The Science behind Productivity

Whether it’s in school, university, or the workplace, ‘productivity’ is an inescapable buzzword you often hear used to measure how much work you do, and how efficiently it gets done. You might chastise yourself for not being productive enough, or for wasting your time on menial distractions rather than actually getting anything worthwhile done. We usually also feel a nice sense of self-satisfaction when we think that we’ve achieved something. But is there a secret to eliminating these barriers to achieve a more ‘productive’ lifestyle? These scientifically-backed insights into how our brain works might give us a better idea of how we might get there.

‘Just try harder?’

You might hear people telling you that there is no secret to productivity, and that all you have to do to achieve your goals is to ‘just try harder’. While motivation certainly plays a key role, it might be better to step back and take a more strategic, and perhaps a less draining, approach. Crucially, scientific evidence states that willpower is a finite and exhaustible resource. This can be explained through how we process our stress hormones. According to a Harvard Business Review article by Tony Schwartz, if you work at a high intensity for more than 90 minutes, we start to rely on our stress hormones for energy. As a consequence of this, our prefrontal cortex begins to shut down and we lose our ability to focus and think as clearly. Evidently, it’s not as simple as ‘willing’ ourselves to work until we get there.

But how can I be productive if I can’t stop procrastinating?

The common phenomenon of procrastination is certainly no stranger to students - I can testify for that myself! However, a deeper understanding into what procrastination actually is might help us comprehend why we do it. According to studies in clinical psychology, there are some major cognitive distortions that can lead to academic procrastination. This is heavily linked to the Present Bias, which suggests that we tend to be more drawn to immediate, short-term gratification than we are to long-term rewards. With this knowledge, it makes sense that the instant reward of watching TV or scrolling on social media appeals to us more than a task that would take a longer time to accomplish. In this way, you not only overestimate how much time you have left to perform certain tasks, but also overestimate how motivated you will be in the future to complete said tasks.

Tips and techniques:

Although this psychological deep dive may make it seem that everything is hopeless, not all is lost. After all, being aware of what we shouldn’t do just makes it easier to determine what we should be doing instead.

Work in sprints, not marathons. Using techniques such as the Pomodoro method mean that you can concentrate your effort more efficiently across a fixed time period, rather than expending and diluting your stamina over an extended period of time. By not diverting your focus from your main task over a shorter period of time, you also have more time freed up over the rest of the day to relax!

Set yourself deadlines, and track your progress - there’s a reason to-do lists are so popular! The very act of following a to-do list is proven to help manage stress: the routine of deciding tasks; placing them in the order you want to complete them in; listing them down; checking them off. Dr David Cohen claims that it relieves general anxiety by providing structure and keeping track of your accomplishments. Creating the physical list frees up your mental capacity to concentrate on the task at hand, rather than zoning in on the anxiety behind any incomplete tasks. This is further supported by the Zeigarnik effect, which details that your memory more likely to remember all the tasks you have not completed, and to forget the tasks that you have. Physically checking off all the tasks you successfully completed throughout the day, therefore, can bring about a better sense of satisfaction and fulfilment - you’ll feel more productive through seeing everything you’ve managed to accomplish.

With all this said, it is important to remember that there is no blueprint to productivity - it cannot be objectively measured. You shouldn’t assume that your standards of productivity are the same as the next person, because chances are your goals, priorities, and ways of working won’t be the same. Recognising how you work, and what methods work best for you is the crucial first step to helping yourself feel more productive. Setting your goals by your own standards will make you a lot more self-satisfied than by judging how you work through someone else’s eyes!

References:

https://www.verywellmind.com/the-psychology-of-procrastination-2795944#citation-1

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/science-productivity

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/10/the-psychology-of-the-to-do-list-why-your-brain-loves-ordered-tasks