 The Skeptic's Guide to Productivity
Everyone's looking to make the most of their time. We have calendars and schedules to keep us punctual, task lists to keep us on track, apps and cloud storage to keep us organized. We've got deadlines to meet, projects to complete, calls and emails to return in a timely fashion...and that's just at work.
The inevitable backlash has arrived, taking the form of cute slogans like "work smart, not hard"; reports on how much more productive European workers are as a result of getting four or five weeks' paid vacation each year; opinion pieces in the Times by Tony Schwartz, master of "sustainably high performance," touting his system of getting a day's worth of work done in three 90-minute sessions with plenty of time left over for naps, contemplative nature walks, and, of course, writing op-eds for the newspaper. Right. Because that's feasible for most people.
For the rest of us overburdened, under-rested American workers, here are a few pieces of practical advice for making the most of our long day, no expatriation or career changes required. Timing isn't everything...but it is something Never mind the people who want to convince you that there is one precisely right time of day to perform any given task; you're better off trying to leverage your own circadian rhythms than being picky about what you're accomplishing in any given minute. In general, we as a species tend to be most alert several hours after we've woken up, so mid-to-late morning is probably a suitable time for serious concentration and productivity. A few hours later, we are considerably less productive as we experience postprandial sleepiness (again, some Europeans seem to have the right idea, indulging in after-lunch siestas). Muscle strength increases in the second half of our workday, making late afternoon the ideal time for a workout. Creativity also seems to peak in the post-lunch hours; apparently focus and inspiration are often mutually exclusive. Take advantage of what your body is trying to tell you, and schedule your tasks accordingly. Lose the long list If your to-do list looks anything like mine, it's loaded down with overly ambitious tasks you probably can't accomplish within the next year or so ("have a completely paperless office"), and tasks that were so minor when you assigned them to yourself that you put them off and now can't remember if they're important or not, or even if you did them ("email Joe about the guy with the thing"). We also tend to substitute list-making for action, filling our lists with things we can't possibly do and kidding ourselves that we've begun to accomplish them simply by acknowledging them. Tear it up and start again. GQueues, essentially an online to-do list, lets you organize and prioritize your tasks, synchs with your other Google accounts, works on mobile and desktop, and, unlike a slip of paper, cannot fall out of your pocket on the subway. Put aside a few minutes at the end of your day to make a to-do list for the next day. Try to limit it to the tasks you can reasonably complete in any given workday. Few things are more discouraging than putting in a full day without feeling like you've accomplished anything. Feel free to sneak in a few five-minute activities that you do every day anyway (return a couple of calls or emails, take out the trash, check in with your mother), because it just feels damn good to cross things off your list, and it's a guilt-free way to reward yourself. And don't forget to include some breaks in your agenda.... More slacking = increased productivity Working long hours without taking regular breaks is bad for our bodies, our psyches, and our productivity. A study done at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign measured the productivity (completing a task) and memory (subjects were given a few random words at the start of the study and asked if they could remember them later on) of four groups of people working in 50-minute sessions; one group took two short breaks, the other three didn't. "It was amazing," said Professor Alejandro Lleras, who led the study, "that [the break-taking group's] performance seemed to be unimpaired by time, while for the other groups performance was so clearly dropping off." Not only did the breakers keep their productivity level high, but they remembered more of the words from the memory test. Unlike flagging energy, declining productivity isn't necessarily something you'd notice right away. Certainly not in just 50 minutes. So if you start out every day with the best of break-taking intentions--lunch in the park! Ten minutes of walking for every hour spent at your desk!--and find that once you dive into your work, you get so busy or just lose track of time that all of a sudden it's time to go home and you haven't even gotten up to stretch your legs, try scheduling yourself some slack time. Set an alarm on your phone if you have to. Arranging to eat, walk, or even just schmooze with someone else for a few minutes works well; you're less likely to skip a break if someone is counting on you to take it with them. The ballad of Henry Ford 101 years ago, Henry Ford, automobile pioneer and inventor of the assembly line, did something unheard-of. Looking to decrease turnover, improve the quality of his workforce, and encourage his employees to buy the cars they produced, he offered all workers a salary of $5/day (which for many of them was a 100% raise) and cut their workday from 9 hours to 8. To the dismay of their competitors, Ford Motor Company's retention rate rose, they attracted a higher caliber of employees, training costs dropped as those higher-caliber employees took it upon themselves to help with training, productivity increased, and in two years their profit had grown from $30 million to $60 million. (Make no mistake--Ford was no champion of the proletariat. But his plan worked like a charm.) According to a Gallup poll, full-time employees in the US work an average of 47 hours a week. And yet, productivity levels decrease by about half when people work over 8 hours a day. And the more extra time you spend on the job, the worse it is for your body, too. The combination of long periods of stress, raised blood pressure, and lousy diet puts those who regularly work over 11 hours a day at a much greater risk for heart disease. Studies from the past 100+ years show that routinely working over 40 hours a week also correlates with more on-the-job accidents and employee burnout. In fact, the evidence was so convincing that even during World War II, when American manufacturing needed to be running at breakneck speeds, most companies capped their workers at 40 hours. If it's feasible for you, getting out at a reasonable hour and leaving work behind when you head home may be one of the most productive things you can do. So go take a stroll, relax, and if you feel weird about enjoying the springtime when you should be at work, just remember that leaving refreshed and looking forward to the next day will allow you to be even more productive tomorrow. | 
