Brain-Friendly Strategies

to boost peak performance at work

The Brighter Thinking Expert, Rachel Bamber, provides Business Fit Readers with 9 strategies to help us work with our brains rather than against them and become more productive and less stressed.

Would you like to get more done with zero stress?

Do you think that you sometimes get in the way of enjoying a satisfying, productive day?

Do you frequently move items on your to-do list to the next day (and repeat this pattern throughout the week)?

If you answered ‘yes’ to one or more of the questions above, you are not alone. Here’s how you can work with your brain rather than against it!

Declutter

Your brain is easily distracted. Everything competes for its attention and most of the time your brain is filtering out thousands of stimuli from its awareness. Scientists believe that we would go mad if the brain did not do this! Clutter depletes energy as your brain has to work hard to not focus on all extraneous stuff. Therefore, limit distractions and clutter in your work and home environment to enhance your productivity and general wellbeing.

Thinking Time

Everyone probably requires some specific time thinking to help them complete their work and this is especially important for business owners. However, not one client has initially included dedicated thinking time in their weekly schedule before my suggestion. Creating a time for reflection, perhaps combining with a walk away from the usual place of work or choosing to visit an inspiring place nearby enables the brain – and you - to relax and switch off. This change in brain state makes solving challenges by insight much more likely which is faster than analysing the problem.

Hence, including thinking time in your schedule saves time, energy and possible stress as projects can be completed more swiftly, without unnecessary deliberation.

Commit to completing

Some clutter will not be actual physical stuff but tasks and projects that you (or others) have started... and remain unfinished. Sometimes these incomplete chores or things can hang around for a week, months or even years.

Unfinished tasks drain your energy fast and tend to be what people describe as “hanging over me”. This is how they feel: like a heavy weight is bearing down from above, sapping their spark and vitality. Is this you? I have yet to meet anyone who has no incompletions, however there are certain personalities who are more likely to have a lot of them (i.e. not the Completer-Finishers in a team!).

Unfinished projects deplete energy and focus because they are stuck in your conscious, utilising precious attention and occupying valuable cognitive space in the very limited capacity of the brain’s working memory. Feeling overwhelmed? Your brain is alerting you that you are overloading it.

Breaks

Humans are not machines (yet!) and therefore cannot keep going without adequate rest. Like a car though, your brain and body are a system that benefits from the occasional experience of an idling state (the brain’s Default Network) throughout the day. Having regular breaks increases your creativity and enables memories to be formed, stored and hard-wired in your brain. A sure sign that your brain needs a break is if it becomes sidetracked e.g. you find yourself looking out of the window at nothing in particular.

Stop denying yourself fun!

Get it out of your head

If you feel overwhelmed by your endless todo-list ensure that you are not creating extra stress by holding everything in your mind and enjoy having a tangible ‘container’ to hold your thoughts, projects, and ideas instead. Get them out of your head and onto paper or a whiteboard, pretty journal – whatever you love to use. This will support your brain’s Pre-Frontal Cortex (PFC) to help you to focus and lowers stress immediately as you will refrain from worrying that you will forget something.

Talk it through

Business owners and senior leaders tell me that it is lonely at the top. You may not have someone to confide in because you cannot share everything with your team or want to burden your family with constant discussions or new ideas about your company. Having an objective sounding board helps you to reflect on your thinking, increase confidence, take action and make decisions faster. Whether this is a professionally trained accredited coach, mentor or trusted and non-judgemental friend or family member ensure that you have someone you can ask to “run things by” with. This will maintain momentum and avoid the potential for a decision traffic jam which hampers progress.

Make that Bottleneck decision

Recognise that if you are stuck it is likely there is a decision required or another task that needs accomplishing before you can progress. Left unattended, these cause blockages in your thinking (the pre-frontal cortex part of the brain) and lower productivity: they literally stay in your brain’s tiny working memory and slow the rest of your performance down. Remove the bottleneck and discover how your productivity (and energy) bursts through. Not to mention the psychological relief. It takes more energy and attention to think about working (or not) on a task than actually doing it!

Mono and batch task

Your brain cannot multi-task: it switches attention from one cognitive activity to another instead. This uses a lot of energy. Therefore, to keep resources and attention high, remove any rival obligations (close down email etc.) and focus on completing one thing at a time. Your motivation will naturally increase as actions are finished faster and your productivity will soar!

Include thinking time in your schedule

In addition, you may find that you are able to get a lot more done when you batch key activities and tackle them in specific chunks of time. For example, schedule all your meetings or client appointments on the same days or block out dedicated hours / mornings / afternoons / days to creating content or working on the business. This will mean that you are not constantly swapping to assignments that require different levels of focus or energy and is therefore more efficient.

Focus on fun

I am constantly surprised at how many people do not allow themselves to incorporate into their life what makes them feel good. Stop denying yourself fun! You have full permission to allow space and time to crank up the top tune, express your creative talents (or ahem, “talents-inlearning”), laugh at the silly animal video and enjoy other pleasurable activities – daily, if you feel like it plus, you know that it generates so much joy in return. Your brain’s neurochemistry will thank you and adjust itself accordingly, helping you to be more likely in the optimum state of arousal for high motivation and peak performance.

Rachel Bamber helps leaders to work with their brain to get what they want, faster and with zero stress. Among the pioneering adventurers who have worked with her include people in the public eye, corporate leaders and super-ambitious small business owners. Rachel is the first person in the world to be awarded the Postgraduate Diploma in the Neuroscience of Leadership. info@rachelbamber.com - www.rachelbamber.com