I'm gearing up to go back to school this afternoon after a week off for March Break. This year, because my husband couldn't get time off at the same time as me, I stayed in town for March Break -- and that was exactly what it was: a break.
I spent a lot of my week reading in preparation for my next two appearances on the Radio Canada show, Plus qu'on est de fous, plus on lit.
But I've also been dipping into a book by Tony Schwartz called, Be Excellent at Anything: The Four Keys to Transforming the Way We Work and Live. As it turns out, Schwartz believes in breaks. Early on in his book, he cites a really interesting 1993 study by Anders Ericsson, a professor at Florida State University, who specializes in expert performance.
Ericsson studied 30 young violinists at the Music Academy of Berlin. The very best of these violinists practiced a lot -- on average for 24 hours a week. But they also took what Ericsson calls "renewal breaks between sessions."
This is what Schwartz has to say about Ericsson's findings: "Great performers ... work more intensely than most of us do, but also recover more deeply.... They ... recognized it was essential to take time, intermittently, to rest and refuel."
I'm not the best at refueling... but thanks to March break, I did it last week. What about you? Have you rested and refueled yourself lately?
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