What a book tour taught me about the importance of rest

A book tour can look, from a distance, like one long sequence of arrivals. I arrive at an airport, catch a train or tram, reach a hotel, sign books, answer questions, give a talk and repeat. The days are full enough to feel successful before I have even left the bed. Yet the part I remember most clearly is how tired I became while doing work I genuinely loved.

I had mistaken constant motion for commitment. If there was another platform, another flight or another event to get ready for, I told myself I was building momentum. The cost appeared later: slower thoughts, short tempers and the feeling that I was present in body while my attention remained backstage. The importance of rest became clear in what it returned: energy, clarity, warmth and enough presence to connect with the person in front of me.

The pace I mistook for progress

On paper, a productive tour looks impressive. Travel days are measured in airports and rail bookings; performance days are divided between media work, signing sessions and conversations with readers. Add travel between cities and every gap becomes another box to fill. I once welcomed that pace because it made me feel useful. Looking back, much of my busyness was simply a way of postponing stillness.

A route such as Sydney to Melbourne shows how quickly recovery time can disappear. A domestic flight might take under two hours, but airport transfers, check-in, security and the journey across town can consume most of a day. In Melbourne, a tram from the airport may be followed by a crowded café stop and a late walk through the city; in Sydney, harbour ferries and long station platforms create their own small pockets of stillness. Australian travel often feels easy because distances are familiar, yet the body still registers every change of place.

The turning point was noticing that I arrived at my best moments already depleted. I had been spending energy simply getting to the event, leaving too little for the connection that made the event worthwhile. I began protecting pauses before appearances rather than treating them as unused minutes, and the quality of my listening improved. The wider story of my broadcasting, books and corporate speaking work is set out on my official website, and this shift has influenced all of it: good energy is part of the preparation, not a luxury waiting afterwards.

When travel turns into depletion

The body kept a clearer diary than my calendar. A disturbed night was followed by a tight jaw and an unusually restless afternoon; a quiet morning produced a steadier voice and more patient questions. We often discuss burnout as an endpoint, but I noticed the quieter signs first: rushing between tasks, snapping at people who care for us, and reaching for another coffee when what the body really needed was sleep.

Australia has its own rhythms for testing a nervous system. Lunch may happen beside a laptop, the after-work coffee can become a ritual, and a phone screen fills the spaces between stations and appointments. A day in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth can involve long stretches on trains, buses or roads. The familiar flat white break can be genuinely restorative and social; the problem starts when caffeine becomes the only bridge between exhaustion and the next commitment.

I began setting small rules: no email for the first hour after landing, one proper meal before an event, and a ten-minute walk before choosing what to wear. I also stopped treating a private dinner or a morning without plans as evidence of wasted time. I keep returning to the same principle in the Kiflimally project: sustainable ambition needs recovery built into it.

Rest as part of the work

Rest is not the same as collapse, and it does not need to look like a retreat. Sometimes it is an early night; sometimes it is twenty minutes without a phone, a swim, a quiet breakfast or permission to do only one thing well. For me, the distinction matters. Collapse happens when the body has been depleted and the schedule forces it onwards anyway. Recovery is deliberate, so tomorrow’s work does not have to be paid for with today’s health.

That requires building recovery into the rhythm of a tour. Before a public appearance, I protect sleep and eat something that will hold my energy. Between events, I leave enough space to change clothes, move and breathe. After a performance, I do not immediately turn every reflection into another content plan. I have also become more conscious of the unequal load many women carry: caring responsibilities, household administration and professional expectations can make ordinary downtime feel difficult to claim. Asking for rest can feel indulgent until everyone else’s needs have been met.

There is also a work and culture dimension. Under the Fair Work Act 2009, National Employment Standards generally guarantee at least 10 days of paid annual leave for a full-time employee, with a higher entitlement for many shift workers. Leave creates a legal opening, but it cannot create recovery on its own if a workload, inbox or team culture says every day is for catching up. The Australian book market has a strong culture of independent bookshops, author signings and literary festivals, and audiences often travel a long way to join them. A sustainable market needs speakers who can connect without presenting exhaustion as proof of commitment. That belief also sits behind the This Girl platform, where women are encouraged to build visibility without treating depletion as the price of belonging.

A changed approach to energy

I now think of energy as a budget that can be allocated, not a limitless personal resource. The aim is not to remove every demanding moment. It is to stop spending the reserve that makes connection, judgement and joy possible. A useful plan distinguishes recovery time from rewards: sleep before the early start matters more than a celebratory dinner after it, and quiet between events matters more than another hour in the green room.

The lesson also applies to public speaking. I used to believe nerves meant I was unprepared. Now I understand that physical depletion can make a stage feel unsafe even when the material is strong. I leave space to arrive, settle and speak from a steadier place. My reflections on finding your voice share more practical ways to work with that fear. Speaking well depends on the words and on the conditions we create around the moment of saying them.

I have become more deliberate about what happens after a performance as well. There used to be an instinct to keep moving: another interview, a new travel plan or a late call with the team. Now I ask whether the next task genuinely serves the work or merely relieves the discomfort of stopping. Sometimes the answer is another hour of admin. Sometimes it is dinner, a shower and an early night.

A rhythm you can take home

A book tour is temporary, but the lesson is not. The aim is not to build a perfect routine while travelling; it is to discover which forms of recovery make your ordinary days more sustainable. The choices below are simple because consistency matters more than novelty.

At work and at home

• Keep a short gap between finishing one task and beginning the next. Use it to move, eat or breathe rather than scroll.
• Write down tomorrow’s first priority before closing the laptop, so your mind is not rehearsing it overnight.
• Treat sleep and lunch as fixed points in the day, not rewards that disappear whenever the inbox gets busy.

While travelling

• Build the first morning around light, water and breakfast rather than an inbox.
• Keep one travel day free of press or brand meetings; a bookshop, gallery or long walk can be the event.
• Decide what “done” means in advance and protect the quiet hour afterwards.

Rest also changes how we measure a successful day. I no longer ask whether I was exhausted by the end of it. I ask whether I was useful, present and able to make another good decision tomorrow. Those questions are more demanding in some ways, and far kinder to the person carrying the answer.

On a tour, the audience may see a polished hour while the rest of the day takes place backstage: in airport queues, quiet hotel rooms, meals eaten quickly and early alarms. Those unseen intervals are not empty space around the performance. They are part of the performance’s foundation. Protecting them is how I keep showing up with energy, generosity and a voice that can still surprise me.