5 Popular Business Myths That Hurt Your Business
As a business owner, you’re always trying to make the best use of your time. You’re aware that there are only so many hours in a day, and lots of things to do. Maybe you listen to productivity podcasts, or read books and articles, or even blogs and posts like this one.
Which is great… unless you’re reading something that’s based on a myth. Or great for a lion sleep chronotype, and you’re a bear (like me) or wolf or dolphin. Or something that’s based on popular culture that actually doesn’t match up with how human brains actually work.
September 13th is Defy Superstition day. Defy the superstitions of culture – here are some productivity myth busters for you.
Why getting up at 4:00 am (or thereabouts) is bad for productivity improvement
Yes, I’m saying that rising early is bad for you. I realize this goes against common wisdom, especially that of the broductivity “experts”. Supposedly, you get up at the buttcrack of dawn, and then you’ll be as productive as can be!
To be fair, this advice will work for some people. If you’re a lion sleep chronotype (often referred to as an “early bird”) and your most productive time for focused, concentrated knowledge work is earlier in the morning, then you might find you do get more done.
But for the rest of us, it’s a nightmare and doesn’t work. Getting up early won’t shift your productive time any earlier. You’ll just have a longer period of time before you can get to your important work. And because you’ll have to go to bed earlier to accommodate an earlier waking time, you may have a shorter day in which to get everything done.
Treating your brain like a computer means a loss of productivity
In last week’s post, I gave some scientific background for explaining why brains are not computers. Computers can multitask, working on two separate computational problems at the exact same time, and run for a long time without a break (as long as they’re plugged in.) Human brains can't.
And when you wear your brain out from making too many decisions or attempting to multitask (it’s not actually a thing), you drain your ability to be effective. Computers don’t have these limitations, but at the same time, they’re not as powerful as a human brain either.
The myth of powering through a long workday without breaks
The human brain can’t stay focused for more than about an hour at a time, and you only get about four and a half hours of “thinky work” a day. When you take a 10-minute break after an hour or 50 minutes of hard work, you’ll be able to come back refreshed and productive.
No break and your brain will start running on fumes, causing you to get tired, lose your temper, and/or make bad decisions.
If you want to improve productivity in the workplace, you and your staff need to go home in the evening and do things that are not work. Yes, this goes against cultural assumptions, which don’t work the way human brains want to work.
Many people don’t understand why it’s so bad for your brain when you don’t spend time with family and friends, or do hobbies that you enjoy, or get some exercise in. All these give your brain a break so it can refill the productivity tank.
Time-blocking (the wrong way) is not conducive to a more productive workplace
If you do it the right way, time blocking can be very effective. But that’s only if you schedule time in big enough blocks and make sure that you account for your energy ebbs and flows throughout the day.
Trying to break up your day into 15-minute or half hour increments is setting yourself up for failure. Because if one of those tasks goes over, and at least one undoubtedly will, the rest of your schedule is shot for the day.
Instead, have big enough blocks to account for rest and things taking longer than they should. Group similar tasks together so you’re not switching back and forth, which will support your brain instead of wearing it out.
You also need to think about your energy flows. Go nearly comatose at 2 pm, as many of us do? Don’t schedule cognitively demanding tasks during this time – this work should be saved for your best focused time, which is affected by your sleep chronotype.
And don’t schedule anything that isn’t cognitively demanding (emails, meetings admin) during the time when your brain is ready to focus.
The myth of reducing sleep time to get more done in a day
While you might feel like you can get by on very few hours of sleep, you’re kidding yourself. There are vanishingly few people who function best and are productive on four or five hours of sleep a night. While everyone has nights where they have difficulty sleeping, productivity demands seven to eight hours a night.
There is a lot of work for your brain and body to take care of at night that can only be done while you’re sleeping. Each sleep cycle has three or four stages, depending on where it falls during the night, and three to four cycles are necessary to accomplish everything. (You can read more about sleep specifically here).
Recap (tl;dr)
Business myths about productivity and efficiency may be holding you and your business back. Defy these superstitions and start working with your brain instead of against it.
If you’ve got all these details in place and you’ve still hit a profit plateau, schedule time with me here. My Profit Velocity program may be able to help.