during which time you can decompress from the day.
3. Whenever you feel stressed, go on a walk instead of reaching for food or drinks or social media.
4. When you need to make a big decision, take a deep breath, and go for a walk.
Take Breaks
1. Take a break to celebrate whenever you complete a task. Do a happy dance around the room.
2. Whenever you feel like procrastinating, take a break by getting up to refill your water glass.
3. When your derriere starts feeling numb from sitting too long or your wrists start aching from too much typing, take a break by going on a five-minute walk.
Go on Vacation
The next time you are faced with deciding whether to keep working and possibly catch a new opportunity that might come your way, or taking a break from work and focusing on one of your personal priorities or targets, try out the latter — even just a half-day staycation next weekend. Make plans for some kind of getaway within the next year. Minimum: two days. Maximum: your choice!
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
—Michael Pollan
STRATEGY
Karoshi. It’s a Japanese term that means “death from overwork.” For decades, Americans have poked fun at the Japanese work ethic, but when you look at our rising numbers of heart attacks and strokes due to work-related stress, you’ll soon realize that overwork and lack of self-care are a serious matter.
Research tells us the following:
• We need to breathe deeply to clear our minds.
• We need six to eight hours of sleep.
• Our bodies and brains need a balance of nutrients in order to function.
• Our brains operate better when our bodies are hydrated.
• Walking clears the mind and leads to creativity.
• Both our brains and bodies need to take breaks.
• We live happier lives if we go on vacation.
You know what studies haven’t found? That working the longest hours and not having a life mean more money and happiness. Nope, not a bit.
No, you haven’t picked up the wrong book. You’re still reading a time management / productivity book. So why the heck are we talking about self-care in a bloody business book?
When we know that we’re good at what we do, it’s easy to feel invincible. After all, we need to have confidence, right? But there’s a difference between confidence and overstepping what we’re physically and mentally capable of completing when our brains aren’t getting the rest, nutrition, and care that they need.
Your vitality depends on your mental, emotional, and physical well-being. For most of my clients, this fact is often cast aside in their race to make everyone else in their lives happy — their kids, their spouse, their friends, the parents of their kids’ friends, their boss, their coworkers — you name it. Everyone else around them, everyone else in the world, but not them.
Let’s be frank and earnest. (Who are those guys, anyway?) If you don’t take care of your health first and foremost, then productivity will not happen.
I repeat:
If you don’t take care of your health first and foremost, then productivity will not happen.
Why is that? Because productivity and time management are all about mind management — a healthy brain that makes good choices. So if you’re not in good health, your brain won’t have clarity. If your brain doesn’t have clarity, it won’t make good decisions. And if your brain doesn’t make good decisions, you may as well flush all your calendars and apps down the toilet because they won’t dig you out of any holes that your brain creates. So it’s absolutely vital that you take care of yourself — and your brain!
What’s the point in working yourself to death?
—Cesar Chelala, MD, PhD
Overall, the strategy is to increase your time management skills by creating brain clarity, which will happen when you care for your body and mind. There are so many modern advances that are supposed to help us to do this, but they actually often cause us more problems. Examples:
Fast food is easy to grab on the go, but we end up with more health problems because of the lack of nutrients and the abundance of calories and nonnatural substances. We might save time in the short term because we’re getting our food in 10 minutes instead of spending 30 minutes cooking, but in the long run, we’ll need to spend more time working out to lose the weight and more time at the doctor to deal with health issues.
Smartphones are awesome tools that allow us to operate a mobile office, but they can become a tool of procrastination and distraction. When we don’t want to do what’s in front of us, it becomes an easy habit to grab our phone and “play,” thereby putting us further behind in what we’re supposed to do. Smartphones also interrupt sleep patterns and contribute to sleep issues when we leave them dinging, buzzing, and vibrating next to our bed — waking us up throughout the night and never letting our brains and bodies reach deep sleep. As you continue reading, you’ll discover better ways to use your smartphone as a tool instead of an avoidance crutch.
It’s cool to be able to have a mobile office in hip coffee shops, but using caffeinated drinks to hydrate can actually slow us down.
Gyms are tremendous tools, but just plain old walking will still provide plenty of health benefits.
Wanting to be “liked” by all beings in the physical and virtual worlds is a hindrance that affects daily life. So many times we instantly say yes to someone’s request for our time — in fear of not being liked — before taking the time to assess if completing that action is going to benefit us, or if the time frame given to complete the action fits our availability. We tend to drag in past worries and emotions and maybe even guilt and respond with a quick “Yes!” instead of focusing on current conditions and determining if this is a good move for us. In our haste to rush and squeeze in as much as possible, and in our fear that someone might not like us, we end up saying yes to way too many things, overtaxing our brains, and backing off from mental and physical time-outs. Getting as much information as possible and pausing for some deep-breathing time will help you to make better decisions and will allow you to better harness your time.
Try to find one more minute, Squeeze one more thing in it. On track for a heart attack if I don’t do some kicking back. Don’t you think it’s high time to make a little more time for that?
—Clint Black, “Time for That”
Hurry up. Do more. “Gotta do more, gotta be more!” (Remember that line from the movie Dead Poets Society?) We might think we’re functioning just fine until we discover how much better we can be when we take our time, breathe deeply, get sleep, eat well, hydrate, go on walks, take breaks, and get away. Our brains and bodies need recharge time. You let your phone charge overnight, and that’s just a little
