Habits have always been recognized as the backbone of productivity. Without the implementation of habits, your productivity would sit at rock bottom. So it would make sense that all habits are explicitly seen as gateways to productive action. Right?
Turns out that some popular habits, such as waking up extremely early, can harm one’s overall health and energy. From a contrasting viewpoint, there are several habits that seem lazy, but actually, influence an increase in productivity. You may also be surprised to hear that some of these habits are likely already a part of your daily life.
Below are several habits that orbit around this idea of how, what seem to be lazy actions, can influence a boost in productivity. Today, I would like to dive deeper into this paradox-like concept to help you define a clearer line between hard work and laziness.
1. Getting Enough Sleep
Although I’ve covered this topic before, a large number of people (especially those who indulge in self-improvement) think that the earlier you wake up, the more productive you will be. Productivity enthusiasts will always obsess over waking up as early as 4:30 in the morning, and, while that may work for them, it might not work for you.
Not everyone is going to be an early riser naturally; meaning not everyone is going to be able to wake up super duper early to get things done without deprivation side effects.
I know some people who like to sleep in because they find that their most productive hours lean toward the evenings or even late at night. It’s all about finding what works for you.
Research shows that getting an adequate amount of quality sleep is essential for reasons like memory consolidation, cardiovascular health, and much more. Conversely, when you get poor amounts of sleep “you can’t function at your best.” Many of us tend to believe that we’ve “adapted” but our cognitive performance will still continue to decline.
Sleeping better is working better.
2. Chatting With Colleagues
Watercooler chatting is an obvious sign of slacking. Except when it isn’t.
Neurologists have had plenty of time to study the brain in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. They found that an overall cognitive decline was common when people thought about things by themselves for too long.
This implies that when you’re stumped on an issue or can’t solve a problem, it will be much harder to arrive at the right conclusion without someone else’s input. Ergo, it would be much more efficient, or productive, to chat with someone such as your colleagues at work.
Typically, this concept of talking at work has a bad reputation because socializing isn’t usually used for productive breakthroughs. However, chatting with your fellow acquaintances about your struggles will never be a waste of time.
3. Quitting the Work You Hate
Sometimes, the most productive thing you could do is to stop doing things in the first place.
You could be the most diligent and hard-working person out there, but you will never reach your full potential if you don’t enjoy what you do. In fact, Steve Jobs once stood in front of the Harvard graduating class of 2005 and said “the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
Much research will also instill the idea of how working with a passion will return an increasing, positive work outcome and experience. Nearly anyone who achieves something great will have a clear reason to do so.
Grinding out for years to achieve something you don’t really care about will rarely be the recipe for accomplishment. Fundamentally unsatisfying work will create the illusion of productivity; however, productivity isn’t about mindlessly getting a lot done. Rather, it’s about working hard at your specific and meaningful goals that will fulfill the empty bucket of accomplishment.
To do the work you love, however, you will need to quit the work you hate.
4. Taking Naps
Back to the topic of sleep: it’s important. Especially in the deeper phases when the real, quality sleep settles in.
That being said, deeper sleep phases don’t always fit our schedule when life gets busy. You may have been at school or work, slouching around and barely keeping your eyes open to end up making no real progress.
In these cases, taking a nap should be seen as a time-saving investment, rather than a wasteful action. When you fill in the extra gap of needed sleep, you’ll ultimately be more awake to even be productive in the first place.
However, the issue with naps is that you can oversleep, which can then be seen as a waste of time. Naps should be quick and effective.
To do so, a few clever techniques have been created to help nap without going too far:
- The Spoon Trick
- A technique used by the greats. Involves napping with a spoon in your hand raised above the ground. Your muscles relax when you get into deeper sleep phases and the spoon clatters when dropped on the ground, waking you up.
- Coffee Naps
- Where you combine caffeine with sleep to remove adenosine, the organic compound that makes you sleepy. This chemical mix-up allows you to stay awake while getting the rest you missed.
5. Strolling on Long Walks
A lot of the time, we devalue the action of just thinking. Walking outside in nature allows your brain to think better.
Studies have even found that “creativity levels were consistently and significantly higher for those walking compared to those sitting.” Implying that a simple walk puts the mind in a potent state of productive thinking.
In fact, some of the most famous people to walk the earth (no pun intended) such as Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs would hold their meetings on foot. Albert Einstein did most of his thinking on long walks, pondering the idea of general relativity.
So without long walks, our entire understanding of the universe, and its gravity, would have never existed without the utilization of simple walking, being exaggerated. Einstein could have just published a bunch of mediocre papers to give off a sense of productivity, but instead, he took what is thought to be wasted time, and used it to his advantage.
Who knows? Maybe walking could be the single most productive thing there is.