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Three Shifts that will transform your productivity

By | David Klaasen | Helping You Create Clarity, Inspire Your People & Drive Performance | Retain your best people | Changing Management Mindsets and Behaviour | Practical Behaviour Analytics

I often hear the complaint ‘Everything is a priority!’, but if everything is a priority then nothing is a priority. The word ‘prioritise’ means to rank, select or place in order, so if everything is equally important then nothing is ‘more’ important and nothing is a priority. However, I also understand the immense pressure everyone is under these days. We are all expected to do and achieve more, yet there are only 24 hours in a day. So the only solution is working smarter not harder.

Your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain where you do your thinking, is surprisingly limited. It is a thin 2.5mm sheath covering the front of your brain mass and is only 4 to 5% of your brain, yet it demands a huge amount of energy to function. If that energy is not available because you are tired, stressed or overwhelmed it is not very effective.  The latest studies in neuroscience prove that we can only hold one complex thought in our minds at any one time. We need to respect our brain and give it what it needs to function well: time and energy.

It needs to be the right sort of time at the right time of day, week, month or even quarter and it needs to be the right sort of energy – not the quick fix of a caffeinated or sugar fuelled rush – but the energy that comes with a healthy, well exercised and well rested body.

Three shifts in thinking

There are three shifts in thinking required to prevent overwhelming your prefrontal cortex. The first one is to ‘Zone your Diary’. This means allocating specific tasks to specific times so you can be more efficient. These times may differ for different people but generally it is best to do the most complex thinking early in the morning when you still have lots of energy for your prefrontal cortex to work effectively.

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