Little Less for A Lot More

Productivity is measured by the number of hours you work; more the number of hours, more the productivity. That’s exactly what most of our brains have been fed with. However, every individual is different.

Some enjoy working ten hours straight, while some take frequent leisurely breaks and work ideally just for a few hours. The working capacities are different and so are their ideologies. It’s believed that slogging our brain for ten hours will give us 100 percent sure-shot results but it could indeed be null as well.

At the same time, five hours of intense working might give you ten hours’ worth of productivity. It is very well possible that a little less that we assume, might turn out a lot more than we have ever thought about.

Now, it’s not only the dedication and focus of an individual that hikes the productivity scale. More than that, it’s the allowance you give your brain to wander off and come back with a new found freshness and energy. It’s space and your wandering mind.

The human brain has been designed with just enough attention span. And, with experience, we all know how our frittering attention can be aligned again with the use of breaks. Distraction is inevitable and so is the reduction of the amount of productivity.

To gain a lot more with less number of hours, what’s imperative is to have just the right amount of control over your wandering mind. Let it wander; it’s not really voluntary. Let it wander, yes, but then develop a control over it. Let your mind does several tasks (even making a coffee is a task) but bring it back to the matter in hand; it would be surprising to see how well you do after these mental breaks.

A study figured out that an average office worker in the UK is only productive for almost 3 hours [2 hours and 53 minutes to be precise] out of an eight hour working schedule of every day. For the rest of the time, they are checking social media handles, making food in office, even searching for new jobs, etc etc.

Even distractions happen to us, at times, make us believe that we are buying distractions. And those companies start appearing to us as sellers of distractions. All in all, that gets hurt the most is our productivity.

You see, it’s not really about the number of hours you put in, it’s about how much you really gain out of the time you put to work. We’re not exactly promoting lesser hours for better productivity rather essentially, it’s the quality and quantity of work that matter, not the number of work hours.

Arguments might vary from person to person, how one looks at it and how another perceives it, but there’s no denying that it’s crucial to keep a check on why one should let their mind wander off and back again; a little less for a lot more at work, for work.

BREATHING SPACE

Taking breaks amidst your work, little or as long as an hour gives you space and time to breathe. Taking these leisurely breaks out, refreshing your mind, giving your mind a rest and in turn, results to boost.

FRESHNESS

There’s no obvious way to rejuvenate and come back with refined thoughts and a fresh mind than to let your brain wander off and rest it. And when you do come back with, there are fresh ideas which may or may not have come on a whim while you were on a mental vacation.

BETTER MENTAL HEALTH

Straining your brain for several hours straight, assuming your work will give you immense results; it may but it will definitely not result in mental stability. And, as much as you place work stability above mental, sooner or later, you do realise how the balance between both is important in the long run.

BALANCE

Of course, since you need to figure the balance between work stability and mental stability, the key to achieving that is having the balance between your wandering mind and your mind at work.