Boost Your Brain to Boost Your Work

I love my job. A large part of what I do is to help develop our amazing team. They are our most valuable and precious asset, as is your team! I am always looking for ways to help everyone fulfill their potential, contribute their best self, and rejuvenate to come back even better. I am a lot like Dave Asprey where I test a lot of tips and tricks out on myself first. This enables me to multiply my experience 8x or more by sharing my failures and successes with others. I was able to present a lunch and learn to our team on efficiency hacks. This got everyone thinking and the sharing that went on was incredible. From hot keys, to Chrome extensions, to supplements and more. No matter how good, or great (Jim Collins shout out) your team is, you and your team can always be better. One way to do that is to improve your #1 asset as a human being; your brain! 

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Step 1: Awareness

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The first step toward improving anything is to take stock of where you are and the state you’re in. That can be emotionally, physically, spiritually, environmentally, etc. If you’re drained that’s not a great time to start a huge project. If you have a lot of time, take stock of the priorities you have going on and assess your ability to make a huge dent in the important ones. If everything is a priority then nothing is. 

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Step 2: Building Blocks… and Breaks

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Something I started doing this year is working like Brendon Burchard who authored High Performance Habits. I work in 50-minute blocks and then take a break afterward. I have found that besides the physical benefit of moving my buns, it helps me to regain clarity. These mini clarity breaks make me feel like a new person each time I step into a new task. It also forces me to steer clear of obsessing over my inbox! Ain’t nobody got time for that.

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Also, you’ve likely heard of decision fatigue. It’s where your ability to make good decisions declines with each passing decision. There are real examples involving judges trying cases where they are more lenient in the morning, and the afternoon - not so much.

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Step 3: Take Care of Yourself First

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Maybe this should be step 1, but if it were no one would read it! We all know we need to take better care of ourselves but when it comes to making the priority list we sharply drop off. Be on time to pick up the kids or eat that apple before your blood sugar plummets? Go to the gym or squeeze in the laundry? These are decisions that affect your decision fatigue and you repeat the cycle. Start off by automating everything you can and/or outsourcing your biggest stressors. For me, when we added Sunfare to our client family I felt like a new person. Not only was I getting a very high-quality meal delivered to me, but it’s healthy to boot. Now that time spent wondering about dinner plans or grocery trips is spent listening to podcasts, reading, or taking a nap!

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I also started meditating every morning and scheduling it into my day as a task, thanks to Jay for the Headspace recommendation. Meditating trains your brain to focus, I mean really focus, on one task a time. You’ve no doubt heard that multitasking is a myth. It’s why people who are texting and driving weave all over and slow waaaay down. It’s like watering down a task when you don’t dedicate all of your brain power to that task.

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Step 4: Surprise Your Brain

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There great supplements and other things you can take internally, like Brain Octane oil. I noticed a huge difference one month after adding 1 teaspoon to my coffee a day. You can also surprise your brain by playing challenging games like Yushino or check out these off-topic riddles from Atlassian.

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Ok, that was a lot, but hopefully, you can try to add at least one of these tips to a team wellness challenge, or as a personal enhancement. If you want to chat about culture or marketing, StringCan is where it’s at. Contact me at StringCan today!