Making space for yourself without guilt

Success is often defined by what we produce, how quickly and how often. We see this logic echoed everywhere, constantly reinforced. It is in self-help language skewed toward hyper-productivity. Slowing down, going to yoga or meditation, is referred to as ‘a practice’ and therapy as ‘doing the work’.

Recovery is something to accelerate, optimise and complete. With smart watches and sleep scores, even rest is folded back into the system it’s meant to resist or help us recover from. Being taught to measure ourselves through output means that over time this feeling becomes internalised.

A sense of guilt can often fill the space when we’re not producing. That quiet, persistent sense of “I should be doing more”. This might look like saying “I have done nothing today” when you’ve finally allowed yourself to lie down and read a book, do your washing or cook a meal. The absence of productivity can begin to feel like a problem to solve, rather than a space to inhabit.

But guilt, in this context, isn’t a reliable signal. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re falling short. It often reflects how deeply we’ve absorbed the idea that our value must be continually demonstrated.

How can we move through the world in a way that isn’t organised around extraction? Where attention is not sharpened into a tool but softened into presence, and where time isn’t something to manage, but something we are already inside of?

In Jenny Odell’s book ‘Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock’, she discusses how we can reclaim time from a culture that commodifies our attention. Odell argues that attention is now our most precious and contested resource.

The author reminds us that taking back your days isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about giving ourselves permission to exist fully, without guilt, in a world that constantly demands productivity. She invites a different kind of relationship to attention. One that is not organised by urgency, but by care. One that honours what we notice, rather than what we can make of it.

Inspired by Australian artist Samuel Leighton-Dore’s ceramic tiles; on which are inscribed “rest you beautiful, busy idiot”, Dr Kylie Soanes conveys that it’s time we “don’t apologise, don’t justify” the need to slow down.

“Too often, rest, hobbies, work-life balance, are treated as a luxury, an extravagance, or even an act of rebellion,” she writes. Her recovery from burn out was “dependent on these ‘extravagances’ – cold ocean swims, meditation, music, arts and crafts, novels – anything that disrupt[ed] the well-worn neural pathways and allow[ed] new ones to forge.”

These collective voices suggest that it is time to reframe our relationship with attention, guilt and success. To see stillness, leisure and presence not as a means to an end, but as a gesture of joy and spaciousness.

“No” is a complete sentence and rest is a total, perfect action. Give yourself permission to take up space, without apology. Rest without explanation. Let time be yours.

Further exploration & references

Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell

Interview with Jonathan Rottenberg by Hidden Brain

Rest you beautiful, busy idiot by Ecological Society of Australia

Samuel Leighton-Dore artwork