Category: Blog

Get a Life…and Get More Work Done!

“Creative people’s brains unconsciously connect experiences they’ve had. Which means they’ve probably had a lot of diverse experiences; that’s the raw material of insight.”

Worried what others will think if you start spending less time working?

If you are still anxious that getting a life will hurt your reputation at work more than it will help your productivity, take solace in the research that shows that being open about your home life can enhance your work life fairly dramatically. From The New York Times Magazine:

In a paper published in the American Sociological Review, half the employees … would participate in what they thought was a new initiative but was, in fact, part of the field experiment. The new policy was both radical and, in concept, simple: Workers in the experimental group were told they could work wherever, and whenever, they chose so long as projects were completed on time and goals were met; the new emphasis would be on results rather than on the number of hours spent in the office. Managers were trained to be supportive of their employees’ personal issues and were formally encouraged to open up about their own priorities outside work — an ill parent, or a child wanting her mom to watch her soccer games. Managers were given iPods that buzzed twice a day to remind them to think about the various ways they could support their employees as they managed their jobs and home lives.

The research found that employees in the experimental group met their goals as reliably as those in the control group, and they were, in short, much happier: They were sleeping better, were healthier and experienced less stress. Other studies examining the same workplace found that the effects even cascaded down to employees’ children, who reported less volatility around their own daily stresses; adolescents saw the quality of their sleep improve. A year out, and then three years out, employees in the experimental group reported less interest in leaving the organization than those in the control group.

Again, your value as an employee is in many ways dependent on the quality of your personal life. So stop worrying what other people think and do what you know will make you (and, as it turns out, your children if you’ve got ’em!) happier and healthier.

Click here to download the strategic slacking PDF

Strategic slacking is very fun if you make time for it. So make the time!

This post is from a series about “strategic slacking” from the “Science of Finding Flow,” an online course I created as a companion to my book The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less. Want to go on to the next class or start the course from the beginning? It’s free! Just go to The Science of Finding Flow course page. Enjoy!

Flow Tip: Take a Nap

I know. I know! I know what you are thinking right now: Now you’re really pushing it, lady. You WANT to take a nap. You may even understand intuitively what a great idea this is. But you OBVIOUSLY CAN’T nap at work!! PUHLEEZE! Napping is definitely not a part of the ideal worker archetype. It’s the opposite of ideal. Only George Costanza naps at work, because he’s a slacker.

I’m guessing that there is a little part of you that still believes that your success and performance at work is a function of effort, of the time you spend actively on the job. The time you spend trying, not napping.

But if you have a job that requires that you think, at all, then the quality of your thinking matters. Right?

Turns out that one of the most efficient and effective ways to improve the quality of our thinking in the afternoon is to take a 20-minute power nap. According to Ron Friedman, an award-winning psychologist and the author of The Best Place to Work,

“Our biological need for rest is no less pressing than our biological need for food or water. When we’re tired, less blood flow reaches the areas of our brain that are critical to thinking. We’re also less capable of forming long-term memories. Sure, we can power through the midday slog when we need to—but only at a reduced level of functioning.”

A 20 or 30-minute power nap will improve your thinking and decision making, enhance your creativity, and elevate your mood. It will also increase your alertness and improve your accuracy and attention to detail. All of these things, obviously, will increase your productivity. If you have time to run out for a cup of coffee, you have time for a power nap.

by Christine Carter

Flow Class Activity: What Makes You Happy?

When was the last time you felt a strong positive emotion? Perhaps you felt really grateful, joyful. or excited.

Can you identify the circumstances and the behaviors that sparked the emotion? Perhaps you felt hopeful listening to a TED talk, or loved when your stepson spontaneously threw his arms around you.

Finally, figure out how to make that situation happen again, and–here’s the trick—schedule it. I know that this might sound a little hoaky… scheduling happiness sounds a little like scheduling sex (which is not-so-sexy). But while research shows that trying to be happier tends to backfire, consistently scheduling activities that have made us happy in the past will likely make us feel happier in the future. (How’s that for the science of the blazingly obvious?)

So whip out your calendar, please, and start planning your time around activities that bring you joy. Or inspiration. Or compassion — whatever flavor of positive emotion is lowest hanging fruit for you. Researchers call this activity “prioritizing positivity,” and it’s best done as a way to prioritize those daily activities you most enjoy.

Not sure where your low hanging fruit is? This post provides several research-based suggestions for finding your bliss.

This post is from a series about flourishing from the “Science of Finding Flow,” an online course I created as a companion to my book The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less. Want to go on to the next class or start the course from the beginning? It’s free! Just go to The Science of Finding Flow course page. Enjoy!

by Christine Carter

The Benefits of Slacking-Off

Slacking-off has several obvious benefits. For starters, we human beings need stillness in order to recharge our batteries. The constant stream of external stimulation that we get from our televisions and computers and smartphones, while often gratifying in the moment, ultimately causes what we explored in Unit 4: “cognitive overload.” May I remind you that this state of feeling overwhelmed impairs our ability to think creatively, to plan, organize, innovate, solve problems, make decisions, resist temptations, learn new things easily, speak fluently, remember important social information (like the name of our boss’s daughter, or our daughter’s boss), and control our emotions. In other words, it impairs basically everything we need to do in a given day.

In our fast-paced and technology-driven culture, we (and our employers) sometimes forget that we are humans, not computers. Like other animals, humans are governed by circadian and ultradian rhythms. Most people are familiar with the concept of our circadian rhythms. In the twenty-four-hour period when the sun rises and sets, we sleep and wake in predictable cycles. When we travel into different time zones, our circadian rhythms get out of whack, and as a consequence our lives can also feel similarly discombobulated.

Our brains and bodies also cycle in “ultradian rhythms” throughout the day and night. An ultradian rhythm is a recurrent period or cycle that repeats throughout the twenty-four-hour circadian day, like breathing or our heartbeat.

You’re probably familiar with the idea that we don’t just sleep in a singular, steady state. We cycle between dreaming and various types of non-dreaming sleep states of consciousness. There are five different stages of the sleep cycle, each stage identifiable by different brain-wave patterns. For example, Stage 1 sleep is characterized by slow theta waves, while Stage 4 sleep, which is deep and dreamless, is characterized by even slower delta waves.

Our brain-wave patterns also cycle when we are awake. About every hour and a half to two hours, we experience a significant “ultradian dip,” when our energy drops and sleep becomes possible. When we work through these dips—relying on caffeine, adrenaline, and stress hormones to keep us alert instead of letting our bodies and brains rest, we become anxious and jittery, and our performance falters.

When we ignore our body’s natural rhythms, we create a state of chronic jet lag for ourselves, which over time leads to clinical levels of depression and anxiety, stress-related disease, and a myriad of substance-abuse problems (as we self-medicate to stay alert and to “rest”).

I could venture further into the neuroscience of letting your brain rest, but I’m guessing you understand the point I’m making intuitively. Instead of expounding on the science of the blazingly obvious, I’m going to ask you to trust what you already know: Your brain can’t function optimally (or even at a mediocre level) if you ask it to work 24/7. No athlete would dream of training for 16 hours a day. You will not find your flow if you keep your brain busy all the time.

Moreover, we actually can’t keep our brains focused all the time. This is something you know intuitively; when you are trying to focus, often your mind will wander, of course. Research shows that the average person’s mind wanders for 47% of the day. So despite your attempts at 100% productivity, our brains constantly switch into mind-wandering mode (more on this in the next post).

This has huge huge huge practical implications for our attempts to focus, which we will tackle next!

by Christine Carter

The Problem with Nothing

I’m endlessly fascinated by a series of studies led by Tim Wilson where the research subjects were put alone in a room, with nothing to do. The researchers describe their work:

In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities much more, and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.

You read that right: Many people (67 percent of men and 25 percent of women, to be exact) actually gave themselves painful electric shocks instead of just sitting there doing nothing—after they had indicated to the researchers that they would pay money NOT to be shocked again. One guy shocked himself 190 times in 15 minutes.

When we can’t tolerate the feelings that come up when we aren’t doing anything, or when we can’t tolerate a lack of stimulation, we feel uncomfortable when we have downtime. As a result, we forfeit our downtime and all its benefits by seeking external stimulation, which is usually readily available in our purse or pocket (rather than an electric shock machine). Instead of just staring out the window on the bus, we read through our Facebook feed. Instead of being alone with our thoughts for a minute, we check our email waiting in line at the grocery store. Instead of enjoying our dinner, we mindlessly shovel food in our mouths while staring at a screen.

The reason that we called the third unit DETOX is because the symptoms we experience when we stop checking our phones compulsively are uncomfortable; many people would rather receive a painful electric shock than stand the pain of not checking, of not being “productive.”

Which brings me back to my main point: The ability to just sit there and do nothing is actually a skill, and as a culture we’re not practicing this skill much these days.

You might think that there is no actual problem here: You’re okay not having any stillness in your life. You might think that when you aren’t checking your messages or checking something off a list somewhere, nothing is happening in that big brain of yours.

But you would be wrong. Actually, a lot is happening in your brain when you just stare into space. And a lack of stillness throughout your day is a huge problem for your performance, your productivity, and your satisfaction with your life.

by Christine Carter

Are you bored? Or threatened?

“Even more than they are boring, downtime and daydreaming are threatening to our sense of self.”

Join the Discussion
How would you feel if you had to just stare into space for 10 minutes, and weren’t allowed to do anything?

This short video is from a series about “strategic slacking” from the “Science of Finding Flow”, an online course I created as a companion to my book The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less. Want to go on to the next class or start the course from the beginning? It’s free! Just go to The Science of Finding Flow course page. Enjoy!

by Christine Carter

Welcome to Unit 5 – Slack Off!

“When was the last time you just did nothing? I mean NOTHING AT ALL?”

by Christine Carter

Are Your Relationship Problems Solvable? (Raising Happiness Homestudy)

Never let a problem to be solved become more important than the person to be loved.
–Barbara Johnson

Welcome to Theme 5 of the Raising Happiness Homestudy. In this theme you’ll learn about some of the science related to romantic relationships.

Parenting Practice: Categorize Relationship Conflicts

Take some time to think about the conflicts that have recently arisen in your relationship. What do you fight about?

(1) Which of these conflicts are solvable, one-time issues? These are fights that may come out-of-the-blue and are unlikely to occur again. Often the only solution needed for these types of problems are an apology.

(2) Which are cyclical? What fights are you having again and again — that result from basic differences in your personalities and personal preferences? Can you accept these conflicts? When you talk about this problem, do you make some headway — does the problem get better for a little while, and then come back?

(3) Which of your conflicts are wounding? These are important to identify, so that you can keep them from further eroding your relationship. Wounding problems are cyclical conflicts in that they are based on personality differences and they tend to be recurring — but you haven’t yet established a constructive dialogue around them. These are the fights that are characterized by defensiveness, global criticism, stonewalling, and contempt.

(4) Do you have any deal-breakers in your relationship? What are your deal-breakers? For me, they are things like abuse, infidelity, or not feeling loved.

All couples are different. What do you fight about? What type of problem is this? Give us an example of a recent fight in the comments, and your diagnosis.

If you would like to download the audio version of this video to listen to in your car or on the go, click the link below.
DOWNLOAD THE AUDIO VERSION HERE.

This video is the 1st in a series about the science of great relationships from The Raising Happiness Homestudy. Check out the rest of the Homestudy here .

Additional reading:
Should You Stay or Should You Go?
How to Know if You’ve Married the Wrong Person

by Christine Carter

Flow Class Activity: Build Yourself a Focus Fortress

This is a recommended practice from a series about how to focus in my online course, Science of Finding Flow.

When we are re-building our ability to focus, we often need to change certain aspects of our environments.

Anything that might distract or tempt us away from single-tasking needs to be taken care of before we drop into “The Zone.” I think of myself like a toddler going on a road trip: What will make me pull over before I reach my destination? Will I need to plug my computer in? Get a Kleenex? Adjust the thermostat? Something as small as an itchy tag on the back of our shirt can weaken our focus if we become tempted to go to the bathroom to cut it out.

Here is what I have to do before I find flow

Clear my desk of anything that might distract me. I remove yesterday’s coffee cup, close books, put pens away, stack papers into a deceptively neat pile. As I do this, I note anything on my task list that will need my attention later, and make a time when I will attend to it.

Open any documents on my computer that I will need to use while I’m doing my focused work, and then quit my email application and close any open browser windows that I won’t need.

I close any other apps that aren’t in use. I leave my calendar open, so that I’m notified when I need to transition to a meeting or other work.

I put my smartphone into “do not disturb” mode and move it out of sight.

I go to the bathroom, and bring a glass of water, snack, and cup of coffee to my desk.

I close my office door. If I’m not alone, I put on noise canceling headphones and then I tell Buster, my trusty canine colleague, to go to his “place,” where he’s trained to stay while I work.

What do you need to do to build your fortress against distraction and interruption? Take a minute to anticipate obstacles: What will distract or interrupt you? What is your plan to conquer those obstacles? Make yourself a quick list. We’ll refer back to them in our next activity.

This “class” is from “The Science of Finding Flow,” an online course I created as a companion to my book The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less. Want to go on to the next class or start the course from the beginning? It’s free! Just go to The Science of Finding Flow course page. Enjoy!

by Christine Carter

Day Dreaming 101

Ever feel like you’ve lost time and productivity because you couldn’t keep your mind from wandering? I can’t believe that I’m writing this, but perhaps you are doing it wrong.

Done right, day dreaming is one of the most productive things we can do, but we need to be strategic about it. When we give ourselves downtime to let our brains switch into mind-wandering mode–at a time when it doesn’t cost us what we are working on, like while we are running errands or exercising or eating lunch–we reap all the benefits of daydreaming detailed below. And we ALSO allow our minds to focus more fully when that is what we need to do.

Think of daydreaming and mind wandering like sleep: your brain needs a certain amount of it to function fully. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, you risk falling asleep in meetings and at other inopportune times. (I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. Once, when I was in my 20s, I fell asleep at a fancy dinner party, at the table — super embarrassing. Another time I fell asleep standing up on a train and was caught by a handsome stranger, which wasn’t so bad in the end, he later became a good friend.)

At any rate, daydreaming is similar: if you don’t get enough of it, your brain will do it at inopportune times. But when you let your mind wander strategically — for example, while you are waiting in line, instead of checking your email — you free up time for your brain to really focus on your most important work when you need it to.

Here’s the takeaway: Left to its own devices, our minds will wander about half the time. But strategic slacking can help us tame that mind-wandering mode, allowing us to focus when we need to. This means that one hour of focused work is worth two hours of normal-daydreaming-included-work, when you bring only 53% of your thinking to the task. Ever wondered what it really means to work smarter rather than harder? How, exactly, to accomplish more in less time? THIS IS HOW, people.

So even though daydreaming, mind-wandering, and slacking-off seem like the last productivity strategies you would ever want to employ, they are KEY TO FINDING FLOW. Daydreaming at work can be tough, though. Take a look:

And Another Thing:

Less obvious is the fact that constantly keeping yourself busy— or constantly checking your phone or social media feeds— is a numbing behavior. It makes it so that you can’t really feel the uncomfortable emotions that arise when you’re not doing anything “productive.” And here’s the thing about that: you can’t selectively numb your emotions. So if you numb guilt or boredom or anxiety, you’ll also numb excitement, or just straight-up happiness.

We only experience big joy and real gratitude and the dozens of other positive emotions that make our lives worth living by actually being in touch with our emotions—by giving ourselves space to actually feel what it is we are feeling. In an effort to avoid the uncomfortable feelings that “slacking-off” can produce (such as the panicky feeling that we aren’t getting anything done), we also numb ourselves to the good feelings in our lives. And research suggests that actually being present for what we’re feeling and experiencing in the moment—good or bad—is better for our happiness in the end.

So a major benefit of daydreaming is that it allows unprocessed emotions to come to the surface to be felt; we’ll dig into this more in Unit 6: FEEL. For now, know that if you want to be happy in life, it’s important to stop numbing your emotions all the time.