PRODUCTIVITY

Increasing your productivity is easy. It’s just a matter of making a few simple changes to your routine, or behaviour, or thinking, and your productivity will soar. At least, that’s what countless online articles claim. The actual science tells a different story. Even a modest amount of research reveals that some of the most commonly touted claims about how to boost productivity fall apart in the face of the evidence. So, here are some of the most common myths around boosting productivity, along with a number of approaches that have a more robust scientific basis.

WORDS: DR DEAN BURNETT

ILLUSTRATIONS: RACHEL TUNSTALL

“WAKING UP AT 4AM WILL MAKE YOU MORE PRODUCTIVE!” (FALSE)

It’s regularly claimed that you’ll be more productive if you get up early. Very early. According to a 2016 Wall Street Journal article, the most successful (and therefore productive) people typically rise at 4am.

There’s some logic to it. For instance, if you’re awake while everyone else is still asleep, they won’t distract you, so you’ll be more productive.

However, there are many reasons why waking up at 4am could be actively unproductive. An important one stems from our own biology; sleep is crucial for our ability to function, and depriving yourself of it does more harm than good.

A typically healthy amount of sleep for adults is around seven to nine hours. Less than that quickly has negative health effects, compromising focus, mood, memory, stress tolerance, and more. Forcing yourself to wake at 4am means you’re losing sleep, and will be less productive as a result.

Some people seem able to get away with it, being natural ‘early risers’. But the veneration of such people may be misplaced. A study by the National Sleep Foundation stated that “Individuals who habitually sleep outside the normal range may be exhibiting signs or symptoms of serious health problems or, if done volitionally, may be compromising their health and wellbeing”. Another study claims sleeping far fewer hours than average is more likely to be self-imposed than anything natural, and will incur a significant sleep debt, harming health.

Overall, while there may be some productive advantages to waking up in the early hours, these can easily be cancelled out by the consequences of lost sleep.

“JUST GET INTO YOUR ‘ZONE’” (TRUE)

With everything discussed so far, it’s important to consider one important caveat; everyone is different, and what works for one person may not work for another. Individual differences play a considerable role in how we end up being productive. But if you can eventually figure out what factors work best for you, it would be wise to exploit this awareness, because it increases your chance of reaching a state of cognitive ‘flow’, known to most people as being ‘in the zone’.