[asknemo]

A bit of personal experience to relate to the article: in recent years there were certain obligations that demands distraction from my normal startup duties (in my case a part-time teaching job). I didn't really need that money, and at first I feel disturbed because most advices here tells you to put 24x7 into your startup, and I felt like a mother separated from her baby. But soon I find that when I come back from these short distractions I find myself more efficient and more energetic in what I really love to do. When I was doing startup-work completely full-time before, I will often hit those days when I am totally unmotivated and get nothing done the whole day. I never hit such a day since I "distracted" myself. I always find myself thinking "wow I can finally work on the startup again!". I think the magic is that I used some external obligations to "pull" myself away from startup to rest and recharge, rather than (wrongly) expecting myself to take breaks voluntarily.

Of course, I believe some people can really work 24x7 on ONE THING without any burnouts. But clearly not me.

[jaxn]

I have been training for a marathon while doing a startup. It is a substantial time commitment each week and while you might think running would be a great time to ponder startup problems, I tend to focus completely on the run. This break also let's me come back more efficient and more energetic.

[asknemo]

I believe our cases strikes a counter-intuitive point about what constitutes 'rest': despite the fact a distractive teaching job or marathon training can be taxing mentally and/or physically, they have shown to be good type of 'rest' for the entrepreneur. Strange creatures we are.

[joelg87]

Absolutely. I think the word "renewal" is probably better then. I used both in the article, but "renewal" really makes sense.