Friday Feature: The Best Way to be Productive

Okay, you're a busy person. You've stopped to read this, my third productivity-related post of the week, so I won't keep you in suspense. The best way to be productive is to do nothing.

Huh?

Yep. I was first captivated by the subtitle of this CNBC piece ("The psychology behind why being lazy is actually good for your brain"). I mean, who wouldn't be? How could we not be in favor of being good to our brains, particularly if all we have to do to accomplish this is to be lazy?

I'm in.

But the article hit home in serious ways as well, most notably finding it difficult to actually relax. I don't know about you, but I find that even my downtime isn't really downtime. By the time most of us get to that point in the day, we end up in mindless pursuits which, like a big meal at 9PM, can be delicious while we're consuming it while offering endless echoes of regret later on. I have so many hobbies I'd love to get to. What if they were actually the key to productivity?

La Petite Femmevia Pixabay

Our brains need down time and, when we honor that need, they work more efficiently. My favorite line in the article was this payoff of productivity: "getting more done in a less amount of time [sic] means more opportunity to relax." Like, actually, relax, rather than crashing, guilt-ridden in front of endless syndicated sitcom episodes.

So, whaddaya think? Are you up for a little laziness?

Meet you there.

To Sleep, Perchance to be Productive

I slept in on Saturday. By the time I got out of bed, it was late enough to be "too late" by post-college grad standards, but not so late as to have become completely embarrassing.

I'm very good at berating myself when I think I've slept too late. So, to put things into perspective, I add eight hours to the time I went to bed to see if I'm as lazy as I fear a I am. It's rare that the time I get up actually exceeds that time frame; most days, it falls woefully short.

But on Saturday, it was a pretty close match. I actually got close to eight hours of sleep.

Once I was up, I kicked into high gear, and you know what? Saturday turned to to be a very productive day. Even without a nap.

Photo: kakisky via Morguefile

I've read a lot about sleep, some of it fact, some of it questionable. I know that sleep is essential to effective functioning, and that most of us who think we're operating at peak capacity have no idea what peak capacity really is. I've read that lack of sleep messes with our endocrine system, and contributes to obesity. I've also read that people who sleep later have higher IQs than those who rise early. That article even cited my default body clock (to bed around 1, up around 8) as common in that group, but I'm pretty sure I read that one on Facebook so I doubt it counts.

But for me, Saturday was verification of the first information tidbit. On several occasions throughout the day, I caught myself thinking, "So this is what enough sleep feels like." The correlation between sleep and productivity -- for me, on this one day, anyway -- was unmistakable.

I wish I could say I learned a life lesson and repeated the drill yesterday, but that's not true. Once again, my body clock and the plans we'd made were on different schedules, leaving me sleep deprived early in the day and leading into a Monday that, even by noon, felt a tad off-kilter.

So much for peak efficiency. Then again, it is Monday.