doing homework or work,” she says. “Maybe on Sunday I have to work a little bit longer, but that’s fine. Friends, family, and enjoying my life are definitely my priority.” For Grace, taking a day off feels like prioritizing her mental and social well-being, not failing. “I have confidence that I’m ultimately a smart, giving person, so I’m like, ‘It’s okay that maybe today I don’t appear as the smartest, best version of myself.’ I know I can do more—so some days, I can do less,” Grace says.
Remember that your business card is not your ID.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing us that there’s such a thing as a “cool job.” Sure, some look glamorous and fun (maybe they even are!), and work can be meaningful and enjoyable. But, at the end of the day, it’s all labor—and you don’t need a certain title to be an intelligent, happy, fulfilled person. “I don’t want to bus tables my whole life, but it’s something that I have to do for now, so I’m gonna do it without feeling bad about it,” Ivette Martinez, who works at a restaurant in Chicago, tells SELF. By separating her identity from her day gig, Martinez says she feels more grateful for her life as a whole, rather than fixating on this single aspect of it.