Improving Productivity doesn’t imply putting more hours at work. Or pushing your teams to.
Instead of resulting in greater output, longer hours lead to stress, a significant cause of both physical and mental health issues.
This “productivity paradox” is countered by research that shows overwhelmingly that scheduling downtime actually makes you more productive.
3 steps to shift your mind-set into being more productive with fewer hours
#1Start your work with a 15 mins plan-your-day. Although you may have a bias for action, creating a brief plan before diving into work actually makes you more productive.
#2Trick yourself into getting started using the Zeigarnik Effect – to avoid inertia and the overwhelm of the task to get to you, just focus on the small first step – write the first para of the report or send that email.
It works by having you jump into a project knowing that you don’t need to complete it right away.
#3Build Habits, not Goals. Set aside an hour at the start of the day for deep-work. Remove notifications and check emails at scheduled times. Creating routines removes the role of the [diminishing] will-power
This is part of Wharton’s Nano-tools for leaders.
What is your favorite hack to a better day?
#reviewswithranjani
Check out this Nano tool from Wharton and more here