The foolish economy of not taking a break

“We don’t need a morning tea break, let’s keep working.”
“We will have a working lunch.“ 
“This is really important, so let’s keep going.”

There they are. The statements of overload and worry that ‘we won’t get through this’ so ‘we have to push on’. 

As a participant and team member I’ve experienced leaders who won’t take a break. 

And as a speaker and facilitator, I’ve had clients not want their team to take a break. I often have to fight for, advocate for or at worst, implore leaders to give people a break. 

The science is well documented: We need breaks. 

Not just to recover physically, but mentally ... to synthesise information, consolidate information and even ... go to the bathroom! 

A lot of good stuff happens in the break from the talking, thinking, listening and pushing of information. 

Connections, reflections and important thought processes are being executed. Brain actions that may not be possible during the intensity of the never-ending workshop or meeting need to happen, and a break is when it occurs. 

To think we ‘can’t afford’ to take a break is foolish. 

What are you worried will happen? 
Disengagement? Loss of momentum? Slower progress? It’s already happened because there wasn’t a break. 

At the least, break so people can empty their ‘cognitive load’ - the information they’re holding in their brain, and just like a truck we can’t carry more when it’s full. We must empty and ‘unload’ before we expect people to ‘reload’. 

Breaks are mandated in fields like aviation, healthcare, transportation, building and construction ... even retail. 

The consequences are disastrous when breaks are ignored or deemed less important than pushing on through. 

🌕 Break during a meeting or workshop 
🌕 Break between meetings and workshops
🌕 Break during intense and heavy work
🌕 And break for longer than you think. 

You don’t need a complicated well-being program. Just take more breaks.

Dr Amy Silver said...

“You will want to keep this one close to hand; it could become your guide to getting more of what you want out of your life.”

Thank you Dr Amy Silver MAPS ClinPsyD MA MPhil BSc(Hons) for reading and reviewing ‘Argh! Too much information, not enough brain; A practical guide to outsmarting overwhelm’. 

She said, “In a world where overwhelm is a state that many of us suffer from, this book is the manual on how to manage it. 

“As with all Lynne Cazaly books, this is an immensely practical book, that reminds us of the power we can have over our complicated lives even though it seems, well, overwhelming. 

“With clear strategies and immediately usable tools to neutralize the sensation of being out of control, this book is for anyone struggling to keep on top of their to do list!”


To outsmart overwhelm, overwork and information overload ... have a read of ‘Argh!’  

Where does your work come from

How do the things on your ‘to-do’ list get there? 

We can be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of tasks and things we have to do. 

A reality is that we may not ever get to the end of our task list. 

So how do you become overloaded? 

When you see things starting to pile up, stay alert to the overload of work. 

Consider if:
- I created the work
- I allowed it to be added to my list of responsibilities (and yes, sometimes that’s the nature of work, we have to do things as we are directed or expected)
- I ignored it and then more and more work was added to my list 
or
- I outsmarted it...I stayed alert to what was happening. Consider whether or not a task or project is really what you need and want to do, whether it belongs with you.  

We may not be overloaded and overwhelmed with work everyday. But the next time you feel the pressure of ‘there’s too much to do’, consider where it’s coming from. 

Too much to deal with

I’ve been reading, researching and thinking a lot about overwhelm.

Overwhelm means to bury or drown beneath a huge mass of something. And frequently ... it’s our work and responsibilities!

When you see the usage of a word over time, it’s interesting to note when it started, peaked and what it is doing today.

Overwhelm as a word was at its peak in the 1800s. Use tapered off in the early to mid 1900s and the word has experienced a great resurgence of use since 2019. 

I wonder why?!

The Cambridge Dictionary says overwhelm is a verb, of force. To defeat someone or something by using a lot of force.

Alternatively, the emotion defines overwhelm as to cause someone to feel sudden, strong emotion.

At its simplest, overwhelm means to have ‘too much to deal with’.

We’ve all experienced this - a time when things felt ‘too much’.

Rather than just ‘sucking it up buttercup’, ‘soldiering on’ or ‘pushing on through’ in a war with our overwhelm, I think we can do something different...

My book ‘Argh!: Too much information, not enough brain’ is out.

I hope it helps you outsmart overwhelm from some different perspectives.

Struggling, juggling, drowning

The struggling, juggling and drowning experiences of overwhelm can become a frequent or familiar part of our life. 

Yes, the world can be an overwhelming place. 

- We might have an EMOTIONAL experience of being overwhelmed;

- We can experience the ‘too much on’ of WORKLOAD that’s overwhelming, too much to do and not enough time in which to do it;

or

- We might feel like we’re submerged under an endless pile of INFORMATION, reports, books and reading.

At other times we can be 'drowning in it’ from a wicked combination of all 3 : emotions, workload and information!

Argh! This is overwhelm.

And it’s not good for us. Burnout and its health issues are waiting when we let overwhelm become too much, too often. 

We need to find ways to acknowledge our emotions, manage our workload … and filter all of that information. 

I believe our overwhelm can be outsmarted. (We don’t want to get rid of it altogether, because it signals important things to us. But wouldn’t it be good to be less affected by it!)


‘Argh!: Too much information, not enough brain’ is my book is out now.

It’s all about how to make sense of overwhelm, and how to outsmart it.