Saturday, April 8, 2023

perform better

 

Your brain will perform better if you shift into this mode of working

Your brain will perform better if you shift into this mode of working

Productivity expert Donna McGeorge outlines four strategies that will help your brain do more by working less. Read More





Your brain will perform better if you shift into this mode of working

Productivity expert Donna McGeorge outlines four strategies that will help your brain do more by working less.

Your brain will perform better if you shift into this mode of working
[Images: rawpixel.com, Getty Images]
BY DONNA MCGEORGE4 MINUTE READ

Have you noticed how busy is the new black? Many workplaces recognize and reward being fast-moving or adaptive. Yet really, they’re white-collar sweatshops, pushing people beyond their limits. The result? Stressed and burned-out employees.

In a culture that values hard work and productivity, we’re “winning” when we are going hard. Being busy increases our level of (self-) importance and can become addictive. We feel guilty or ashamed when we aren’t doing lots of stuff at work or on our weekends.

Articles, books, and podcasts report successful people are willing to go longer and harder than others. They get up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. to get ahead when in fact, research shows us the more sleep we get, the happier we are.

Going hard and being on all the time is actually detrimental to what you want to achieve. Pain, stress, and fatigue produce neurotransmitters that disconnect you from your executive function (smarts).

Your brain will operate better and be more productive if you flip the switch and build in more downtime. We need to be in an engaged, happy, and relaxed state to perform at our peak. So here are some of my favourite techniques to help you do just that.

BUILD IN A 15% BUFFER

Capacity utilization (mostly used in manufacturing) measures the difference between production and production capability. It is unlikely that a company will function at 100% capacity, so 85% is considered optimal. This provides a 15% buffer against setbacks like equipment malfunction or resource shortages.

The same can be said about you and your brain. You need to work at 85%, not flat out at 100% to optimize your resources and mental systems.

Just look at Olympian Carl Lewis. The nine-time gold medallist sprinter was known as a master finisher. In a 100-meter sprint, he was often last at the 40-meter mark, but breezed past other competitors by the finish line. While other runners were clearly having to push harder at the end—clenching their fists, scrunching their face—Lewis looked exactly the same when he won the race as he had at the start. He ran at 85% from start to finish, not 100% full throttle.

TIP: Build in a 15% buffer to your day or week. Cut out 1.2 hours from an 8-hour day; that’s one day from a 7-day week. Simply start by blocking out public holidays in advance (especially if you work for yourself). Spend that time reading, relaxing, or resting. It might feel counterintuitive, but it will buy you brain power in the long run.

WATCH YOUR BODY, NOT YOUR CLOCK

Ever noticed that as the day wears on, your patience (and fuse) in meetings or conversations becomes shorter and more erratic? The smallest things start to annoy you because you’re drained and your mental energy is low. It’s not the best state to be making important decisions or trying to have productive conversations.

Studies of brain waves show us that innovation, inspiration, and intuition are only available to us when our brain is in certain states of consciousness. So, the more brain space you protect, the better. 

For most of us, our most productive time will be first thing in the morning, hence, big decisions and tasks that require attention and focus (what we call our “real work”) are best done in the morning, and repetitive tasks (like email) are best done in the afternoon when your cognitive load is low.

TIP: Maximize your mornings by starting yours the night before. Before finishing up for the day, plan two or three tasks you want to do first. Avoid switching on your email in the morning until they are done. Protect your most valuable time.

MEET IN 25-MINUTE SEGMENTS

We need meetings. We need them at work because when they work, clear actions get set, decisions are made, and the whole business moves forward.

The problem is that we automatically default to holding 60-minute meetings. That’s at least 35 minutes of wasted time waiting for latecomers, fixing tech issues, wondering about the agenda (or lack thereof).

Having only 25 minutes creates clarity around doing what’s important. If we only have 25 minutes, we had better be focused on what we need to get done. This automatically forces us to think about the top two or three things to discuss in a meeting and drives action.

TIP: Change your default calendar app to 25 minutes, instead of 60. Always provide people with the purpose of a meeting. When you accept invitations, tell others you only have 25 minutes and ask them why you are expected to be there. If there’s no reason, or you’re unclear on the purpose, then save yourself some time and politely decline.

SIMPLIFY YOUR SYSTEMS

When we’re presented with a problem, our instinct is to add things (complicate) rather than remove things (simplify).

We set up extra meetings to figure out why work schedules are too cramped, but in doing so add more red tape, more decision points. When your day or week is full, you get up earlier or stay up later to finish. Yet what if you simply reduced the number of things you committed to doing?

Think about the boundaries you could set up to create a “not-to-do list. It might include things like social media during working hours, living in your email, meetings before 10 a.m. and after 3 p.m., or staying up late. 

TIP: Look at your current to-do list and remove things that are low value, energy draining or are a distraction from your true goals or KPIs. All of these things will help you get the important things done and you’ll be surprised at how much time they consumed in the past.

So, if you want to be fast, successful, or adaptive, stop pushing yourself to the limits and win your day with more downtime instead.



Donna McGeorge is a speaker, author, and mentor who helps people work smarter. She is the author of The 25-Minute Meeting: Half the Time, Double the Impact, The First Two Hours: Make Better Use of Your Most Valuable Time, and The 1-Day Refund: Take Back Time, Spend It Wisely.

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Wednesday, April 5, 2023

bêbados e "noisy suitcases"

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Woman walking the streets of Amsterdam with a suitcase.
‘The sound of my plastic wheels on cobbles and tramlines was loud in my ears: a leper’s bell announcing my approach.’ Photograph: Pierre Crom/Getty Images

I felt wheelie awful in Amsterdam; no wonder they want British tourists to stay away

Rachel Cooke
Hard-drinking weekenders, Airbnb and noisy suitcases are no longer welcome in cities such as Venice and Marseille

To be British is a bit embarrassing at this point and not only because of Brexit. In Amsterdam, hard-drinking British tourists are the target of a “stay away” campaign. In “saturated” Lanzarote, plans are afoot to limit the number of UK visitors. But even for the non-British, the mini-break is increasingly fraught: a political nightmare up there with recycling or driving a car.

The people of Barcelona, Lisbon and Venice are sick of Airbnb and its effect on their cities. In Marseille, where activists may be both more stubborn and more chic than elsewhere, public enemy number one is not M Macron but the ubiquitous valise à roulettes (wheelie suitcase), without which no self-respecting weekender would even consider travelling in the 21st century.

Or would they? I used to feel smug as my dear domestic colleague slung his bag heavily over his shoulder at airports and railway stations (he considers wheels infra dig). But in Amsterdam the other day – we were there to see the Rijksmuseum’s sold-out Vermeer exhibition – I felt things shift. The sound of my plastic wheels on cobbles and tramlines was loud in my ears: a leper’s bell announcing my approach. As T sliced through the crowds, silently and stylishly, I was envious of him and embarrassed for myself. On went my sunglasses, in spite of the clouds. Into the hotel (no Airbnb for us!) I ran, as if I was an international celebrity, and all the other pitiable wheelie-draggers were paparazzi about to shame me.

A life in cups

The Vermeer show is wondrous: it leaves you floating. But since the pandemic, such intensity is standard for me. I’m trying to live life differently; all data is welcome, all experiences more keenly felt. At Charleston in Sussex for a new exhibition by the late American artists Betty and George Woodman, I’m entranced by a film in which the couple describe summers at their house in Antella, Tuscany.

A smiling woman with yellow shoes sits in front of colourful ceramic figures
Betty Woodman (1930-2018) poses with her work at a 2016 exhibition in London. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

To hear Betty talk of her breakfast coffee cup, and how she chooses it, and why this decision matters, is to feel both strangely calm and surprisingly excited. Here is mindfulness avant la lettre, minus the woo-woo. Back at home, every mug in the cupboard is imbued with fresh meaning.

A case for Sherlock

Not all museum visits are equal, however. In today’s science pages, I mention that I was recently allowed to explore Barts Pathology Museum, which is only open to the public by arrangement. I realise this isn’t everyone’s idea of a perfect afternoon, but for me it was thrilling.

Basil Rathbone wearing a deerstalker hat and Nigel Bruce in a bowler.
Barts is where Sherlock Holmes met Dr Watson (played by Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in 1943). Photograph: Cine Text / Allstar/Sportsphoto/ Allstar

While I might not buy the museum’s line that Arthur Conan Doyle, my favourite writer as a child, may have written some of his stories in the office now occupied by its technical curator, Bart’s hospital is indubitably the site of Sherlock Holmes’s first meeting with Dr Watson. Also, I’ve always been a ghoul. For my 13th birthday, I asked my startled mother for the memoirs of the celebrated forensic pathologist Keith Simpson (the famous cases on which he worked, I know without having to check, include the so-called “acid bath murders” for which John Haigh was hanged in 1949).

Teaching methodology having changed radically in the past 70 years, the 4,000 specimens on display are no longer much used by students. But for the non-medical, every shelf is absorbing. I was transfixed by the case devoted to objects inserted by patients deep inside themselves, among them an anti-aircraft shell (I won’t say where it was hidden, for you may be eating your breakfast). Its removal, in 1933, was performed under anaesthesia, but only after the hospital had been evacuated, the patient apparently uncertain as to whether it was still live.

 Rachel Cooke is an Observer columnist

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