productivity

Apr 16 2022

Improve Your Performance and Presence in Seconds

The Wake-Up Call

In our always on dimension of digital distraction, working at speed is often perceived as a badge of honor. Proceeding at all times with a sense of urgency has become coded into our operating systems. The driven Do More, Faster. We instantly respond to demands (usually delivered by email) that are not actually urgent, and often not important.

A couple of decades ago this mindset was something I aspired to and lived by, as a high-flying attorney. Until one morning in 2004 when my doctor called to inform me that blood tests indicated I had a month to live.

The Consequences

Most people don’t have such an extreme wake up call. But the consequences of operating at breakneck speed, whilst rarely pausing to take a breath, are many and significant. They include:

Poor quality work
Stress, exhaustion and burnout
Missed ideas and opportunities
Shallow meaningless engagement with colleagues
Compromised creativity
Ineffectiveness

The irony is that the intention behind moving fast is often enhanced productivity, but the research unequivocally demonstrates that our effectiveness and the quality of our work suffers – as do we.

Power Pause

If we choose to pause, take a breath, stand back from our tasks, ignore our devices and allow or minds to wander freely, we give our brain the recharge and reset it so desperately needs.

Good leaders know the value of a power pause and utilize it on daily basis. By way of example, Jack Welch, legendary GE CEO, was known for spending an hour of his working day engaged in what he called “looking out of the window time”. The Navy SEALs typically operate in situations where the stakes are highest yet live by the maxim ‘Slow is smooth, smooth is fast’.

Studies and experience show that pausing, even for a minute (but 5 is better) has many benefits including:

The avoidance of cognitive fatigue
Better problem-solving capabilities. Standing back, reflecting, and altering perspective works wonders.
Improved focus and attention.
Enhanced creativity.
Greater work satisfaction.

In short, better work and better you.

A further significant benefit from deliberate pausing is enhanced presence. Good leaders have good presence;
otherwise referred to as executive or leadership presence. Pausing facilitates calmness, a sense of being present and the ability to engage and connect with the audience.

So whether you schedule your pauses or take them when the moment feels right, raise your game and enhance your well-being by embracing the power of the pause.

Jan 24 2018

90 Minutes to Mastery and Optimum Performance

The Myth of Marathons

When the pressure is on, tight deadlines to meet, a report to draft or stack of paperwork to get through, people have a tendency to work flat out for several hours without stopping for a break. This was a mistake I was repeatedly guilty of a couple of decades ago when I was a busy attorney.

Sprint for Success

For over one hundred years researchers have known optimum performance and productivity is achieved when people work in cycles of 90 minutes. Nathaniel Kleitman, Professor Emeritus in Physiology at the University of Chicago and regarded as the father of modern sleep research, discovered the basic rest-activity cycle (BRAC) and concluded that 90 minutes of activity followed by a short period of rest enabled people to achieve more.

This is because most peoples’ brains can only focus intensely for 90 to 120 minutes. This is the Ultradian Rhythm that regulates our sleeping and waking lives.

And if You Want to Master Something

Research also indicates that mastery is best achieved by practicing in blocks of 90 minutes. Psychologist, Anders Ericsson, a leading expert on expertise, conducted a study involving the best young violinists in the world and found that the top performers all had the same practice characteristics:

They practiced in the morning
They practiced for 3 sessions
Each session lasted 90 minutes
There was a short rest between each session

For many people, a break of 10-15 minutes is sufficient to fully recharge. To maximize recovery, get up and go for a short brisk walk and make sure you hydrate with water. If you have nature nearby then either look at it or even better go to it. Numerous studies have demonstrated that nature and green boost creativity and productivity.

It’s important to think of these 90 minute blocks as sprints rather than casual strolls. Although, forcing yourself to take a short break may seem counterintuitive, by working in sync with your natural cycle you’ll soon find your performance and productivity noticeably improve.

Martin Soorjoo works with individuals and teams to improve their performance and resilience.

Aug 20 2017

The Power of Trade-Offs

Can You Have it all?

It took me several decades to fully appreciate that the myth that you can ‘have it all’ really is just that – a myth. This belief, often pedaled by personal development and success coaches, undermines fulfillment and meaningful achievement in our personal and work lives.

The belief that ‘you can have it all’ pervades our lives in various guises ranging from being busy rather than effective, multi-tasking rather than single tasking, working on multiple businesses and projects rather than one, having thousands of online ‘friends’ rather than enjoying a few deep ‘real world’ relationships.

Many Priorities vs One Real Priority

More than ever we live in an era where quantity is perceived as a triumph over quality. Always being busy, having plenty on the go and getting by on a few hours sleep are badges of honor. This thinking in part is driven by not wanting to miss out on the opportunity for something better. The reality is that living our lives this way means that better never comes.

At What Cost?

Living life a life of over-commitment (as I did for much of my twenties and thirties) has many costs including:

Always being stressed
Always feeling exhausted
Always being late for meetings or deadlines
Letting family, friends, co-workers and clients down
Not completing important tasks and projects
Producing poor quality work
Not having any downtime and playtime
The undermining of creativity and clarity
Not feeling fulfilled and happy

When I look back, my greatest regrets are not spending more time with the people who mattered most to me and my greatest failures were often contributed to by spreading myself too thinly, consequently not giving 100%.

Unlocking the Power of Our Most Valuable Asset

Time is our most valuable asset. While we can make more money we cannot make more time. This logically means we cannot have it all. When presented with several attractive options it is natural to want to explore them all. The key, however, to making the most of what we currently have and the many opportunities that lie before us, is to consciously utilize the power of ‘trade-offs’.

When presented with several opportunities at once, rather than proceed with the mindset of having your cake and eating it, decide which of the available options you most want and put your energies and focus into that option only. While this approach is not easy, not least because we are twice as averse to loss as we are to making an equal gain, it’s better to consciously decide to take this path than have the negative consequences of trying to have it all foisted on you.

This may mean deciding whether you choose to spend 2 hours on social media having snatches of conversations with people you have never met or deciding to have a drink or dinner with one of your closest friends whose company you always enjoy. Deciding whether to take just one more call or send one more email or turn up on time for that important meeting? Making the decision not to spread yourself thinly across 3 business that all have potential or putting your time energy and focus into the business your heart is really in, thereby increasing its chances of success.

An Empowering Mindset and Approach

When faced with several attractive opportunities at once, frame your choice in terms of which opportunity (whether personal or work related) you will choose to give 100% to in order to increase the likelihood of success and fulfillment.

This approach is consciously adopted by outperformers across every field. On his return to Apple Steve Jobs famously slashed the number of product lines and focused the company’s time, energies and resources on a select few. Those who excel in sport and athletics, rarely focus on more than one event, even though they might actually be good at 2 or 3. A jack of all trades is rarely a master of one.

Embracing and utilizing the power of trade-offs, not only increases the chances of you succeeding in those endeavors that you fully invest your time, energy and focus in but it also results in less stress and more fulfillment. Saying ‘no’ is liberating. Fewer tasks, projects and businesses and not rushing from one thing to another, inevitably results in greater clarity and creativity. You can breathe again.

Choosing to spend your time with those you love and those whose company you value, as well as spending time doing the things you love, inevitably results in greater happiness and fulfillment. I didn’t have the foresight to live my live this way in the past, but I now have the benefit of hindsight, and while remaining relentless in my desire to succeed and be fulfilled, I will never again be seduced by the myth of having it all.

Martin Soorjoo works with individuals and teams to increase their Performance, Focus and Ability to Manage Pressure

Jan 09 2016

A New Dawn in Human Performance and Productivity

The New Competitive Edge

We’re currently experiencing an unprecedented focus on pushing the boundaries of human performance and productivity.

This has come about, partly as a response to economic challenges and the increase in communication and information channels, but it’s also driven by the human desire to progress.

These are exciting times where the previously perceived limitations on what we are capable of are frequently smashed. Barely a day goes by without research emerging from the fields of Neuroscience, Performance Psychology, Technology or Bio-hacking (to name a few) educating and empowering us with new techniques, tools, apps or supplements that can significantly increase our performance, productivity and resilience. Some of them are extremely effective and are proven to enable us to increase our performance at work by 500% or more. Others are just like the latest new diet. Shiny and exciting for a bit but long term they consistently fail.

The most promising developments and discoveries (and sometimes re-discoveries) include brain entrainment, mental conditioning processes previously only used by Special Forces operators and world class athletes, technologies that rapidly facilitate recovery and enhance focus, mindfulness and meditation, next generation Smart Drugs (Nootropics), seemingly endless productivity apps and much more. These advances are only the tip of the superhuman iceberg.

While individuals have for millennia been interested in personal development in its various forms, for the first time, we’re experiencing a deep and growing interest by organizations in the latest research in human performance. This growing focus is entirely consistent with the pursuit of profit and success. Happy, healthy, high performing individuals are able to work longer hours, be more effective and creative, have less sickness and manage stress.

Zen and Productivity

Increasing our performance and productivity can, however, no longer be about doing more, faster. Our increasingly fast, always connected world undermines focus and effectiveness , primarily through an endless stream of notifications and interruptions. As a consequence we become more stressed and unable to think with clarity and creativity. We need some peace. So while the search for new ways to do more faster continues, companies and individuals seek out ways of slowing things, looking to both old (e.g. Yoga, Mindfulness) and new solutions (e.g. Brain entrainment and HRV) to slow things down and reduce stress.

Thousand year old practices such as meditation, yoga and mindfulness are now widely accepted as powerful tools for increasing resilience, productivity, creativity and clarity of thought. According to research, approximately one quarter of all major American employers now deliver some form of stress management training and support. These companies include Apple, Nike, Google, McKinsey and Yahoo. Special Forces operators and athletes have long used various relaxation techniques to improve performance and resilience.

Flow and the 5x Factor

By way of example, let’s focus for one moment, on one of the most exciting performance advantages – flow. First coined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, flow is the state of complete immersion in an activity. Individuals in flow experience intense focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.

A person experiencing a state of flow is able to achieve far more than they could when out of flow; sometimes more than believed humanely possible. Flow it is the ultimate state of peak performance. The significance of flow is such that business leaders and scientific researchers are taking serious note of the state and its profound implications.

A McKinsey study that found that top executives in “flow” are five times more productive, than out of it. Achieved by a combination of old practices and new technologies, flow is quite possibly the ‘ultimate state of peak performance .

The ‘Limitless’ Executive and Entrepreneur

It remains to be seen how far our quest for advancing human performance will take us. What is clear, however, is that for those seeking to get ahead, the time management strategies of yesteryear are no longer sufficient or relevant. We need to increase and manage our focus and energy. So if you’re aiming for success at the highest levels, give careful consideration to purchasing a yoga mat instead, getting into a state of flow and using brain entrainment technology, instead of a game of squash or round of golf.

Martin Soorjoo works with individuals and teams to increase their Performance, Productivity and Resilience.

Dec 26 2015

How to ‘Flow’ More and Stress Less

When was the last time you were so focused on producing great work that you lost track of time?

Athletes call this mental state being in ‘the Zone’ or the ‘sweet spot’; psychologists call it “flow” or a peak state.

Being in a state of flow is when we produce our best work and perform way above and beyond our normal levels of productivity and effectiveness. Being in flow facilitates greater job satisfaction and job performance. It’s an experience we’ve had but mostly don’t know how and why it occurred.

In flow we are fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, being present with full involvement and engagement in what we are doing. The ability to get in to a state of flow makes the difference between an average day and a great one.

In a state of flow we make new connections and insights, achieve breakthroughs and push the limits of what is possible for us and sometimes, for the human race. It is flow which enables many athletes break new record (for more on this aspect see ’Flow in Sports‘ by Susan Jackson and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and ‘The Rise of Superman’ by Steven Kotler).

The benefits of flow are not, however, exclusively for world-class athletes. Business leaders and companies are exploring the uses of flow states in the work place. A McKinsey study found that top executives in a state of flow are five times more productive then when not. The implications of this study against the backdrop of the remarkable achievements by athletes in flow are staggering.

From 6BC to the Present

Flow is not a new concept and has existed for thousands of years under other guises, across the world. Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher, described flow as the art of “doing without doing” or “trying without trying.”

The Yerkes–Dodson law was identified in 1908 by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson. The law states that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. When the level of arousal is too high, an individual’s performance decreases. The Yerkes–Dodson law is demonstrated by the following diagram

The actual term flow was first coined by Hungarian Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihályi described flow as completely focused motivation. The key characteristic of flow is deep focus on nothing but the activity; not even oneself or one’s emotions. This engagement can provide a sense of deep joy, albeit there is often a degree of frustration en route.

Csíkszentmihályi identified six factors as encompassing an experience of flow.

1. Intense and focused concentration.
2. Merging of action and awareness.
3. A loss of reflective self-consciousness.
4. A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity.
5. Ones experience of time is altered.
6. The activity is intrinsically rewarding.

Flow is the sweet spot between boredom and anxiety. The challenge or piece of work must not be too hard, but not too easy. The objective is to keep learning and creating with a degree of frustration, but not too much. Flow occurs when you find the perfect balance between these two extremes.

The Flow Model

In 1987, Massimini, Carli and Csíkszentmihályi published their model of flow. The model depicts the range of experience that result from differing levels of challenges. Flow is more likely to occur when the activity at hand is a higher-than-average challenge (above the center point) and the individual has above-average skills (to the right of the center point). The center of this graph represents average levels of challenge across all activities that an individual performs on a daily basis

Creating the Conditions for Achieving a State of Flow

We now know that being in a flow state is not random but is a state of ultimate performance that we can consciously activate.

In order to achieve flow, Csikszentmihály contends that the following three conditions must be met:

1. Goals are clear.
2. Feedback is immediate.
3. There is a balance between opportunity and capacity.

While achieving the highest levels of a flow state requires an analysis of the individuals circumstances, abilities, experiences, environment and objectives, taking the following steps will help cultivate the conditions for achieving a state of flow.

1. Set a Clear Goal. The goal must something you can achieve within your ‘flow session’ and must be difficult enough to challenge you, but not so difficult that you feel overwhelmed. This is not as easy as it seems, as make the goal too easy and you will not be sufficiently engaged, make it too hard and you will experience frustration and overwhelm.

2. Identify Your Optimum Time. Everyone has a time they produce their best work. In my twenties I seemed to produce my best work at 2am. Nowadays its around 5.30-8am. Your optimum time for achieving a state of flow will be influenced by a range of factors including family commitments, distractions at work, circadian rhythms’ and energy levels. Keep a diary or journal for a couple of weeks and you’ll be able to identify your highs and lows.

3.Create the right Environment. Our environment can significantly impact our performance. Clear the clutter and make your conditions as supportive for great work as is possible e.g. comfortable seating, a clear desk and good lighting. Many (including myself) find natural or blue light in the daytime helpful for increasing focus, alertness and energy.

4. Eliminate Distractions. At the heart of flow is focus. Focus cannot coexist with distraction so turn off your mobile, shut down your email and all notifications, block out as much noise as possible and consider wearing noise canceling headphones. Clear your workspace of anything that might distract you e.g. unpaid bills or our outstanding tax return. Lastly, ensure no-one interrupts you until you have completed your task.

5. Get into the Right State. Emotions have a significant impact on your ability to get into flow. Give yourself a head start by feeling good and energized before you start. You can do this by a brisk walk around the block, some caffeine (but not too much) or playing some music that leaves your feeling inspired and raises your energy. Make sure you have plenty of water before and during your flow session and are not hungry as this will distract you.

While there are advanced tools and strategies that will enable you to achieve the highest levels of flow, following the 5 steps above will, with practice, persistence and consistency, enable you to enter the flow zone and achieve new levels of performance and productivity.

A word of caution. It is not possible to be in a state of flow all the time. Flow is addictive and like most things in life, you can have too much of a good thing. A recovery period is essential. Attaining a state of flow on a regular basis is, however, quite possibly the most significant step we can take to achieving greater productivity, effectiveness and happiness.

Martin Soorjoo works with individuals and teams to increase their Performance, Productivity and Resilience.