Construction Nation,
I hear from project leaders all the time about how much they must do every day, and how overwhelming it can feel. I came upon the work and writings of Cal Newport, Associate Professor at Georgetown University, who has several very interesting ways we can all help our brain to become more productive. I am happy to share three productivity hacks I learned from Cal.
Hack #1: Stop Overloading Your Brain with Tasks
The brain has what is like a car transmission system. If you have ever driven a manual shift car, you know that as you reach a certain speed, you must shift into a different gear and continue to do that until you’re in the highest gear. When, throughout your day you are working on something and then constantly switch to a new task, it’s like constantly moving up and down this gear system that’s in your brain.
Research shows that the mean amount of time you have between switching to look at email, Slack message, or something else, is five minutes. You have task switches, which must turn on in your brain every time you change to do something new. And then those switches don’t turn off. So, by the end of the day, you have a pile of all these cognitive switches that are turned on and not yet switched off. And you probably wonder, what did I get done today? This is called cognitive disorder.
Each time you start to work on something new, it may take a few minutes to dive in and get into the concentration needed, because the brain must turn off the old switches and turn on new switches. So, for the first 10 minutes or so of each new task you may feel uncomfortable – then after that you should be able to gain concentration time.
Knowing this, all of us should be working to not have a bunch of tasks left open in our brain every day. Rather, focus and do deep work on one task and then after you’re done with that go ahead and turn on a new task. This probably means you need to change how you organize your day, such as only looking at email once a day. Without the ability to have deep concentration, your daily output will be severely diminished.
Hack #2: Use the Power of a White Board to Solve Problems
Almost every construction site trailer has at least one whiteboard. It is a tool used every day on our projects. But are you using it as effectively as you might?
Research has shown there is a synergy that happens when you have two or three people focused at a whiteboard working to solve a problem. You get a 20% to 30% boost in concentration for each person. When it’s just you alone working to resolve the issue, your concentration will wander off and then have to be brought back. This does not occur when you have two or three people working together to solve the problem.
This is a great hack to use when you have a big challenging problem to solve. Bring in one or two others to help work to solve the problem with you on a whiteboard. Your level of concentration with be greater and you will be able to tap into the collective wisdom that you all bring with you.
Hack #3: Remove False Productivity Activities
When you’re doing knowledge work (paperwork, computer work, etc.), the old measures of productivity just simply won’t work. You can’t measure how many bushels you were able to pick during the day. In the mid-twentieth century people started looking at productivity measures when doing knowledge work as, “Are you busy?” But this is really false productivity, because it doesn’t really mean that you are achieving what you need to achieve. And in knowledge work, you’re typically left to organize and structure your work in whatever way you want. And there’s a lot of research that shows that we get many distractions every hour of our day.
Now that we have computers, various software programs, email, the Internet, all day long we can “demonstrate” productivity. But are we really productive? And the answer would be, “No.” You can’t possibly be productive because of you are turning on task triggers within your brain and preventing your brain from having any alignment so that you can have true productivity.
Using a multi-level planning process will ensure that you are working on what matters. This includes a monthly, weekly, and daily plan on what you need to accomplish. Starting with the monthly plan, you identify what things you will get done each week. Then each day you plan what you need to achieve so you achieve your weekly and monthly goals. For some, you can add a quarterly, or even an annual plan.
This multi-level planning will transform your activity, so you know you are working on what is most important and making sure you get the level of concentration needed to excellent results.
How Much Creativity, Excellence, or Breakthroughs Are You Missing?
A question for you today is how much creativity, excellence, or breakthroughs are you missing because you’re falsely busy and overloading your brain with tasks?
As you implement these three hacks, here’s some tips.
Tip #1: Don’t just muscle through, try to stop what you’re currently doing.
Tip #2: Structure your work so that you are not distracted. This may mean that you need to physically meet with people instead of talking to them by email or calling them on the phone.
Tip #3: Set aside large blocks of time where you don’t do any email, social media, browsing on the Internet, or talking to people, and just focus on a project or an outcome that you want to achieve.
Tip #4: If you have time that is not filled, then don’t fill it with what you used to do. Learn something new, meet somebody else, reach out to people, and make new connections! Have a meeting with the people in the room face-to-face. In other words, don’t let your mind shift you back into the old pattern. To stop that, you need to fill your brain with new positive experiences.
For me, it is so very satisfying to go to sleep at night and feel I truly accomplished something meaningful. Then I sleep very soundly. This is my wish for you!
Until next time,
Sue
Sue Dyer, MBA, MIPI is a Master Partnering Facilitator & Founder for OrgMetrics LLC, WSJ bestselling author on Trusted Leadership for construction leaders, Founder of the International Partnering Institute, and President of sudyco® LLC. You can contact Sue at suedyer@orgmet.com or 510 504-5877.
