{"id":18142,"date":"2018-03-22T12:30:25","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T12:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/?p=18142"},"modified":"2018-03-22T12:30:25","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T12:30:25","slug":"4-inconvenient-truths-about-getting-things-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/4-inconvenient-truths-about-getting-things-done\/","title":{"rendered":"4 inconvenient truths about getting things done"},"content":{"rendered":"

The tech industry has attracted many of the brightest, most ambitious, and most motivated people on the planet. This has led to an incredible culture of amazing ideas and products being created in unbelievably short time periods.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re the ones who persevere. Who push through. Who make the effort. Our instinct is to hustle and grind; it\u2019s our mantra as the creators, the founders, the entrepreneurs, the doers<\/em> of the world.<\/p>\n

However, this incredible drive has a self-destructive dark side: left unchecked, highly driven people can overwork themselves into burnout and breakdown.<\/p>\n

And, in a tragically ironic twist, the hustle and grind mindset is actually harming<\/em> our ability to accomplish our goals.<\/p>\n

In this article, we\u2019re going to walk through four inconvenient truths \u2014 along with the research that backs them \u2014 about productivity, and how we may be inadvertently tanking our ability to get things done.<\/p>\n

\"Neon
Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash<\/small><\/p>\n

\u201cGrinding\u201d actually damages our productivity<\/h2>\n

Given what we can accomplish in a 40-hour work-week, simple logic would suggest that a 80-hour work-week would result in accomplishing twice as much.<\/p>\n

Under deadline pressure, it\u2019s not uncommon to see teams enter \u201ccrunch time\u201d: a period of longer hours to, presumably, assist the team in meeting a looming deadline.<\/p>\n

While this may seem to be a pretty obvious relationship \u2014 more hours equals more output \u2014 the reality is that there\u2019s a point where more hours starts to reduce <\/em>output: prolonged periods of working 60+ hours actually cause negative<\/em> productivity compared to a 40-hour work week.<\/p>\n

The grind doesn\u2019t work, and we can prove it with science.<\/p>\n

In a 1909 study comparing hours worked to value produced determined that there\u2019s a point of diminishing returns for overtime<\/a>. These results have been borne out in other<\/a> studies<\/a> and hold true across all industries.<\/p>\n

The results of the study showed that workers saw a brief initial boost in productivity when working longer hours, but after a short time \u2014 typically just a few weeks \u2014 their output started to decline. After a couple months their output dropped below the baseline established in a 40-hour week.<\/p>\n

By contrast, workers on a 40-hour schedule were able to keep up a steady rate of productivity continuously. (Studies like these are how we ended up with a 40-hour work week in the first place.)<\/p>\n

The decrease is due to several factors, with the most notable being:<\/p>\n

Increased exhaustion leading to a higher error rate<\/strong>,
\nwhich means that a significant portion of the longer hours are spent fixing errors that wouldn\u2019t have occurred under a regular schedule.<\/p>\n

Decreased engagement and urgency.<\/strong>
\nIf all we ever do is work, there\u2019s no incentive to work quickly; it\u2019s hard to get excited when the only reward for finishing our work is more work<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What to do instead<\/h3>\n

Rather than burning the midnight oil, keep a regular schedule.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re like me, it\u2019s hard to stop working if there\u2019s nothing else to do, so book activities outside of work: make a date to go see a movie with friends; plan to cook dinner with your partner; sign up for classes or lessons.<\/p>\n

It may feel like \u201cwasted\u201d time, but let 100 years of science soothe your nerves: we\u2019re more productive in the long term by working a sane 40-hour schedule.<\/p>\n

\"Men
Photo by Tamarcus Brown on Unsplash<\/small><\/p>\n

The best tools for creativity are downtime and playtime<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s a reason that many stories of huge breakthroughs involve smart people taking baths, walking to the bus, or otherwise doing things that are completely unrelated to whatever problem it was they ended up solving: our subconscious minds do a lot of the heavy lifting for creativity and problem solving, and we can\u2019t engage our subconscious when we\u2019re actively slamming our heads against a problem.<\/p>\n

If we want to be at our most creative, we need<\/em> to dedicate time to leisure activities and relaxation.<\/p>\n

There are so many studies that say downtime is critical<\/h3>\n

Studies have repeatedly shown that time away from our work helps us boost our creativity. For example, simply taking a walk<\/a> can help us get unstuck.<\/p>\n

Mowing the lawn reduces stress<\/a>. Mental downtime helps us solve problems<\/a> and may even help with the formation of memories.<\/p>\n

Which is all to say: what we tend to call \u201cidle\u201d time is actually a vital part of doing our best work.<\/p>\n

Build downtime into your day<\/h3>\n

Despite the internal resistance many of us feel to downtime, setting aside time to relax, play, and generally let our minds wander is absolutely critical if we want to perform at our highest levels.<\/p>\n

Ideally, downtime will involve a mix of activities that both engage our minds in different kinds of thinking, and that don\u2019t really engage our minds at all.<\/p>\n

For example, reading books unrelated to our industry, learning skills that challenge us in different ways \u2014 cooking or woodworking, for example \u2014 help us to engage different parts of our brains and can help spark connections that lead to huge breakthroughs.<\/p>\n

In contrast, going on long walks, playing sports, meditating, or just staring out a window with a hot beverage give our minds the opportunity to wander, which is \u2014 as they\u00a0say \u2014 where the magic happens.<\/p>\n

\"Man
Photo by Muhammad Raufan Yusup on Unsplash<\/small><\/p>\n

Working tired is worse than working drunk<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s tragically common for people in our industry to show up at work with bags under their eyes, talking about an all-nighter with a twisted sort of put-upon pride. We wear four hours of sleep as a badge of honour among the driven, with dismissive clich\u00e9s like, \u201cI\u2019ll sleep when I\u2019m dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going without sleep is a dumb decision. Literally. Not sleeping makes you less intelligent.<\/p>\n

Pitting sleepy interns against drunk drivers in tests of skill<\/h3>\n

In a study on sleep deprivation<\/a>, medical interns were split into two groups: one group that was getting progressively more tired, and one group that was getting progressively more drunk.<\/p>\n

At only 18 hours without sleep \u2014 that\u2018s six hours a night \u2014 participants showed significant decrease in cognitive function, and performed at a level that was just about as impaired as the drunk group.<\/p>\n

That means that trying to work on five hours\u2019 sleep is as bad \u2014 or even worse \u2014 than trying to work after five shots of tequila. We\u2019re less alert, less precise, more sluggish, and far<\/em> more likely to make mistakes.<\/p>\n

Getting enough sleep is also correlated with a huge number of health benefits, including decreased risk of cancer<\/a> and other chronic diseases<\/a>. Sleeping is also how we process information<\/a> and solve problems<\/a> also boosts our subconscious, which means sleeping enough is making us more creative as well.<\/p>\n

Put sleep at the top of your priority list<\/h3>\n

Get at least seven hours a night.<\/p>\n

Sleep should be a primary<\/em> concern. When we\u2019re staring down the barrel of tight deadlines, we certainly shouldn\u2019t consider cutting sleep to squeeze in a few extra hours of effort.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s challenging at first, but if you prioritize sleep \u2014 especially in cases where sleep has been a secondary consideration for long periods of time \u2014 the difference in your mental state is alarming. And after you\u2019ve felt what it\u2019s like to operate at 100% mentally, it\u2019s far<\/em> easier to hit the sack and get the rest necessary to stay at 100%.<\/p>\n

\"A
Photo by John Carlisle on Unsplash<\/small><\/p>\n

The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing us we could multitask<\/h2>\n

If there\u2019s anything that could be truthfully called a Magic Bullet\u2122 for boosting productivity, it\u2019s this:<\/p>\n

Stop multitasking.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How multitasking ruins our productivity<\/p>\n

Every additional task we try to juggle results in a 20% time loss<\/a>. In concrete terms, each additional task is costing an entire working day<\/em> of productivity per week.<\/p>\n

Doing two things at once? At best<\/em>, only 80% of your time is productive. Four things? You\u2019ll be lucky to hit 40% productivity.<\/p>\n

The tasks sneak up on us: how often do we find ourselves doing three things at once \u2014 say, working on a project, monitoring email, and following the company Slack channel? Most of us don\u2019t even notice it happening, but juggling like this means that we\u2019re working 5 days, but only getting 3 days\u2019 worth of work done.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s pretty rare that research is unanimous, but everyone<\/a> agrees<\/a> multitasking<\/a> sucks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What to do instead<\/h3>\n

No matter how tempting it is to think we can manage multiple tasks at once, we have to work on one thing at a time.<\/p>\n

In practice, this means looking at our to do list, deciding what to work on, then eliminating all other distractions until that task is finished (or the time limit is reached, if it\u2019s a large task). Email gets fully closed, quit Slack, put your phone in airplane mode.<\/p>\n

This is hard to process, because our gut reaction is to feel guilty about \u201cignoring\u201d tasks when we\u2019re single-tasking. But that\u2019s just the tragic irony of modern work: multitasking makes us feel <\/em>productive; single-tasking makes us actually<\/em> productive.<\/p>\n

\"A
Photo by delfi de la Rua on Unsplash<\/small><\/p>\n

Productivity is about strategy, not brute force<\/h2>\n

All of these studies share a common conclusion: no matter how badly we wish for it to be true, we can\u2019t operate at our highest levels of productivity through brute force. The idea of \u201cpowering through\u201d to get more done is a fairy tale.<\/p>\n

Grinding all day and night, skipping sleep, and never taking breaks may sound<\/em> like the epitome of a dedicated entrepreneur, but that kind of effort has an extremely limited window before it does more harm than good.<\/p>\n

Those of us who want to be truly<\/em> productive need to be more strategic. We need to balance our drive with our need to recharge; our grit with our need to process problems in the background; our ambition with our cognitive limits. By learning when to press hard on the accelerator, and when to let biology do its work, we maximise our productivity and efficiency \u2014 we\u2019ll see our careers accelerate and<\/em> the bags under our eyes disappear.<\/p>\n

And if we think about why we\u2019re working<\/a>, isn\u2019t the reason to work so we can have a better life? By being strategic, we can make sure we\u2019re not giving up the long-term goal of work for short-term progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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