My favorite Productivity #WorkHack : Building Rituals
I spend a lot of time talking about time management, prioritization, and productivity with those that I coach. Whether you work from home or in the office, remaining productive can be quite the challenge, especially if you are changing from task to task throughout the day. While I don’t have a #WorkHack just yet for getting your ‘co-workers’ to leave you alone, I can definitely share my favorite ritual for shifting gears throughout the workday and reducing mental fatigue.
Multi-task? No thanks, I’ll have the chicken!
I want to start by addressing our antiquated assumption that we, as humans, are capable of multi-tasking. While we may be able to do a couple of things “at the same time” we are actually less productive when utilizing this method rather than just completing one task and moving on to the next. For reference, here’s a great article from NPR outlining a Stanford study on the matter. They explain it much better than I do.
Building Rituals
Working from home during a pandemic brought about a ton of new challenges to employers and employees. For those that have never worked from home, we somehow needed to figure out how to work from our personal sanctuaries. Employers searched for ways to ensure employees were remaining productive amid uncertainty around the world. In the mean time, I was searching for the best way to keep moving forward. I didn’t want to come to the grinding halt that the world seemed to be doing. Enter: the rituals.
One incredible person I was working with during a coaching session shared with me their WFH ritual: they would get in their car in the morning and drive around their neighborhood before parking back in their own driveway, entering their house, and starting their work day. At the end of the day, they would perform the same ritual, signifying the end of the work day and entering their home to relax.
A change of scenery
This leads me to the productivity #WorkHack: change your scenery. If you are changing from task to task or project to project, try going from standing to sitting (or vise versa) when you shift gears. You could physically move from your home office to somewhere else, but it isn’t necessary. The most important thing is a ritual.
Some rituals I have in place to increase productivity:
Lighting a candle when I sit down to work (bonus: it’s also a bit of self-care)
Writing my goals for the day in my planner before starting work
When going into an important, I-need-all-my-brain-power meeting, I switch my desk to standing
Spinning my wheels on something: I go for a walk.
Wrapping up the day: I switch my desk to sitting
To end the work day, I blow out my candle, raise my desk to standing, and push in my chair
What rituals do you have in place to increase your productivity? How do you balance work from home? What can you implement today to craft your work rituals, increase your productivity, and build stamina?