Rest

Rest examines why traditional methods of working too long and hard are inefficient compared to working less, resting, and playing to accomplish your best work.

You know what they say: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Not in this case. While it feels like the longer you work, the more you get done, this is only what society has primed us to believe. Like the concept of retiring, the 9-to-5 has been the norm for decades, but science says it’s outdated. When you work long hours, your productivity plummets.

To accomplish your best work, you should only put in four hours a day. You will get more done this way because you will have the energy to focus intensely on whatever you do for this short amount of time. Working four diligent hours will always be more effective than eight distracted hours.

Don’t believe it? In a study, scientists working 35 hours a week were half as productive as those working only 20 hours a week. Those putting in 60 hours were the worst of all. These findings show rest is just as important as work for reaching your highest levels of accomplishment.

But what if you don’t have control over when you clock in and out? Make sure you take time off during the day, for example for walking and lunch breaks. Then, when you return to whatever it is you were doing, you will find yourself more refreshed and ready to work.

To get the most out of rest, we also need to find the best time to take a break. Were you ever in the middle of a difficult problem, had to step away, and when you came back the solution seemed obvious? I know I have. Sometimes, we need to give our brains some downtime at the right moment to find the best answers. Rather than overextending yourself trying to figure something out, take a break. You’ll be amazed at the solutions that come to you after your brain has subconsciously mulled things over. In one study, researchers asked a group of students to come up with the most uses of a piece of paper as possible. One group worked on the problem for the allotted time uninterrupted, while the other was asked to stop and do something else for a while before coming back to the original task. The group who was interrupted proved to be far more creative with the paper than the other. This shows how useful it is to stop and take a break before returning to a problem. When we stop working, our brain can still process our task. Our mind subconsciously examines problems and comes…