WHEN you are having a bad day at work, chances are, you are also having an unproductive day.
A negative mood, stress, and anger are hazardous to performance. They undermine attention, close off the big picture, and keep minds ruminating off topic from the task at hand.
A study has shown that positive emotions broaden minds, build interest, and energize, while negative emotions restrict thinking, and discourage receptivity to new things and initiative.
It stands to reason, then, that employees with a more positive outlook who are more satisfied with their work, would tend to be more productive. They have better rapport with their colleagues as they use more positive language and open to the opinions of others.
One of the things that makes people feel positive at work is work-life balance. People who feel they have good work-life balance work 21 per cent harder than those who don’t, according to a survey from the Corporate Executive Board, which represents 80 per cent of Fortune 500 companies.
People who feel good about themselves and their work are more committed and engaged. When they have options to work more effectively, tools to manage demands and devices, and schedules that allow for flexibility to minimise work-life conflict, they go beyond the call of duty.
But how do we stay well-balanced in life and work and yet remain productive at office?
Work smarter, live better. Work-life balance is a necessity for performance. A simple boost to ensure we stay balanced at work, which include daily breaks (walking meetings, lunch with a friend, a swim); unplugged weekend activities such as hiking or driving with family and friends; and home activities, such as cooking, reading and gardening, that relieve stress and increase productivity.
There are truckloads of apps that claim to boost productivity, but the biggest bang for your effectiveness buck may come from something that is seldom on the radar in a 24/7 workday: physical vitality.
A recent study reported in the International Journal of Workplace Health found that besides a good night’s sleep, exercise is another productivity tool at our disposal. People who exercise during the day are 23 per cent more productive at work.
Just taking 30 minutes for exercise during the day or walk for 5,000 steps, is said to be more productive than if they worked straight through. Vitality has been defined, quite fascinatingly as “energy available to the self.”
Vitality is an ongoing status report of feeling up to the day or not. Do you have that now? Do you feel vital and alive on a daily basis? That’s a difficult state to find when we work in a nonstop style that drains energy and doesn’t replace it through refuelling breaks in the action. We are encouraged to take a break in between the hours to boost our energy.
But where do we get energy? From doing things that restore and energise us. We exercise, we play, we rest, listen to music, eating nutritious food from a balanced diet, we take a vacation — a short or a weekend break. A vacation is a great idea too as it shuts off the stressors and pressures of work.
It’s proof that quality of hours counts more than quantity, particularly in the knowledge economy, where the main productivity tool is attention. When you exercise the body builds new connections between brain neurons and helps increase attention and focus.
Exercise is important as it energises, providing one of the little-known keys to productivity and work-life balance, to enhance physical vitality.
Work-life balance is a conscious feeling of energy, aliveness, interest, and enthusiasm. It’s been associated with many traits such as self-motivation, positive mood, good self-esteem, life satisfaction, autonomous behaviour, all of which are hallmarks of work-life balance and living a quality life. In contrast, tension, anger, and depression decrease vitality, it makes us feel tired, exhausted and unproductive.
We all know the declining level of performance that happens when we feel exhausted. Humans are just like smartphones or iPods: We have to be recharged, or we run out of juice.
Humans are energy machines. We expend energy over the course of the workday and work with our body and brains (which use up 20 per cent of the body’s calories), and then we have to replace it, or fatigue sets in, stress and exhaustion build up, and productivity plummets.
After a certain amount of time on task, brains need a reset. Brains have to reset every 90 minutes, or they start fading. The recurrent 90-minute cycles that take us from high to low alertness during the day and through the various stages of sleep at night.
When we get to the end of the period, alertness wanes. We feel fidgety, find it hard to focus, and often get drowsy. That’s when it’s time to get up and refuel. We are programmed to take a 20-minute break after every 90 minutes of intense focus or time on task.
It’s not just that we want a break, but we actually need one if we hope to operate at peak effectiveness and efficiency. Often we neglect this simple exercise especially when we are too busy with work which is almost due to its deadline. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that productivity increases after breaks in the action, since the respites allow us to recover from fatigue and sustain higher levels of effort.
These short breaks in between our hectic work reduce stress, injuries, and absenteeism, all of which make us more productive. You get a lot more done when you’re at work than sidelined.
However if you can’t find a suitable method on your own, there is plenty of development programmes or work-life balance programmes available. It all helps you to focus what is needed to keep a simple quality life, improve health, be happy and improve productivity.
It also increases performance, reduces absenteeism and turnover. These work-life balance programmes can provide the initial spark, swinging the door wide open to the conditions that drives positive and quality behaviour. Given a choice in how they work, people can work at time of peak productivity and alertness to maximise their productivity.
Work-life balance is a very important phenomenon that is of great concern to various employees in both private and public sector. It goes beyond prioritising the work role and one’s personal life. It affects the social, psychological, economical and mental well-being of the individual.
It boils down to a pretty simple thing: Physical vitality. It keeps the tank full and determines how much we get done, how fast, and whether we are satisfied with what we’ve done afterwards.
Over time, we need to be reminded constantly that in order to achieve quality life, we need to balance our work and life as it’s really a remarkable thing for performance, morale, and commitment.