The Importance of Slow Days
The importance of having a slow day every once in a while. Taking a moment to breath, slow down, and truly appreciate your surroundings.
Slow Days
I have a constant thirst, need, want, hunger, longing - whatever you may call it - for the fast life. Waking up and taking action. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second. I want constant motion, stimulation, and growth. I always want to be on edge and at the precipice of the next big thing - almost as if I’m trying to live ahead of time while still being fully present in a fast-paced way. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and I think it’s a factor one must be comfortable with if their personal legend requires it - which I believe mine does.
Since I am running and in constant motion throughout the week, this past weekend, while moving slowly on Saturday morning, I realized how much I don’t want to be at that pace. Or rather, how slow I want to move. I want to wake up and stay in bed for about 30 minutes, shower - for a long time - have breakfast, and do my own little self-care routine. Read, walk, and just generally have a slow, slower day.
Slow days are important. You need them to recharge - to reset your mind, body, and soul. They also allow you to appreciate the value of nothing; how sometimes doing nothing is good. Not always, but it helps balance out a fast-paced life.
Slow days also allow you to truly appreciate the fast days. If you don’t ever have days that underperform, then you’ll never have a baseline to appreciate the days where you overperform.
Whether you are rushing to work, walking to dinner, biking to the gym, or just getting somewhere - you often don’t appreciate the beauty of your surroundings: the birds chirping in the morning, the chatter of thousands of voices on the streets, the wind hitting the buildings and whistling, the smells of fresh coffee or bread - or even halal carts. Having these slow days allows you to take in this sensory information. To appreciate. To notice the clouds, or perhaps a cool building you always pass by on your commute to work, but had never really seen before.
There is another type of slow day, too, the slow days in regards to performance. Those days are also important. You don’t always need to finish the race, sometimes its okay to just take a couple of steps forward. When you do, celebrate the small wins - thats how you get the momentum going for the rest to take off. Maybe you didn’t make 10 sales, but you did qualify the current client database and cleared out a pipeline of unqualified prospects. Maybe you didn’t finish the product for launch, but you fixed that one design bug that has been bothering you since day 1. Maybe you didn’t get the grade you wanted on the project, but you learned what it takes to get there for the next time.
Slow days are important to sprinkle here and there.
So just slow down and breathe every once in a while.
Example of a slow day:
05/10/2025
Sunday
9:35 AM - woke up to birds chirping outside, stayed in bed for another hour just breathing and contemplating/reflecting my week.
10:41 AM - Got up and went to shower
10:55 AM - Made coffee and read for 30 minutes
11:30 AM - Opened my laptop and decided what things I was going to get done from my to-do list today
12:00 PM - Reflected on my work week
12:45 PM - Started writing this blog
1:45 PM - Watched some youtube videos
2:30 PM - Applied to an apartment, then laid around for a couple of hours wathcing tv and just chilling, living slow
4:30 PM - Worked some more on the essay
5:30 PM - Went to the gym to do some cardio, steam room, and massage chair
7:00 PM - Arrived home, and wrote this segment of my blog, planning on having dinner now in around 30-50 mins and go to bed by 9:30-10PM. :)
Slow Days
I have a constant thirst, need, want, hunger, longing - whatever you may call it - for the fast life. Waking up and taking action. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second. I want constant motion, stimulation, and growth. I always want to be on edge and at the precipice of the next big thing - almost as if I’m trying to live ahead of time while still being fully present in a fast-paced way. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and I think it’s a factor one must be comfortable with if their personal legend requires it - which I believe mine does.
Since I am running and in constant motion throughout the week, this past weekend, while moving slowly on Saturday morning, I realized how much I don’t want to be at that pace. Or rather, how slow I want to move. I want to wake up and stay in bed for about 30 minutes, shower - for a long time - have breakfast, and do my own little self-care routine. Read, walk, and just generally have a slow, slower day.
Slow days are important. You need them to recharge - to reset your mind, body, and soul. They also allow you to appreciate the value of nothing; how sometimes doing nothing is good. Not always, but it helps balance out a fast-paced life.
Slow days also allow you to truly appreciate the fast days. If you don’t ever have days that underperform, then you’ll never have a baseline to appreciate the days where you overperform.
Whether you are rushing to work, walking to dinner, biking to the gym, or just getting somewhere - you often don’t appreciate the beauty of your surroundings: the birds chirping in the morning, the chatter of thousands of voices on the streets, the wind hitting the buildings and whistling, the smells of fresh coffee or bread - or even halal carts. Having these slow days allows you to take in this sensory information. To appreciate. To notice the clouds, or perhaps a cool building you always pass by on your commute to work, but had never really seen before.
There is another type of slow day, too, the slow days in regards to performance. Those days are also important. You don’t always need to finish the race, sometimes its okay to just take a couple of steps forward. When you do, celebrate the small wins - thats how you get the momentum going for the rest to take off. Maybe you didn’t make 10 sales, but you did qualify the current client database and cleared out a pipeline of unqualified prospects. Maybe you didn’t finish the product for launch, but you fixed that one design bug that has been bothering you since day 1. Maybe you didn’t get the grade you wanted on the project, but you learned what it takes to get there for the next time.
Slow days are important to sprinkle here and there.
So just slow down and breathe every once in a while.
Example of a slow day:
05/10/2025
Sunday
9:35 AM - woke up to birds chirping outside, stayed in bed for another hour just breathing and contemplating/reflecting my week.
10:41 AM - Got up and went to shower
10:55 AM - Made coffee and read for 30 minutes
11:30 AM - Opened my laptop and decided what things I was going to get done from my to-do list today
12:00 PM - Reflected on my work week
12:45 PM - Started writing this blog
1:45 PM - Watched some youtube videos
2:30 PM - Applied to an apartment, then laid around for a couple of hours wathcing tv and just chilling, living slow
4:30 PM - Worked some more on the essay
5:30 PM - Went to the gym to do some cardio, steam room, and massage chair
7:00 PM - Arrived home, and wrote this segment of my blog, planning on having dinner now in around 30-50 mins and go to bed by 9:30-10PM. :)
Slow Days
I have a constant thirst, need, want, hunger, longing - whatever you may call it - for the fast life. Waking up and taking action. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second. I want constant motion, stimulation, and growth. I always want to be on edge and at the precipice of the next big thing - almost as if I’m trying to live ahead of time while still being fully present in a fast-paced way. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and I think it’s a factor one must be comfortable with if their personal legend requires it - which I believe mine does.
Since I am running and in constant motion throughout the week, this past weekend, while moving slowly on Saturday morning, I realized how much I don’t want to be at that pace. Or rather, how slow I want to move. I want to wake up and stay in bed for about 30 minutes, shower - for a long time - have breakfast, and do my own little self-care routine. Read, walk, and just generally have a slow, slower day.
Slow days are important. You need them to recharge - to reset your mind, body, and soul. They also allow you to appreciate the value of nothing; how sometimes doing nothing is good. Not always, but it helps balance out a fast-paced life.
Slow days also allow you to truly appreciate the fast days. If you don’t ever have days that underperform, then you’ll never have a baseline to appreciate the days where you overperform.
Whether you are rushing to work, walking to dinner, biking to the gym, or just getting somewhere - you often don’t appreciate the beauty of your surroundings: the birds chirping in the morning, the chatter of thousands of voices on the streets, the wind hitting the buildings and whistling, the smells of fresh coffee or bread - or even halal carts. Having these slow days allows you to take in this sensory information. To appreciate. To notice the clouds, or perhaps a cool building you always pass by on your commute to work, but had never really seen before.
There is another type of slow day, too, the slow days in regards to performance. Those days are also important. You don’t always need to finish the race, sometimes its okay to just take a couple of steps forward. When you do, celebrate the small wins - thats how you get the momentum going for the rest to take off. Maybe you didn’t make 10 sales, but you did qualify the current client database and cleared out a pipeline of unqualified prospects. Maybe you didn’t finish the product for launch, but you fixed that one design bug that has been bothering you since day 1. Maybe you didn’t get the grade you wanted on the project, but you learned what it takes to get there for the next time.
Slow days are important to sprinkle here and there.
So just slow down and breathe every once in a while.
Example of a slow day:
05/10/2025
Sunday
9:35 AM - woke up to birds chirping outside, stayed in bed for another hour just breathing and contemplating/reflecting my week.
10:41 AM - Got up and went to shower
10:55 AM - Made coffee and read for 30 minutes
11:30 AM - Opened my laptop and decided what things I was going to get done from my to-do list today
12:00 PM - Reflected on my work week
12:45 PM - Started writing this blog
1:45 PM - Watched some youtube videos
2:30 PM - Applied to an apartment, then laid around for a couple of hours wathcing tv and just chilling, living slow
4:30 PM - Worked some more on the essay
5:30 PM - Went to the gym to do some cardio, steam room, and massage chair
7:00 PM - Arrived home, and wrote this segment of my blog, planning on having dinner now in around 30-50 mins and go to bed by 9:30-10PM. :)