For many of us, work constantly threatens to spill out into other areas of our lives. An unproductive day at the office means that we end up staying late, taking work home, or working throughout the weekend. Â Staying focused and productive during the day will help you to actually leave at 5pm and not carry the baggage of the workday home with you.
Here are 6 productivity lessons you can carry with you from you yoga class to help you stay productive throughout the day.
Your class has a beginning, and an end: You practice yoga for 60 or 90 minutes at a time, then you stop and do something else. Knowing that there is a defined end in sight help you mentally push through those tough poses in the middle of class.
There is nothing more soul crushing than the feeling of endless toil without progress. Even if you have a seemingly insurmountable pile of files on your desk, you can short-circuit the drudgery by breaking the task into defined chunks. You’ll work better and faster knowing that there is an end in sight. Experiment and find what works for you: maybe a 45 minute spring followed by a two minute standing break, or perhaps you’ll find you work better with a 90 minute power session followed by getting away from your desk for 5 minutes.
Bonus tip: you can always set a different goal for your next sprint, but once you have started on a sprint don’t allow yourself to move the mark. If you find yourself flagging half way through a 60 minute session push yourself to finish strong. Completing a goal, even an arbitrary one that you set for yourself, activates the reward center in your brain.
Lunch is your opportunity for a mental Savasana, take advantage of it: The extra work you might be able to accomplish by working through lunch is usually outweighed by the drop in productivity you’ll see throughout the afternoon.
Whenever possible, use lunch as an opportunity to mentally detach from your work. If it is an option for you, getting outside for a stroll or doing some exercise will fire up your metabolism and provide you the energy you’ll need for your afternoon. But if that’s not an option, simply detaching and relaxing your mind for 10 minutes will help immensely.
Reading a book or a magazine can be a good option for relaxing your brain, but stay away from your social media feeds. Scanning social media uses the same parts of your brain as working, so it is really not an effective way to unwind from work. You need a different kind of activity in order to give other parts of your brain a rest.
Grounding with tree: There are moments throughout the day that throw us off balance and interrupt our flow. I’ve found 1pm-1:30pm to be the least productive 30 minutes of my day. The pile of emails from colleagues who choose to work through lunch creates a jam that will consume my whole afternoon if I don’t intentionally reset.
Also, this might be a west-coast thing, but 1pm tends to be when all my east coast contacts send out a flurry of emails as they tried to wrap up their days and go home.
The timing might vary for your work situation, but I’ll wager there is a consistent portion of your day when inbound messages overwhelm your plans for the day. After you handle the immediate crisis, take a moment to pause and rebalance your afternoon.
You can do this with just a mental pause and reset, or if you have the nerve you can literally use tree pose for this (or perhaps standing at attention if you are wearing heals, lol). The pose will help you to focus your thoughts as you access the requests that have come in, prioritize, and then embark on another work sprint.
Hydration: You already know the importance of hydrating during and after your yoga class, but it is just as important for your workplace as well. Even minor dehydration reduces your energy level and concentration by interfering with your metabolism. Take hydration throughout your workday as seriously as you do during class. It will increase your productivity and your mood.
If you find yourself craving coffee throughout the afternoon, experiment and see whether a different hot drink will satisfy the same craving. Coffee is a diuretic, and can sometimes leave you more dehydrated than you started. Black tea has less caffeine and can be a good substitute; or you may find that a nice hot cup of mint tea will suffice as your afternoon pick-me-up with no caffeine at all. Sometimes it turns out that you are craving the hot drink itself more so than the caffeine.
Check your breathing: During your class you know to continue breathing through the hard moments of a pose; it is just as important at work. Stress will cause you to interrupt your breathing pattern, or cause you to subconsciously hold your breath. In stressful moments throughout your day check in with your body and see if you are still breathing normally. If not, take a second to relax your shoulders and reset your breath before continuing.
Posture: You know the importance of maintaining the right posture throughout a pose during class. The same principle applies during your workday. When trying to crank out work it is common for your posture to collapse forward into your desk. This puts extra stress on your body and is counterproductive. When you find this happening check in with your body and adjust accordingly. If you find this happening all the time it might be time to make some adjustments to your workspace to match your work style better.
Carrying these practices with you from your yoga class into your workplace will help you perform better and increase your ability to mentally leave your work at the office when you go home for the day.
What have you found helpful in increasing your productivity at work? Please share in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!
From: Lettuce & Beans