"I sat down to write this piece fifty-two minutes ago. I named the blank file, gathered all the material I'd need to complete it, and cued up a Spotify playlist of songs I don't know well enough to sing a sing along to. Since then, I've read three New York Times stories, a blog about West Virginia University football, and my Twitter feed (three times). I always wasted time when working---especially when I am trying my hardest to focus. In that way I'm no different from everyone else.
According to a study done by Gloria Mark, Ph.D, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, information workers switch activities every three minutes. Millennials---like the students at her school---jump around twice as often. Technology has made us more productive as a society, yet it's also great at tricking our brains into thinking they're doing real work. E-mail, social media, Candy Crush---they all provide that "job done!" satiation our brains crave without actually accomplishing anything.
Thing is, some of what we think of as procrastination, our brains consider recess. Sandra Bond Chapman, Ph.D, a cognitive neuroscientist and director of the Center for BrainHealth in Dallas, explains that our neurons want to work hard, then chill for a bit. Periods of productivity come and go, and that's okay.
For some people, focus peaks in mid-afternoon; for others it happens in the early morning. Once you know when you work best, build some walls around it. 'The most productive people spend their brains' 'prime time' on one or two higher-order tasks, rather than let lower-level tasks gobble the day,' says Chapman.
The most important thing you can do to finish a job? Start it. Humans are wired to seek completion. Psychologists call it the Zeigarnik effect, after an early-twentieth-century Russian psychologist who discovered that once people began an assigned task, they would almost always see it through, even if interrupted. The trick is setting yourself up to get there. And with the advice from the hyperproductive heavyweights that follows, you'll be able to get shit done. Just like I did now."
From the articled, How I Get $#!t Done: 21 Productivity Secrets from Successful People Who've Figured It Out, written by Josh Dean in the March 2014 issue of GQ.
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