It’s the middle of Navratri, and I had a crazy late night yesterday with some of my closest friends. It’s nights like these that you would eventually end of your life’s highlight reel. Probably scenes that would flash past you during a near death experience. Anyway, it’s a fact that your productivity takes a massive hit the next morning. My solution: indulge in a nap.

My hometown in the Saurashtra region is particularly famous for its tradition to indulge in an afternoon nap. Until a few years, the whole commercial market in my town would be closed for a couple of hours in the afternoon. It’s only with the penetration of national chain of stores that have uniform work hours countrywide, that we have seen this tradition being challenged over the past decade. Local entrepreneurs, facing this unfathomable competition during the afternoon lull hours, have started abandoning their dear work-life balance practice in favour of soldiering on during mid-day.

My parents are still habituated with their afternoon rest. And I’ve followed same practice at various points in my life. These days though, I’m not compelled to take a nap by force of habit. But, I do have a nice, long, comfortable sofa in my office which proves very worthwhile when the need arises. Rest is vitally important and knowledge work productivity rarely scales linearly with time. Sometimes, it makes sense to rest for 30 minutes if you’re more productive for the next few hours. And so, I did today.