It hasn’t happened for a long time, the illusive ‘day between’. I know people who schedule and plan to have ‘days between’ often and regularly. Most people, myself included, don’t have the foresight, or don’t feel the need until it stumbles into them. 

A day between is a day for inspiration. It’s something I think our species has always needed, and had, whether they meant to or not. 

Context

If you’re an athlete the pillars of your existence are training, nutrition, and rest. You have to take ‘rest days’ to give your body the chance to properly recover from training, and give your mind the time it needs to make the right connections about what you’re getting it to do. Muscles and muscle memories are built on ‘days between’. 

I learnt from the 2010 remake of the Karate Kid with Jackie Chan that its a concept embedded in Chinese culture; wu wei (無為) is a taoist concept that means "non-action" or "effortless action" - the idea that forcing or overdoing something often produces worse results than a balanced, natural approach.

And it’s biblical - AI reminded me that in the Hebrew Bible old testament, in Genesis 2:2-3, God rests on the seventh day after creating the world. The Hebrew word "shabbat" means "to cease" or "to rest."  

That says to me God was (is?) the kind of person who time-blocks. ‘This day I’ll do this, then on Thursday I’ll do that, and oh then on Sunday I’ll rest’.

Get to the point Rhys 

I mention this because today was a day between (14/07/2025). I’ve had a few stressful weeks, more on that coming to the blog soon, and a ‘day between’ stumbled into me. 

I woke with a lightness that meant the thought of getting into my usual work was simply too much. Listening to this feeling I said to myself, ‘okay’. 

It’s important to note that a ‘day between’ isn’t a day off - that’s what my mother would affectionately call a day of  ‘sweet bugger all’ but no, a ‘day between’ is when you do something else, something in between. 

I took it slow, I got up and made the best breakfast I’ve made for a long while, then I sat in the sun and got to reading. I started with progressing the story book I’ve been meaning to read for a while, and then moved to the non-fiction book I’ve been meaning to start for a while.

Both of these things are things I wanted to do but kept putting to the side because other ‘more important things’ took my attention. Fortunately, the magic of the ‘day between’ started to surface as I was reading, I started to get inspired. 

First by the story book for my own writing. I'm reading ‘A discovery of Witches’ and boy oh boy do I love a clever book. And then from the non-fiction book to implement a slightly different structure to my work. At no point did I feel like I had to get to work on those things immediately, but I tucked the inspiration away for later feeling like a smug squirrel in the autumn. 

Then, because you can’t get good inspiration on a partially full stomach, I made a lovely lunch and I video called my parents. Another thing I’d been meaning to do and had been collecting guilt from for a couple weeks - but it felt easy on a day between. 

Afterwards I sat at my desk and caught up on all the articles, emails, and videos I’d ‘saved for later’ that I hadn’t gotten to. The oldest was still sitting in my inbox from October last year. But I got to them, and, surprise surprise, I got inspired.

When I felt my attention wander I got up and went to the gym, then I looked through my un-read whatsapp messages and fired of some loooong overdue replies. Now I’m sitting here typing this up.  

Tomorrow I’ll get back to work and I’ll have to adjust my plan to account for a missing day - but - I’m going into it with some new inspiration and a distinctly lighter cognitive load. 

I think I’ll be like God and start to plan these in.