by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools
Links to other parts of the miniseries:
Be Awesomely Effective Part 1: Embodied cognition
Be Awesomely Effective Part 2: Decision points
Be Awesomely Effective Part 3: Mental Energy
Be Awesomely Effective Part 4: Stop fighting distractions
Be Awesomely Effective Part 6: Workspace
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 27 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Be Awesomely Effective Part 5: Mind-body connection
— From Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done by Josh Davis, Ph.D.
Yesterday we learned to be nice to ourselves and let our minds wander. That strategy, coupled with seizing our decision points and managing our mental energy and emotions can help us create incredibly productive chunks of time in our days. That is, of course, when we have full control over our schedules. But who does?
Life happens. Business happens. Stuff happens. We may find ourselves anxious or overwhelmed at times and still need to perform at our best. What do we do then?
Josh Davis, Ph.D., adds one more strategy to help us out. Now that we know that our physical states affect and influence our mental states, “By understanding how exercise and food affect your mental functioning, you can use them as tools to help you be more productive when work demands it.” The mind-body connection is strong and powerful.
It’s important to clarify that this strategy is not about the long-term health and wellness benefits of an exercise routine and a well-balanced diet. We’ve all heard about that many times, undoubtedly. What Davis shares here are the immediate benefits of mental functioning derived from eating in a particular way or felt after just one session of exercising. This is one more way in which we learn how to create the optimal conditions in our minds, bodies, and surroundings for peak productivity.
Exercise strategically
Exercising, for these purposes, refers to moderate physical activity (brisk walking or even light jogging) for 20-40 minutes. “Whether or not you currently have an exercise routine, you can use physical activity at specific times to boost your thinking abilities and your mental energy. […] A little exercise at the right time can help you think better, stay focused, sharpen your thoughts and reduce your anxiety—key elements of sustained productivity—in the hours that follow the physical activity.”
Davis suggests the following ways to leverage exercise:
- Mental sluggishness and inability to focus. “Get out of your office and move right away. Walk very briskly for thirty to forty minutes. Or go up and down the back stairs for ten or twenty minutes.”
- Schedule changes. “Whenever possible, schedule challenging or anxiety-provoking meetings when you can block out time beforehand for moderate exercise.”
- Draining or challenging tasks. “When you have particularly challenging or draining tasks on your calendar, either exercise in the morning before it… or exercise soon after it to restore your drained mental energy and improve your mood in time to tackle whatever comes next.
- Workouts. “In general, plan to work out for about twenty to forty minutes within a couple of hours before you next need to be awesomely productive.”
Eat and drink strategically
What happens on the day that your schedule doesn’t allow for exercise when you most need it? Davis points out that, “There are other ways to work in concert with your body to achieve peak productivity… [with] something you already do every day, even at work: eating and drinking.”
What we eat and drink, and the timing of when we do so, can affect our energy levels, moods and our brain’s ability to plan, organize and complete tasks. If you don’t believe this, just remember the sluggishness, lack of energy and overwhelming desire to sleep after a very large meal (Thanksgiving, a holiday, a celebration, etc.).
Davis says, “When you want to be firing on all cylinders, being intentional about what you eat and drink—and how you want to feel an hour later—can make all the difference.” And he gives us the following tips to increase productivity after the two- or three-hour period after our meal or snack.
- Portions. “Eat only half your breakfast or lunch and enjoy the second half a couple of hours later.”
- Quick boost. “A high-carb snack may help you focus and feel good for about fifteen minutes. If you need to be in top mental shape for longer than that, avoid carb-rich meals and snacks altogether.”
- Food mix. “Eat meals or snacks that have a nice mix of proteins, low glycemic index carbs, and good fats—vegetables and fruits are generally good carbs; nuts make great snacks for when you are on the run.”
- Water. “Drink water if you haven’t had any for the last hour or two if you’ve done any physical activity.”
- Caffeine. “If you are tired or sleep deprived, drink a caffeinated drink, but keep it small. Don’t drink more than you normally would. Give it thirty minutes to kick in. And go ahead and put cream in that coffee—the fat may help keep your blood sugar more stable.”
Whether you exercise regularly or not, or whether you are a nutrition enthusiast or a fast-food lover, hopefully this mind-body strategy will add more tools to your productivity kit.
Cheers!
ACTION
TODAY & FUTURE: Take a moment to evaluate how you feel before an important work event (meeting, presentation, etc.). Are there any of the exercise or food/drink tips here that can help you? How can you proactively schedule time for physical activity before an event so that you can be at your best? Schedule also time to recharge after particularly taxing activities/meetings. Your mind and body will thank you and you’ll be performing in a much more productive way!
Know someone who could benefit from reading this? Please share the miniseries with that person! You can do so via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Links to other parts of the miniseries:
Be Awesomely Effective Part 1: Embodied cognition
Be Awesomely Effective Part 2: Decision points
Be Awesomely Effective Part 3: Mental Energy
Be Awesomely Effective Part 5: Mind-body connection
Be Awesomely Effective Part 6: Workspace
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 39 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Be Awesomely Effective Part 4: Stop fighting distractions
— From Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done by Josh Davis, Ph.D.
By now, in this miniseries, you can recognize the decision points in your day and choose your next task based on your mental energy and emotions. Woohoo! Today, Josh Davis, Ph.D., will share with us his uncommon—but very commonsensical—view on distractions and mind wandering.
As we shoot for creating Two Awesome Hours of productive work, we need to learn how to stay focused for prolonged periods of time.
Yet in today’s world, where our attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish, we tend to reproach ourselves every time we get distracted. “Focus!” “Pay Attention!” “Stay on task!” we tell ourselves, and we feel as if we’re being lazy for letting our minds wander off.
“Although our ability to sustain attention on a task is critical for our success, finding focus… without distraction is a remarkably difficult thing to do.” Our brains are wired to respond to distractions, scan our surroundings constantly, and be on the lookout for dangers—it’s a survival mechanism. But we also have the ability to come back to what we were doing previously whenever our focus shifts, “parts of our brain are devoted to switching attention—to disengaging and reorienting to a changing environment.”
This is indeed good news: “It is wholly unnatural to focus without wavering. If you have failed at maintaining continual focus throughout your work sessions, rejoice. If you had, you’d be remarkably dysfunctional.” Proof of this is that if we try to suppress it, it backfires with our consequent frustration.
Scientific evidence points out that the more we try to avoid or suppress distractions the more we get stuck on them. “When people are asked not to think about something, it increases the likelihood that they will think about these things. Don’t think about a polar bear right now, and see how that goes.”
I bet the polar bear took you to other images of polar bears, your visits to the zoo as a child, a documentary you saw, etc. Our neurons work in networks, which means they’re associated with many others. Thus, your neuron for polar bear fired up other neurons associated with this thought, taking you down a rabbit trail (polar bear trail?) of images and memories.
To somewhat control this, Davis says we must master two skills: removing distractions and letting our minds wander.
Let’s get the first one out of the way: distractions are like booby-traps. No one in their right mind would set a bucket of water over a door frame, spread thumbtacks on the carpet or put a whoopee cushion on a chair at a workplace. Davis says, “That’s more or less what you are doing to yourself when you set up your devices and workspace so that distractions are coming to you all the time. You have created a work setting booby-trapped not with buckets of water and thumbtacks, but with phones, screens, websites, open doors, etc.” And all the buzzing, notifications, and people stopping by are distracting you from your two hours of maximum productivity.
“There’s no need to be a hermit of drop off the grid. Just find a way that your devices can’t divert you for perhaps twenty minutes at a time.” Turn off notifications, close your open door, wear noise cancelling headphones, put your devices away, etc.
While we can remove distractors as much as possible within our circumstances, we can’t remove distractions entirely. We can’t stop the blasting siren of an ambulance out on the street, for example. And we can’t do away with another, unavoidable distraction: our wandering mind.
“Research suggests that mind wandering may not be a flaw after all. It may have important benefits when it comes to […] creative problem solving and long-term planning.” Davis shares the results of studies: “mind wandering didn’t make participants more creative in general, it helped them creatively solve the problems they had been working on before they started mind wandering.” Also, it is good for long-term planning because “it enables us to think in the right ways about the future.”
Yet it’s important to make the distinction between mind wandering in a productive way and getting completely sidetracked. To avoid the latter, Davis suggests mindful attention: as we find ourselves losing focus, “noting without judgment that our thoughts have drifted, gently bring our attention back to what we are experiencing in the present moment.”
Be nice to yourself, says Davis, “when it comes to staying focused for a prolonged period of time, our secret weapon is not discipline or willpower but self-compassion.”
ACTION
TODAY & FUTURE: Given that your mind will wander, Davis suggests enabling it when you want to solve a problem by choosing a super easy task ahead of time that requires very little thinking. Pick a task that will take a brief moment (minutes) and from which you will recover naturally, not one that will make you fall into autopilot for hours on end. Here’s what he means by very easy: appreciating a picture on the wall, a plant, the view, straightening up your desk, listening to music and noticing all instruments, etc.
These are the tasks you need to avoid engaging in when your mind wanders. They’ll quickly absorb and sidetrack you, as they require lots of thinking and are loaded with decisions and emotions: filing paperwork, reading the news, checking email, rehearsing presentations, prepping for meetings, working or a crossword puzzle.
Know someone who could benefit from reading this? Please share the miniseries with that person! You can do so via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Productivity, Time
Links to other parts of the miniseries:
Be Awesomely Effective Part 1: Embodied cognition
Be Awesomely Effective Part 2: Decision points
Be Awesomely Effective Part 4: Stop fighting distractions
Be Awesomely Effective Part 5: Mind-body connection
Be Awesomely Effective Part 6: Workspace
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 45 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Be Awesomely Effective Part 3: Mental Energy
— From Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done by Josh Davis, Ph.D.
In yesterday’s post, Josh Davis, Ph.D. taught us the importance of being aware and seizing decision points. Today, the author of 2 Awesome Hours will share with us how to manage our mental energy as part of creating those two hours of peak performance on a daily basis.
Time management and productivity experts tell us that we should tackle the biggest priority first as there may not be time later on to get to it. Experts are partly right, says Davis. However, “Their advice misses an important element. Our mental energy is the fuel that drives us—or fails to drive us.”
Davis goes on to explain: “every task takes a mental toll on us; some even fatigue our minds. And perhaps every task elicits emotions that make that task and the ones that follow either harder or easier to do. While it would be nice to bring our A game to every task we tackle, there’s only so much of the right mental energy to go around… we’re much better off choosing what’s worth giving the right mental energy to and putting off, in strategic ways, those tasks on our to-do lists that get in the way.”
Decision making, planning, holding on to thoughts for a short time (while we need them), staying focused and self-control are among the mental activities that generate the most mental fatigue. This, in turn, reduces our ability to perform at our best.
The simple task of answering email, turns out, is quite taxing because it “involves making decisions, and sometimes complex ones: Should I reply? Do I have to respond now? If I write it this way instead of that way, will the person react well to my e-mail or be offended by it? Should I delete it or file it for future reference? Should I write a short response or forward it to someone else?” Argh! No wonder we get mentally exhausted if we spend hours on it. These seemingly small and inconsequential decisions do pile on.
There are several fascinating studies that have found out that willpower (self-control) is like a muscle. It starts fresh every morning, and after resisting many temptations—big and small—it fatigues throughout the day. That’s why most diets are broken in the evening, because the dieter’s self-control is fatigued from resisting yummy temptations all day long and finally gives in.
To ensure our brains are ready to perform at their best when we need them, we must understand the emotions that our tasks generate on us, and the effect this will have on the subsequent tasks. We must plan accordingly. “Being ‘on’ at the right moment matters so much [that] saying no to tasks that will get in the way of that is key to deciding what should get our attention.”
Since most tasks involve decision-making and self-control, we are bound to experience some mental fatigue. “The key to limiting mental fatigue is recognizing the work that is most likely to deplete your resources in a substantial way and, when you have any say in the matter, to simply not engage in that work before you want to be at your best.”
There are some activities that unavoidably will deplete us (dealing with a difficult client, repeated insistence from someone for us to do something, a dreaded and stressful meeting, confrontation, etc.), and some that fatigue us to a certain degree (switching tasks often, networking and small talk, sitting still for long periods, making cold calls, looking for errors and correcting them, planning, scheduling, deadlines), but avoiding them is not always possible, much less practical.
The good news is we don’t have to avoid them. “If we strategically choose the order in which we complete the various tasks on our to-do lists, we can carve out two awesome hours when our brains are not as fatigued and get some amazing things done.”
ACTION
TODAY & FUTURE: The author suggests four simple things you can try to avoid mental fatigue:
1. Complete your most important work first thing in the morning (before your brain has been depleted by hundreds of small decisions).
2. Label the tasks on your day “Important,” “Creative,” or “Other.” Schedule time later in the day to tackle the “Other” category, Knowing you’ve set aside time for this will ease your mind, and you won’t be stressed to tackle them early in the day when your mental reserves are full.
3. Try checking email for just one hour in the afternoon (to me, the mere idea of this, at first gave me hives! Now I love it). Not every day will allow for this. Try it once and see if this approach helps improve your focus on tasks that require problem solving or creativity during the rest of the day. For all you know, you may be pleasantly surprised with this solution, and you might be able to do this occasionally or even frequently. Tim Ferriss, life hacking guru and author of The 4-hour Workweek, checks his personal email once daily and his business email once every 7-10 days! His secret? Autoresponders. (Here’s a complementary post.)
4. Make a few decisions the night before a big day. Big or small, avoid making them on your big day as much as possible. By eliminating choice, you’ll be eliminating fatigue and you can focus your energy on what really matters that day.
Lastly, what to do if you are fatigued or overly emotional and need to recharge? Davis suggests breathing deeply and slowly, having a good laugh and/or taking a short nap.
Know someone who is constantly mentally exhausted? Please share this miniseries with that person! You can do so via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Time, Tools
Links to other parts of the miniseries:
Be Awesomely Effective Part 1: Embodied cognition
Be Awesomely Effective Part 3: Mental Energy
Be Awesomely Effective Part 4: Stop fighting distractions
Be Awesomely Effective Part 5: Mind-body connection
Be Awesomely Effective Part 6: Workspace
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 44 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Be Awesomely Effective Part 2: Decision points
— From Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done by Josh Davis, Ph.D.
In yesterday’s Part 1 we left off with Josh Davis, Ph.D., the author, saying that the key to being truly productive is to “ditch efficiency and create, instead, the conditions for two awesome hours of effectiveness each day.”
However, it’s important to note that there’s nothing special about two hours. Davis recommends it because it’s “both attainable and sufficient for getting to enough of what matters each day,” but the specific number of hours of peak mental functioning is not critical. You can suit the time to the needs of your day, say, four hours or ten minutes.
Davis is not suggesting either that you set aside the same 2 hours each day (for example, from 9-11 am), because you can’t always control when things need to get done. And while you won’t be able to finish all our work in two hours, “when you are mentally effective, you can accomplish whatever matters most to you at that moment, with pride in your work and inspiration to do more.”
Further, “the rest of your day you can devote to those tasks that don’t require much strategic or creative thinking,” such as sifting email, filling forms, managing schedules, paying bills, planning travel, and returning phone calls. Since you’ll be thinking more effectively, you can determine which of those tasks you can let go, delegate, outsource, etc.
Having explained all this, it is now time to move on to the first simple strategy to master your productivity.
Decision Points
Our habits and our unconscious competence get us through most tasks on autopilot. That’s actually a very good thing, as we don’t have to remember how to hold our toothbrush, how to tie our shoelaces or how to step on the brake when we’re driving. Davis says, “Our habits are mental energy savers.” However, that also means that when we are working on many tasks, it’s hard to snap out of autopilot because we’re operating under neural routines. That’s why we intend to check email for 15 minutes and, 2 hours later, we are still doing it.
Introducing our new friends, the decision points. Davis explains, “The first strategy is to learn to recognize the few moments during each day when you have the opportunity and ability to choose how to spend your time. Decision points are the moments “when routine ends (e.g. when you finish flossing your teeth or reading the report) or is interrupted by someone or something (e.g. when a colleague interrupts)… [and] self-awareness ramps up. […] It is in that moment that you get to decide how your next chunk of time will be best used.” Being intentional is the key as you choose your next task.
For the most part, we don’t give any thought to our decision points, and we rush through them to get back to tasks that feel productive. But, Davis continues, “Hurrying through one decision point… might save five minutes. Starting on the wrong task may cost an hour.”
What to do?
The Thinker. Sculpture by August Rodin
Savor each decision point. They don’t come too often, so it’s important to recognize them when they happen and seize them. “Decision points can give you [psychological] ‘distance,’ [and this] leads to high-level thinking.” That way, minor, immediate concerns will be seen in the appropriate light and we can examine the big picture instead.
Plan your decision points in advance. Since we can’t avoid interruptions and distractions, we should plan ahead how we will respond to them. This is called an implementation intention: “a plan to implement certain action if a relevant cue arises.” This is an if-then approach to take. So next time your colleague pops in with “just a quick question,” make sure you have plans to know what comes next. But beware: “[it] does not work to ‘plan’ to use willpower in the moment and fight an urge… [and ] planning not to do something tends to fail.” Plan to take action, even if that action is mentally recognizing that you have reached a decision point.
Don’t start a new task without consciously deciding it’s the right one. As soon as you finish a task, “label this moment as a decision point.” Davis literally says to himself, “This is a decision point,” and that’s enough of a trigger to make him pause and think about his next move. You can mentally acknowledge the moment as well, or do something physical too: stand up, stretch, walk around, drink water, etc. The important thing here is that you know that you will be intentionally deciding what action to take next.
As you see, it’s easy to get lost in the trance of work if we don’t pay attention. By recognizing our decision points throughout the day, we can make sure that we are focusing our time on effectiveness and productivity. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s strategy to be awesomely effective.
ACTION
TODAY: Make a conscious effort to notice your decision points throughout the day. When you run into one of them, consciously and intentionally decide what to do next, even if it means going back to the task you were doing because that is where your time is best spent now (and you need to finish it).
FUTURE: Train your brain to recognize your decision points throughout the day. Plan ahead how you will respond when you encounter a decision point, and seize it by consciously and intentionally determining which task you will tackle next.
Please share this miniseries with a friend or two, or twelve! You can do so via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
Exercising, for these purposes, refers to moderate physical activity (brisk walking or even light jogging) for 20-40 minutes. “Whether or not you currently have an exercise routine, you can use physical activity at specific times to boost your thinking abilities and your mental energy. […] A little exercise at the right time can help you think better, stay focused, sharpen your thoughts and reduce your anxiety—key elements of sustained productivity—in the hours that follow the physical activity.”
What happens on the day that your schedule doesn’t allow for exercise when you most need it? Davis points out that, “There are other ways to work in concert with your body to achieve peak productivity… [with] something you already do every day, even at work: eating and drinking.”
