High levels of stress affects our ability to think and perform at our best and can actually start to make some areas of our brain deteriorate. Fortunately, rest helps the brain ‘grow back’ to normal function. How much rest do we need? Coincidentally, it takes four weeks for some brain regions to grow back to normal size. If you haven’t taken four weeks holiday in a while, now could be a good time to start.

In a study of medical students who crammed for three weeks before final exams, it was shown that their cortex (the part of the brain that learns, controls behaviour and helps us to think critically) actually began to shrink. A smaller cortex means less ability to do all the things that make you valuable in work and life and help you achieve your goals.

The student’s brains eventually returned to normal size, but only after four weeks of rest. While some long weekends and a few short breaks here and there help us to recharge in the short term, our long term brain health and our ability to perform requires us to have some longer breaks as well.

Here are some tips for making this more effective:

1)     Get away

If possible, get away. Away from work and away from home. This makes sure that there is no feeling of ‘oh, I really should be doing x’ around the home or home office

2)     Turn off the office

Set up your auto-responder and divert your phone. You might still see your email on your smart phone, but if you’ve set up an auto-reply, then you set the expectation for people that you won’t be getting replying until you are back from holidays.

3)     Spend time slowing down

Don’t go flat out every day on your holiday. Trying to cram things into your holiday can sometimes be as stressful as cramming them into your work day. Make sure you take time every day to stop and slow down. Maybe a long walk on the beach, or an hour reading a book – anything that takes your mind of

Take a look at your day and see what you complete. What we actually get done during our workday says a lot about where we focus our attention and what priorities we are carrying. The question is: do you like what your day says about you?

Our lives are filled with espoused priorities – the things we say are most important: things like our health, our families, being a good leader, being productive so that we can spend time on the most important things (whether that means work things or other things).

Do this quick exercise: make a list of just four things that are important to you – it can be at work or outside of work – it’s up to you. These should be the top four things that you feel are most important. Now, go back and have a look at your calendar or task list from yesterday (or the last work day). Take a good look at these. How many of these things actually helped you achieve those four ‘most important’ things?

If you’re like most people, this is a little frustrating. Quite often we find, through this exercise, that people spend a good deal of their day doing things that don’t get them closer to their goals. In some cases they do things that actually get them further away. In many cases, we can go the whole day (or whole week) completely neglecting one of those ‘most important’ things.

If you’re one of those people, take these simple steps to rethink the way you work and the things that get your attention:

1. Be clear about what is most important:

Think of the simple question that was asked earlier. What are the four things that are most important to you. If you had to think long and hard about that, then it is no wonder you don’t prioritise those things. When we are clear about what’s most important, then it becomes easier to factor those things into our days and weeks

2. Highlight simple behaviours that get you closer

Try to do something every day that impacts all four of the things on your list. These should be simple things that, when done regularly, will make a big impact in the long term. Don’t wait for opportunities to do huge things that make an enormous difference. Doing smaller things every day will eventually make a big impact.

3. Review every day for two weeks To embed the behaviours and keep you on track, review your most important things every day for two weeks. Answer this simple question for each one: ‘What did I do today that got me closer to …….?’

We all make choices every day about where to focus our time and energy. Sure, there will be things that you simply have to do, but there are always small choices along the way. Make sure you choose behaviours that will have the biggest impact on the most important things.

How often to you agree to something trivial, only to forget to actually follow through with it? Well, that trivial thing might have more impact than you think. Research shows that when we set expectations but don’t deliver, it has an enormously negative effect on people’s motivation.

We’ve all done it. We say “yes, sure. I’ll get onto that tomorrow.” And we forget. If you are a leader, then your ability to deliver on these commitments and expectations is paramount if you want your people to do their best work.

The Expectation Effect

Some recent research showed what happens to the dopamine levels inside our brains when we set expectations and if they are delivered. Remember, dopamine is the chemical that signals motivation, reward, makes us feel good, and keeps our attention. In short, it is THE performance chemical.

The researchers measure the level of dopamine in subjects under a number of conditions. When the researchers told people they were going to get a financial reward, the level of dopamine went up dramatically. Later, when those people received their financial reward, the level of dopamine went up again – to exactly the same level.

This shows us that expecting to get a reward is produces the exact same effect on our dopamine levels as actually getting the reward.

But what happened when the reward wasn’t given? In this case, the dopamine levels didn’t only drop back to baseline, nor did they stay the same as previously. When subjects found out that they weren’t ogint to get the expected reward, dopamine levels dropped off the scale. This represents a severe decline in motivation, attention and even problem solving, amongst other performance traits.

A little disappointment goes a long way

Most people think this only works for significant rewards, but it also happens for relatively ‘trivial’ things. Have you ever been waiting to cross the road at a set of lights, maybe you’re in a bit of a hurry, you press the button to get the walk signal and wait patiently. The other direction gets their walk signal and start crossing the road. Surely your turn’s next. The cars start racing through the intersection again for a while, then comes the red light. It should be your turn, but instead, somehow the other crosswalk lights up again and you are left waiting.

The expectation was that it was your turn to cross next. When it didn’t happen, you most likely got really irritated. This is a trivial thing, but it still set that dopamine response into action. If you were really in a hurry, chances are it also elicited some irrational behaviours and thinking.

And so it is with our people. Send that dopamine response on the downslide and you’ll find that they can’t do their best work – they might become irrational and exhibit some behaviours that aren’t productive.

Upholding expectations is a simple process that has very effective results. Stay on top of this if you want your people to do their best work.

Sick of your todo list not getting done? If you have an overwhelming to do list, it might be doing more than just getting neglected. It mighty actually be hurting your performance in more ways than you realize.

High performance today is about being clever. It’s about working smarter, prioritizing the million things bustling for your attention, finding creative solutions and finding new opportunities to improve.

The part of our brain that is most responsible for this is called the Pre-Frontal Cortex. But while the PFC tends to do this high value thinking, it’s also responsible for some very low level stuff as well.

And here’s the real problem:

This PFC only has a limited fuel supply. If you spend you time and energy doing the low value things, it leaves less fuel for the high value things. This concept of a performance fuel tank is a good analogy. If you have burnt all your fuel – if you’re fatigued, sleep deprived, or have spent an entire day doing high level thing – then you are less able to do things like make decisions, control emotions and behaviours or think critically. That PFC doesn’t function as well.

So what has your to do list got to do with all this?

Well, one of the low value things we do is hold things in short-term memory. Think about when someone gives you a phone number when you’ve got nothing to write on. The process of remembering that number – holding it in short term memory – for two minutes while you find a pad and pen is exhausting, right? Now imagine trying to actually do a problem solving activity while you�re remembering that number? Impossible.

A similar thing happens when you have a long to-do list. Most people spend an abnormal amount of their day trying to remember what they have to do. Thinking about who you can call in the car, wondering what you have to do when you get into the office etc. And all this �recall� burns a lot of cognitive �fuel� � leaving less to do the really important things.

Here are some things you can do to get that to-do list under control:

1) Write everything down � in one place

When you write things down all of a sudden it signals to the PFC that it can stop trying to remember. And you free it up to do some of the more important work. What is most important about this is to make sure that everything is in one place. Most people have a few different places for their tasks � their email inbox, a spiral notebook, their outlook folders � and this only adds to the angst. Now, you don�t just have to remember what you�ve got to do, you�ve got to worry about where everything is and if you�ve overlooked something

2) Think about �Task Categories�, not tasks

The reality is that even if you write things down, you�re going to still try to remember what you have to do when you get to the office. You have to write two reports, return three phone calls and construct five emails. To lighten the load of these things swimming around in your head, try to think in terms of Task Categories. These might include: Business Development, Administration, Report Writing� pick the four to six categories of things that are most important and fill your day. When we think in terms of categories, we can say �when I get to the office I have to do two hours of Business Development� instead of thinking about the ten individual tasks.

This is also handy as our scope of memory is about 4-6 items. At this level, it doesn�t take as much performance fuel to keep them in our head.

3) Park Everything in a time slot

Another way to get things out of your head is to �park� them in a specific time. Have you got two hours free from 12-2pm? Then schedule the tasks that you�ll get done in those two hours. For some reason, parking things is much like doing them. We can rest assured that we have found time to take care of them, so we stop worrying about them � but this only happens when we are specific about what we are going to do and when.

This also has the added benefit of stopping us from having to make decisions about what to do. Usually, when confronted with a decision, we tend to go for the easiest option. When you�ve already planned what you�re going to do, the decision is removed.

Working smarter today is about understanding how we free up resources to do our best thinking more often and for longer. This simple adjustment to managing your task list will create less stress and leave more resources available for you to do your best work.

We all do it. And usually to our own detriment.

There’s not necessarily a pattern: sometimes the task is too hard, sometimes too boring. Sometimes it’s too big or other times it’s too trivial. Whatever the case, there are two real explanations for why we procrastinate.� One is changeable and the other isn’t.

The unchangeable reason: we are wired to be lazy

Human beings have an inbuilt, hard wired tendency to do the easiest thing. This is an evolutionary throwback and one of our most useful survival mechanisms. Our need to survive taught us to preserve energy. After all, you don’t want to be attacked by a saber-toothed tiger (or another human) only to find out that your fuel tank is empty and you are unable to run away or put up a good fight.

For this reason we found ways to save energy physically. For instance, we found an optimal walking speed that allowed us to cover a good distance but which also left us with enough in reserve to run or fight if we needed to. Likewise, we also saved energy mentally by doing the easier thing. We still do this today – given the choice between two things our overwhelming tendency is to do the thing that requires the least energy. This natural tendency is impossible to change, but you can fool it – which is the topic for another post.

The Changeable reason: we get a buzz

The first thing that weed to know here is that patterns of behaviour are reinforced by a chemical called dopamine. Whether it is a physical skill like swinging a golf club or a behaviour like your child tidying up their room, or even a pattern of thinking, the circuits for all of these things are strengthened by this same chemical. Dopamine is also called the reward chemical – it is responsible for the good feeling we get when we get something we like. This is the mechanical reason that positive reinforcement reinforces patterns of behaviour.

But why do we get a reward response when we choose not to do something? Especially when it’s detrimental down the track? Well, every time we decide to do the easier thing, we can internally relax a little. We get that little omens of ‘phew! Now I don’t have to do that hard thing’ and that is what creates the dopamine rush.

So the unfortunate reality is that procrastination re forces procrastination. It gives us a little dopamine reward and therefore reinforces the behaviour for next time.

How do we stop this from happening? Here are two things you can do

1)��� Reward the harder thing.

Plan a small reward for doing the harder thing – this might be a quick trip to the coffee shop or reading an article that you’ve saved and haven’t had a chance to get to. It’s important to set up the reward first because the expectation of reward produces dopamine. This way the dopamine is for doing the harder thing rather than the easier thing

2)��� Set a short time limit to get the harder thing done.

Take a stopwatch or use the countdown timer on your smartphone and set it for no more than 60mins. Set yourself a target of completing the task (or part of the task if it will take longer that this) and then press the start button. This creates a sense of immediate deadline and produces both adrenalin and dopamine in small amounts. Again the dopamine is for the harder thing rather than the easier thing. It’s important to use a timer rather than just looking at the clock. The clock doesn’t give the same sense of urgency.

There are others things we can do to beat procrastination. Try these simple ones first and then we’ll deal wit some others in a later post.

Discipline. It�s a trait that might make us more successful at anything we do. Whether you are aprofessional athlete needing to put 100% into every training session, or a working mum needing to keep your cool with your kids (and husband) after a taxing day at work, or a staff member who has to get a monthly report in on time, discipline will undoubtedly help you in everything you do.

In fact, there are some famous experiments by Walter Mischel called the �Marshmallow Experiments� that highlight the necessity of this trait. Simply, the research involved children sitting in a room with a marshmallows in front of them. The researcher told them that he had to leave for a while and that they could have one marshmallow only, but if they waited for him to return before eating any marshmallows, then they could have two. The particular results of the experiment weren�t terribly astonishing � some children were able to hold out, while others weren�t (there�s a good article in the New Yorker).

But the surprising results came years later when the subjects were followed up during their schooling. The data showed, without a doubt, that those who were able to hold out for the second marshmallow were the exact same people who showed the greatest academic success. This discipline wasn�t just useful for resisting lollies � it was useful for academic performance as well.

This has been shown time and time again, most notably by Malcolm Gladwell in his best selling book, Outliers.

So, are we born with discipline and self-control or can it be trained? Let�s look at one of the most brutal forms of discipline to find out.

Meditation is hard. It involves shutting out all distractions and thinking about nothing. In some ways, thinking about nothing seems easy, but paradoxically, keeping our neurons and cells completely at rest requires a tremendous amount of energy. Doing and thinking nothing is one of the hardest things to do. It�s easier to day dream (in terms of energy expenditure) than it is to do nothing.

But we know that we can train meditation ability. The ability to hold our full attention on being completely still mentally and physically. Even small amounts of practice greatly increase people�s ability to pay attention and physically increase the size of the brain region devoted to controlling emotions and attention. So it�s possible.

But beyond meditation, what are the things that help build self-control and discipline?

Well, like it or not you do this every day � or you don�t. Every day, most likely hourly, we train ourselves for either self-control or to give in to our whims. Here are some examples:

• You procrastinate instead of doing something productive
• You commit to something like getting up to go to the gym, or to hand in a project by a certain date and then you skip it
• You only do 90% of something that you could complete right now
• You use the last 15 minutes of your day to do mundane things to kill the time rather than start a really important piece of work

When you do each of these things, you condition yourself to do the easier thing. It becomes self-reinforcing because the immediate good feeling you get (staying in bed, letting yourself �off the hook�, doing easy things) produces a dopamine response (signaling reward), which reinforces the behaviour.

So, can we train discipline? Absolutely. We do it every day even when we don�t realize it. The more often we practice the better we get � don�t wait only for the big moments to practice self-control, do it every hour of every day.