ImpactNow! Productivity Series - Episode 1
Watch the video below or read the transcript to get all the productivity goodness!
You can improve your productivity by doing less. You can absolutely maximize your time by doing less.
At this point you're probably thinking, "Okay, listen, I have deadlines and I need to work harder, harder, harder. I need to push through these moments where I'm not feeling very productive, where I feel like it's just too much going on for me to take a break."
Productive Rest?
It may seem like an oxymoron - productive rest, how can you be more productive by resting more. It's not an oxymoron and it's absolutely the way for you to get more done in your day. By focusing your energy and helping you to reclaim and rejuvenate your body, namely your mind, you can be the most productive possible at any given moment.
Who is driving your train?
Let me rewind a bit. I want to talk to you about how your brain works. So if you would like to just imagine with me here for a moment, imagine that you have a conductor at the forefront, sitting right here, just like behind the skull of your head there's a little person, a little man or a little woman, the conductor, of either the train or the orchestra, however you'd like to think of it just sitting there ready to go.
And in the morning your conductor is full on. This person is just charged up. She is full of energy and saying, "Hey, I'm going. I've got lots of energy to do all the things that you need me to do. I can put two thoughts together, I can hold memories in my mind, I can help you plan out your day, I am on it. All those things you've got going on in your brain I am making them happen."
As the day goes on, your conductor's tone changes, "All that work, all that organizing, all that time management, mm-hmm, I'm getting tired. I'm feeling a little low." And your day keeps going on and by the time that you are at the afternoon, evening, early evening, at the end of your day your conductor is only operating at about 30%.
30% productivity, which means that ... Here let me put that image together for you. If you were writing, wanting to write 10 emails, and in the morning you could bang, bang, bang get those 10 emails done in 10 minutes. At this point in the afternoon you're going to be able to get three emails done in 10 minutes. So you're not just half as productive, you're less than half as productive, you're two-thirds less productive than you were at the beginning of the day.
Wow! You've probably felt this. You felt this afternoon slump where you think, "Ugh, just I'm tired. I ate food and that didn't energize me and I'm just not thinking as clearly as I could be."
Your conductor manages your organization, your time management, your future planning, your goal-setting, your ability to hold a couple thoughts in your mind and make them work together. That's why when your conductor isn't working as well, you think, "Gosh, I can't ... I just ... I'm not doing my good thinking. I can't put these ideas and concepts together and make them happen."
Your conductor is, in medical terms, your executive functioning. These are the higher level functions. These functions, the conductor, puts all the pieces together.
Let's return to the beginning of the day. Your conductor is full-on, ready to go, and what you do today instead is you give yourself productive rest, because your conductor requires a lot of energy to run. The most energy actually in your entire brain is your conductor doing what it needs to do.
Your conductor requires a lot of energy to work
The least kind of energy, the least amount of energy your brain needs is to do primary basic kind of operations like breathing and your fight-or-flight reflex and moving your organs and things like that. That happens automatically with the least amount of energy, because your body's going to keep you alive no matter what it takes, it's going to do everything it can, it's going to put all the resources to that. It really takes the minimal amount of resources to do those activities.
Your executive functions, your conductor, they take the most amount of energy and they're kind of like the extra stuff - the icing on the cake. And so if things go down, if your body goes down it keeps you alive but it's not necessarily thinking about the vacation that you want to plan and how you need to work a little harder and put some extra hours in order to make it there.
Today, instead of letting your conductor get tired during the day, you're going to use a tool called Productive Rest in order to make your conductor have the most amount of energy it possibly can through the day. And the way that you do this is that you focus on these four areas: exercise, food, water, and sleep.
Look to activities within these four areas to recharge your conductor:
Sleep: Eight hours of sleep a night to get your conductor up and running.
Water: eight glasses, so we're focusing on the number eight here, right?
Food: a diet that's rich in fresh fruits and vegetables with a minimal amount of dairy, meat oil and salt, because those things they kind of make your conductor a little more sluggish.
Exercise - 30 minutes daily or more, more when you're stressed or feeling inattentive. So when you feel like you don't want to go out and exercise, that's the best time to get up and walk around and raise your energy level.
Research has found that medication can help you be more attentive, right, for those of you who have ADHD you know that medication can help you feel more attentive by raising certain chemical levels in your brain. Exercise is also helpful, it's not the only thing that you might do, but exercise can make a big difference especially if you are ADHD or if you're not and you're looking to add it as a way to help increase your productivity.
Read through the check list below to see how you measure up in your productive rest know-how.
Today has been all about productive rest and helping you be the most productive you possibly can be. Not by pushing through, but by working with your body's natural tendencies and giving your body and your brain exactly what it needs.
Be sure to subscribe to receive more tips on to make you more productive, organized and joyful!
(C) 2017 Nettie A Owens
At this point you're probably thinking, "Okay, listen, I have deadlines and I need to work harder, harder, harder. I need to push through these moments where I'm not feeling very productive, where I feel like it's just too much going on for me to take a break."
Productive Rest?
It may seem like an oxymoron - productive rest, how can you be more productive by resting more. It's not an oxymoron and it's absolutely the way for you to get more done in your day. By focusing your energy and helping you to reclaim and rejuvenate your body, namely your mind, you can be the most productive possible at any given moment.
Who is driving your train?
Let me rewind a bit. I want to talk to you about how your brain works. So if you would like to just imagine with me here for a moment, imagine that you have a conductor at the forefront, sitting right here, just like behind the skull of your head there's a little person, a little man or a little woman, the conductor, of either the train or the orchestra, however you'd like to think of it just sitting there ready to go.
And in the morning your conductor is full on. This person is just charged up. She is full of energy and saying, "Hey, I'm going. I've got lots of energy to do all the things that you need me to do. I can put two thoughts together, I can hold memories in my mind, I can help you plan out your day, I am on it. All those things you've got going on in your brain I am making them happen."
As the day goes on, your conductor's tone changes, "All that work, all that organizing, all that time management, mm-hmm, I'm getting tired. I'm feeling a little low." And your day keeps going on and by the time that you are at the afternoon, evening, early evening, at the end of your day your conductor is only operating at about 30%.
30% productivity, which means that ... Here let me put that image together for you. If you were writing, wanting to write 10 emails, and in the morning you could bang, bang, bang get those 10 emails done in 10 minutes. At this point in the afternoon you're going to be able to get three emails done in 10 minutes. So you're not just half as productive, you're less than half as productive, you're two-thirds less productive than you were at the beginning of the day.
Wow! You've probably felt this. You felt this afternoon slump where you think, "Ugh, just I'm tired. I ate food and that didn't energize me and I'm just not thinking as clearly as I could be."
Your conductor manages your organization, your time management, your future planning, your goal-setting, your ability to hold a couple thoughts in your mind and make them work together. That's why when your conductor isn't working as well, you think, "Gosh, I can't ... I just ... I'm not doing my good thinking. I can't put these ideas and concepts together and make them happen."
Your conductor is, in medical terms, your executive functioning. These are the higher level functions. These functions, the conductor, puts all the pieces together.
Let's return to the beginning of the day. Your conductor is full-on, ready to go, and what you do today instead is you give yourself productive rest, because your conductor requires a lot of energy to run. The most energy actually in your entire brain is your conductor doing what it needs to do.
Your conductor requires a lot of energy to work
The least kind of energy, the least amount of energy your brain needs is to do primary basic kind of operations like breathing and your fight-or-flight reflex and moving your organs and things like that. That happens automatically with the least amount of energy, because your body's going to keep you alive no matter what it takes, it's going to do everything it can, it's going to put all the resources to that. It really takes the minimal amount of resources to do those activities.
Your executive functions, your conductor, they take the most amount of energy and they're kind of like the extra stuff - the icing on the cake. And so if things go down, if your body goes down it keeps you alive but it's not necessarily thinking about the vacation that you want to plan and how you need to work a little harder and put some extra hours in order to make it there.
Today, instead of letting your conductor get tired during the day, you're going to use a tool called Productive Rest in order to make your conductor have the most amount of energy it possibly can through the day. And the way that you do this is that you focus on these four areas: exercise, food, water, and sleep.
Look to activities within these four areas to recharge your conductor:
- take a five minute walk, outside is even better to
- sit and breathe for a few moments taking deep breaths.
- eat an apple or an orange or some other fresh fruits or vegetables,
- talk to friends and future plan kind of vision in your mind, it helps raise your energy level and not complaining or griping, but really focusing on the kinds of things that bring you joy, laughter, all of that.
Sleep: Eight hours of sleep a night to get your conductor up and running.
Water: eight glasses, so we're focusing on the number eight here, right?
Food: a diet that's rich in fresh fruits and vegetables with a minimal amount of dairy, meat oil and salt, because those things they kind of make your conductor a little more sluggish.
Exercise - 30 minutes daily or more, more when you're stressed or feeling inattentive. So when you feel like you don't want to go out and exercise, that's the best time to get up and walk around and raise your energy level.
Research has found that medication can help you be more attentive, right, for those of you who have ADHD you know that medication can help you feel more attentive by raising certain chemical levels in your brain. Exercise is also helpful, it's not the only thing that you might do, but exercise can make a big difference especially if you are ADHD or if you're not and you're looking to add it as a way to help increase your productivity.
Read through the check list below to see how you measure up in your productive rest know-how.
- First, drink coffee, right? No, no, drinking coffee is going to give you some energy boost, but it's not actually going to help your conductor do its job ongoing. So drinking water however is on the list and that absolutely will help.
- Go for a brisk walk, yes, absolutely. Go for a brisk walk.
- Keep working, no, we are not going to plow through, we're not going to push through. We're going to pause when we feel that drain, when we feel like we cannot keep going or we're really frustrated or our stress levels going, that's the time to take a break and to try one of these other activities.
- Stand up and stretch. Absolutely, stand up, move around, stretch and get yourself, get your body and your muscles moving.
- Push through, no, this maybe has been your way of getting things done in the past. But it is the shore route to a short-lived success if that's how you're going to keep going.
- Take three deep breaths, raising your hands over your head as you do, absolutely, definitely a way to help that conductor.
- Go outside, yes, or even just looking at imagery of nature if you can't get yourself outside.
- Play games on your phone, it may be a break from what you're thinking about, but again it doesn't give your brain a break, which is absolutely what you need to do.
- Talk to a friend or co-worker, yes, it can be helpful. As long as you're not griping, as long as you're not complaining, it can be helpful.
- View an image of nature or anything green, yep. I already told you that one.
- Watch YouTube videos, no, sorry. Maybe if you want to work yourself through a meditation on YouTube, yes, that could be helpful.
- Answer email, no, there's this tendency when we're feeling drained and tired to focus on menial tasks that don't take a lot of effort instead of actually giving our brain a break and doing productive rest which is going to help you increase your productivity ongoing.
- And eat an apple, yes, definitely. Eat an apple or any other fresh fruits and vegetables.
- Eat potato chips or candy, nope, again energy boost, but it's not going to last.
- Laugh, YES, laugh, raising your happiness vibration, your feelings of gratitude, definitely laughter is going to help you get there.
- Vent to a co-worker, mm-hmm, nope not going to happen.
- Meditate, yes, definitely in the good category.
- Have a glass of wine. At the end of the day definitely have a glass of wine, but this is not your way to de-stress. You want to look at some of these other methodologies to help you de-stress.
- Exercise, absolutely is a good thing for you. It increases dopamine in your brain and your neurons’ ability to fire and connect. So when you can put that into your day it's a great way to give yourself a pick-me-up, especially when you don't feel like exercising. Good time to get out and walk, move your legs, move your arms, shake a little bit, dance if you need to, great way to help recharge.
Today has been all about productive rest and helping you be the most productive you possibly can be. Not by pushing through, but by working with your body's natural tendencies and giving your body and your brain exactly what it needs.
Be sure to subscribe to receive more tips on to make you more productive, organized and joyful!
(C) 2017 Nettie A Owens
