The Hard Break

Book excerpt: What if the real secret to greater productivity, happiness and success is a habit that is thousands of years old? Productivity has become an international obsession. We celebrate a work culture where people boast of long working hours, their extreme schedules and how little they sleep. A constant stream of emails, texts, tweets and more keeps us connected every minute and we rarely put our phones down. Every moment needs to be maximized and no time can be wasted. And yet most of us also feel something is wrong. All of these attempts at optimizing business and life aren't really making us happier. Ironically, it might not be mak-ing us all that productive either. In this groundbreaking book, noted entrepreneur and money manager Aaron Edelheit breaks down the myths around productivity and offers a startlingly simple solution: the Sabbath. Through his personal journey of discovering the joy of taking a "hard break" of one day a week to reset, Edelheit profiles not only his own life transformation, but how this same practice has been changing the lives of well known entrepreneurs, celebrities and politicians alike. For anyone who has ever struggled to find a good balance between life and work, this book offers an essential roadmap for how to make the right choices, attain more success, put life back into perspective and gain more happiness all by taking a hard break for yourself.