Immersion Days

I love immersion days. These are days when I focus on just one type of experience, project, or aspect of life for pretty much the whole day.

Immersion days can be personal or professional. Here are some examples:

  • A day of decluttering or cleaning
  • A day at Disneyland
  • A workshop day, either presenting one or attending one
  • A day outside in nature
  • A day running errands
  • A day of studying, learning, reading, or taking online courses
  • A day of learning new recipes and cooking up a storm
  • A day of changing a room’s configuration, like setting up a video studio
  • A day of writing, editing, recording, and publishing new material
  • A day out and about with Rachelle with no advance plan, doing whatever strikes our fancy moment by moment
  • A day of binge watching shows or playing a video game
  • A day of travel, especially involving multiple planes and countries
  • A day of relaxation
  • A day of total laziness
  • A day of reflection, meditation, and journaling
  • A day of making decisions, creating clarity, and planning ahead
  • A day of sensual experiences
  • A day of gardening
  • A day of exploration or sightseeing
  • A day wandering through a huge museum like the Louvre
  • A day of social hangouts
  • A day of skill building or practice

Immersion days may not be your default setting. It’s more common to have days that include lots of different activities. But what happens if you repeat those combo days too many times in a row? You may crave some variety.

I love the mono-focus of immersion days. They’re a great antidote for too much sameness and predictability. Too many combo days gets boring after a while.

While some aspect of your mind is going on overdrive during an immersion day, other parts of your mind get to rest. Even though an immersion day may seem intense, it’s also a major break. So don’t just think about the activity; also consider what you’re allowing to go inactive. Spend a day cooking, and you’ve spend a whole day not writing.

Immersion days can also create breakthroughs to move some area of life forward significantly. Imagine the impact of a full day of sorting, purging, and decluttering. Consider a day of deep study on a topic that interests you. What about investing a whole day in content creation, such as via batch blogging? (I’m doing this right now; I wrote this post on Friday along with several others.)

Immersion days and combo days are options for you. I encourage you to mix and match to discover what you like and what keeps you in a healthy and productive flow.

Stringing together too many combo days gets boring for me, but too many immersion days leads to overwhelm, so I like some of each. I don’t always like the same mix each week. Some weeks I prefer all combo days. Some weeks I’m in the mood for only immersion days. And other weeks I want some of each.

When you feel stuck or sluggish, consider flipping to the opposite modality for a nice change of pace. And remember that you’re not just changing what you’re doing; you’re also changing how you’re resting.

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Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina is an American self-help author, motivational speaker and entrepreneur. He is the author of the web site stevepavlina.com and the book Personal Development for Smart People.

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