Take a Break!

We are all striving to be more productive and the get as much done as we can within the given work day. For many this means not taking a break which actually is proven to hamper productivity.

The standard working week of 40hours is constantly being extended as people push themselves to meet expectations, targets and ensure that they maintain their jobs. The "work until you drop" culture is not only unproductive but it could also be detrimental to our health. People who work longer hours are more prone to illness and injury which in the long term benefits no one.

Industrial companies put a lot of effort in to "asset integrity" - which really just means protecting critical plants and machinery from damage and wear and tear.

Within the service industries should companies not be doing the same where their people are their only assets?

Conflictingly financial services, consulting, the law and even the medical profession perpetuate working hours where all-nighters are heroic, driving with jet lag is the norm and anyone who actually has lunch risks becoming lunch.

For the last 100 years every productivity study in every industry has come to the same conclusion: after about 40 hours in a week, the quality of your work starts to degrade. You make mistakes. That’s why working 60 hours may not save you time or money: you’ll spend too much of that time fixing the mistakes you shouldn’t have made in the meantime. That’s why software companies that limit work to 35 hours a week need to employ fewer QA engineers: there isn’t as much mess to clean up.

With regard to multi tasking, when the cognitive scientist Dan Simons looked at the vast mountain of evidence that demonstrates the futility of it, he was inevitably asked whether there were anything we could do to enlarge the capacity of our minds to which the answer was an emphatic no.

Simons said that the one thing that truly enhances cognition is exercise.
Experiments by his colleague Arthur Kramer showed that walking for a few hours a week led to large improvements on cognitive tasks. Stretching and toning exercises had no cognitive benefits, but aerobic exercise, which increases blood flow to the brain, did. Seniors who walked for just 45 minutes a day for three days a week showed better preservation of their brains in MRI scans. Exercise, Simons concludes, improves cognition broadly by increasing the fitness of your brain.

Instead of setting unrealistic demands upon yourself or expectations for others you should take a break! Step away from the desk at the very least over your lunch break and if your the boss encourage it and lead by example. After all it's called a lunch "break" for a reason!

Social Media Can Improve Productivity

There countless social media platforms now being presented to us and some companies are making every effort to become involved in what they see as being the key platforms. But really it’s not about the scale of our efforts, it’s about the way in which we are utilising the tools which are available, and the efficiency of our endeavors in this new and opportunistic discipline.

There is also the big question mark hovering somewhat like a storm cloud over whether businesses entering the world of social media is perhaps hampering productivity levels as employees become distracted and hours spent embracing and interacting the world of social media are considered to be immeasurable in terms of the impact on business.

This is true in as much as it is true for marketing as a whole. The rewards and benefits may not be immediately discernable but as with any activities being undergone within an organisation, if the objectives are determined from the outcome, however specific or broad, the ease by which the results and outcomes can be measured will be shaped.

Some managers believe this new work style which involves workers engaging in social media activities has resulted in a blur between personal and professional time. The question is whether the potential benefits of engagement outweigh the widely acknowledged and cited drawbacks.

There are few noted areas within which social media can potentially enrich productivity.

Scalable Networking

The majority of networking is today being carried out online which saves a hell of a lot of time and supports networking on a much larger scale than would be conceivable on a face to face basis.

Information Overload Can be Avoided

Some may argue the opposite, but if searches are refined and networks, forums, groups and platforms are selectively embraced then information becomes more distinguished and specifically tailored to meet the needs of the any particular business or business person.

Freedom to Collaborate

In a world where collaboration is most often supported by some type of software, social media can provide the functionality to make sure that everyone can be productive while using the tool that works best for them. That said it is something which does need to be monitored as the freedom which the world of social media bestows could potentially be abused.

I think the blur and potential for social media to be abused can and should be ideally overcome be developing or utilising the ethos which exists within an organisation. If everyone is on the same page, is committed to the organisation and its objectives and holds its values in high esteem the potential shortcomings of social media as identified by many managers should certainly be surmounted.

Social Media can evidently be a double edged sword and it is fundamentally down the organisation or individual user to identify what they want to achieve through their involvement, examine the way in which they are using the tools available and endeavor to make the most of them.