Maximize Your Productivity By Knowing When to Take a Break, When to Walk Away, and When to Relax

Note: This is an excerpt from Growth & Productivity: 14 Principles to Achieve More, a free e-book from Grove Ave, a new startup that helps individuals focus on their growth. Click here to get your free download of the 70+ page e-book.

Sometimes you hit a wall, despite all of your efforts to push past it. Sometimes you reach the wall well after you’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. Too often we work past this point and fail to realize that we’re just hitting our heads against a hard surface and not generating useful output. If you’re going to all of these lengths to optimize the rest of your life, why wouldn’t you also try to reduce the time when you aren’t able to be productive, in order to maximize your free and relaxation time? Sometimes good ideas come to us while we’re doing these other activities and science shows that sometimes we do have to let ideas marinate. Those shower thoughts can be excellent!

When you’re taking a short break (for example, 5–10 minutes for a short walk every other hour) it helps to get out of the environment you were working in. What are some things you can do to recharge?

• Go outside and look at nature for a while.
• Listen to some music while you’re walking around. I sometimes like to turn on Apple Music’s Chill station for something easy-going and familiar. Other times I’ll just play something popular on YouTube. Right now that song is apparently Coldplay’s Adventure of a Lifetime.
• See if a colleague will join you for a chat.
• Stretch! I like to stretch my back and legs.
• Do 10 pull-ups or push-ups and get the blood pumping.
• Meditate for ten minutes — it will help you center yourself and come back refreshed, and over the long term, meditation can improve your focus and manage stress. I like Headspace, which can help you train your mind to meditate effectively in ten minutes a day.

You’ll feel so much better afterwards. At night sometimes I’ll take a quick shower, which science suggests is a great way to juice your creativity.

For longer breaks, or days off, engaging your mind by going hiking or watching a movie is essential for resetting that motivational clock and restoring your self-control and work energy stores. Personally, I like to go running, listen to music, or watch the Knicks play basketball.

Summary

• Take breaks when you need to — sometimes you need to recharge to tackle tasks
• Make the most of your recharging opportunities

Did you find this helpful? I just published an e-book with 13 more productivity principles to help you achieve more.

Check it out at www.groveave.co