Campaign Live, an online magazine of the creative industry, declares that “it’s time to join a movement for rest:”

What we need to do is fucking REST.

Not because we’re work-shy fops. Or Luddites who fail to grasp that the world has changed. But because it makes financial sense.

It’s the economics, stupid.

More rest = more creativity = more famous work = more £ for clients = more £ for agencies.

Quite literally: more for less.

“What we need to do is fucking REST” was the working title of my book; alas they didn’t go for it. Even Penguin, which has this piece of art in its reception area, squashed it:

What does this mean?

Our job as creative leaders is to be bouncers at the door of Club Rest.

Inside, there’s no rave music and very little dancing. People are reading and playing peek-a-boo with their kids and whittling sticks and thinking about setting up a sausage company.

And tomorrow, rested, their neurons will light up like a New Year’s Eve firework display instead of fizzing, pathetically, like a budget sparkler in the rain.

If we believe in the power of creativity to power our client’s business, then it is beholden upon us as an industry to protect and nurture that creativity.

We need to work hard at not working.

By coincidence, I was just conducting an interview this morning with the head of Agent Marketing, a Liverpool-based advertising, branding, and strategy agency that’s already put this into practice. They’re one of a number of companies that have been experimenting with shorter working hours, and seeing great benefit in increased creativity and productivity.

What’s true of individuals turns out to also be true of organizations: working less– but in a strategic and thoughtful way– and resting more can be a strategy to get more done.