Do You Follow the Ten Percent Rule for Self Care?
Do you reserve ten percent of your waking time to take care of yourself? If not, you’re likely in the fast lane on the road to burnout.
Burnout is the result of using up all of your reserve. This happens when we are spending all of our time using up ourselves — for work, for helping others, for caregiving, for service, or any other number of normally good things. We push it to the limit, and we’ll do okay for a while. Then suddenly, we can’t continue.
While I’m not sure where the ten percent rule came from, or even if the number is absolutely correct, I do know that if we’ll just spend a small fraction of our time recharging, we’ll be able to maintain the reserve to avoid burnout.
Now this isn’t high math, but 10% of your waking time works out to about 1.5 hours a day. Or it could be 3 hours every other day, or 5 hours every third day, or one day a week.
There are several key things about how you use this time.
- It has to be time you do something for you — not for someone else.
- Some of it should be quiet, meditative, activity.
- Some of it should be exercise.
- Some of it should be doing activities where you just lose yourself. We often call these passions, because there’s an emotional high we get from doing them.
- Some of it should be for socializing — the kind that recharges, not that drains.
So how much time are you devoting to self care? Is it enough? What activities do you find most effective for recharging?
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I just plug myself into this blog and wha-La, I’m good to go!
Tucker’s last blog post..Some busy times
Aw, thanks, Tucker. But I suspect hiding for hours in the tractor cab may be your real secret!
I had never heard of the 10% idea, but it’s an interesting idea.
For myself, self destruction is a natural ability while self care is a learned ability. Making the turn from destruction to care is a defining element of my walk for the last 13 years now.
And I am still a beginner, but that is ok. I may always be one, but i remain teachable.
Thanks for sharing these thoughts!
crossmage’s last blog post..Four Candles for the Queen of the Universe
I don’t know where the 10% idea originated, but my guess is someone was trying to put the Sabbath concept in different words. Ten percent is not quite one day/week, but it gets close. A good book that you might find interesting is The Rest of God, talking about observing the Sabbath concept in modern terms and ways. And I’m still a beginner too, James!