Fuxing Park – Why Taking Breaks Actually Makes You a Better Blogger

It’s late morning here in Shanghai, and I’m sitting on a wooden bench under the shade of a tree in Fuxing Park. The air smells like wet leaves and early summer. Around me, people are dancing slowly to old Chinese pop songs playing from a small speaker. Others are doing tai chi in the sun, or just sitting quietly sipping tea from tall thermos flasks. No one’s rushing. No one’s staring at a phone.

And for once, neither am I.

I didn’t bring my laptop today. Just a notebook, a pen, and a bottle of water. And this simple moment reminded me of something I forget far too often, you don’t always need to be working to be working.

The Creative Power of Doing Nothing (On Purpose)

We talk so much about consistency in blogging. Show up every week. Publish every Tuesday. Write faster. Batch your content. And yes, routine is important. But what we don’t talk about enough is recovery.

Not just sleeping more or logging fewer hours, but mentally stepping away from your blog completely. Taking time to wander through a park, sit in silence, or just observe life around you.

It might feel like wasted time. But more often than not, that’s when the good stuff shows up.

When your brain isn’t under pressure to perform, it quietly starts piecing things together. You don’t always notice it in the moment, but somewhere between the old men playing cards and the lady practicing fan dancing to a tinny speaker, you feel it. That flicker. That thread. That strange thought that somehow ties together two ideas you hadn’t realized were connected.

Some of My Best Ideas Come When I’m Not at the Keyboard

It’s funny how often I get stuck when I’m staring at a screen. Trying to force out a paragraph. Trying to name a new service. Trying to come up with the perfect hook for a blog title.

Then I take a walk, and five minutes in, I suddenly know exactly what to write.

It’s happened so many times now that I’ve started trusting it. The brain needs space to sort through things. And you don’t get that space when you’re constantly typing, checking, or pushing to “be productive.”

Sometimes it’s not about thinking harder. It’s about walking slower.

Rest is a Strategy, Not a Weakness

When I first started blogging seriously, I treated rest like a reward. Something I earned after a long day of output. But now, I see it differently.

Rest is part of the process. It’s how you protect your energy, sharpen your thinking, and stay in love with the work.

Here are a few small ways I reset when things feel heavy:

• A slow walk with no podcast, just city sounds

• Morning coffee with a pen and no agenda

• Sitting in a park like this, watching people move through their routines

• Visiting a new part of town without turning it into a blog post (imagine that)

• Writing something without worrying if it’s useful, optimized, or shareable

It’s not about escaping. It’s about reconnecting, with the world, and with yourself.

Fuxing Park as a Reminder

There’s something about this park that feels like a time capsule. It moves at a different rhythm. People aren’t performing or competing. They’re just being.

And I think that’s what we need more of as creators. Moments where we’re not hustling, not building, not chasing growth, but just paying attention.

So today, I’m giving myself permission to be unproductive. To fill the tank. To feel bored. To listen without planning my response.

Because when I go back to my keyboard later, I know I’ll write better.

Even now, sitting here scribbling in my notebook, I can feel the difference. My thoughts are calmer. My ideas are looser, but somehow more interesting. I’m not trying to sound smart. I’m just trying to notice things. And that mindset shift, that quiet little pivot, often creates my best writing.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve been pushing yourself hard lately, this is your sign to step away for a bit. Go somewhere quiet. Leave your phone in your pocket. Watch people dance. Or just sit on a bench and do nothing for a while.

Your blog will still be there tomorrow.But the spark you feel when you return, that’s what will keep it alive.

We often think of rest as the opposite of progress. But rest is where the next version of you starts to take shape. As a writer. As a business owner. As a person.

Time to walk home, get some real rest, and maybe, just maybe, not write anything else tonight. Well, aside from taking a few minutes to decode my messy handwriting and upload this piece to my site.

And that wraps up my Shanghai series for now. Overall, I think it turned out well, though I did mix up the order of the Lujiazui, the Tianzifang and the Fuxing Park articles. Still, it was a solid series that blended scenes from Shanghai with practical blogging techniques.