The day’s most important punctuation mark

is not the comma.

Or the semicolon.

It’s the period. The punctuation mark that let’s us collect ourselves.

And we should always make time to collect ourselves. Because if we don’t, then something else will collect us. Meetings, requests, the next item on the to-do list, the next item on the to-do list that didn’t exist five seconds ago, errands, office politics, and other anxiety inducing facades of productivity.

We need periods at the end of a day for the same reason that we need periods at the end of a sentence. We need breaks and pauses, or else we run the risk of having our progress come full stop.

Breaks over burnout.