"There is not a minute to lose!" Productivity attitudes that don't work

1. Creative clutter helps to work

This is the main argument of people who like to scatter documents, gadgets and other things on the desktop or put all the papers in one pile. However, scientists have found Interactions of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in human visual cortex that chaos on the table reduces a person's ability to concentrate and process information.

It is really faster to grab a document from the stack at hand than to get up and walk to the drawer. But sooner or later, the disorder reaches such a scale that it becomes very difficult to understand it. It is even more difficult to get rid of it: the organization will require a lot of time and effort.

2. Not a minute to lose

Some managers and employees believe that a productive person's day should be filled with useful activities, and every second of delay means losses for the business. In fact, the idea of constant non-stop work hurts everyone. Because of it, the health of employees is deteriorating, and work is done much more slowly. True productivity requires flexibility.

Research shows Brief diversions vastly improve focus, researchers find that short pauses during an assignment significantly increase a person's ability for long-term work. It is better to rest for a few minutes than trying to forcefully finish the job as quickly as possible to the detriment of your health and the quality of the results.

3. To overcome great difficulties, willpower is enough

Imagine being given a difficult assignment for which you lack the qualifications. You gather all your will into a fist, convince yourself that everything will work out, and get to work. After a few hours of work, when all the deadlines have passed a long time ago, you get a bad result.

This is because willpower alone is not enough to solve a complex problem. Knowledge and skills cannot be replaced by perseverance. If you need to do a job that you are not well suited for, tell the management about it. If the company is interested in quality, not quantity of results, then it will solve this problem.

4. Modern work schedule is optimal

The classic schedule in most companies is eight hours of work with a lunch break. It is a standard used almost everywhere. However, such a schedule does not make sense in the modern world.

First, nobody works eight hours a day. Calculated: Average People Spend How Many Productive Hours in a Work Day? Just 2 Hours, 23 Minutes… directly on work questions no more than three hours. The rest of the time, they either procrastinate or create the appearance of labor so as not to receive additional tasks.

Second, according to another study, The Rule of 52 and 17: It's Random, But it Ups Your Productivity, the most productive people don't work for several hours at a time. They alternate about 50 minutes of work with 15–20 minutes of rest. Taking breaks allows you to distract yourself so that you can look at the task with a fresh eye and not burn out.

5. Lists of tasks are a guarantee of productivity

Many people love to-do lists. This is logical: if you write down what exactly you need to accomplish, then you will not forget anything important and will not overwork.

But in reality, task lists on their own can rarely improve productivity. For good results, they should be used in conjunction with deadlines. Scientists claim The Deadline Made Me Do It that if a person knows how much time is allotted to him for a task, then he works faster.