Did you know that writing down your New Year’s resolutions will help you stick to them? It’s the truth! Another thing that’ll keep your goals in check is coffee. It won’t text you to remind you to say “no” to that slice of carrot cake, but it can give you the stamina to get where you need to be. There are plenty of tricks to up your productivity level, and with coffee by your side, you can accomplish anything! Disclaimer: please do not try to fly; coffee cannot give you wings… Red Bull might, but you didn’t hear it from us.
Coffee Keeps Your Mind Productive
Coffee puts you in a better mood by making your body release dopamine.[i] We all know it’s easier to have the willpower you need to be productive when you’re all smiles. Another one of our favorite coffee health benefits is this: it can keep your brain alert and speed up the time it takes you to process thoughts.[ii] Coffee can help you accomplish more and do it faster. How can you say no to that?
Coffee Health Benefits the Body – It Keeps You Fit!
Being fit is a common new year’s resolution. If it’s one of yours, there are plenty of coffee health benefits that will get you through even the toughest workouts. Not only does coffee keep you more focused and on track at the gym, it increases endurance.[iii] This means that no matter how tired you are when you wake up for your 5:00 a.m. run, you can still power through after your favorite cup of coffee! Don’t forget to hydrate with water though!
Coffee Health Benefits Keep Your Mind and Body Productive, but What About the Rest?
So, your new year’s resolutions are set, you’ve got your coffee and you’re ready to show 2017 what’s up. You’ve written your goals down. You’re energized and caffeinated. What’s next? One word, five syllables: productivity. Even if you have no idea what you’re trying to achieve, here are a few good tips from productivity experts to get you through January.
First Thing’s First – Shut Out the Noise
Distractions are everywhere. If you set boundaries to keep them at bay, you’ll get more accomplished! Noise can easily be tuned out with earplugs, but what about the mental noise? If you’re at home, there are kids running around, husbands who need sandwiches, pets to feed, text messages to read, etc. If you’re in an office, there are e-mails, the pressure to multitask, the side conversations with your co-workers, and more. These distracting things are necessary and some, you may love…but productivity experts say that knowing how to mold them around your work can make you more creative. It’s all about setting boundaries.
Tame the E-mail Monster
Checking e-mail every two to three hours can make you much more productive, opposed to checking it more often. Being super responsive with your e-mails is actually a huge productivity killer. (Who knew?) Unless an e-mail’s urgent, you’ll be better at your job if you make it wait. This applies to non-e-mail interruptions too. Why? Stopping work often to manage the inbox (or to do other things) lowers quality of work, mental speed and mental capacity to do the work. The more we shift focus, the worse it is.[iv]
One Step at a Time
You can increase your productivity and finish your to-do list quicker if you do them one at a time. Multitasking is the death of productivity, unless you’re doing it with tasks that call for minimal brain power and focus. Why? Multitasking (like being interrupted) reduces mental capacity, speed and quality of work. Strangely enough, in productivity studies, people who felt they had a special gift for multitasking were far worse at it versus those saw themselves as terrible multitaskers. Simply put, our brains aren’t built to multitask, but knowing this will help us use them wisely![v]
Task Mastering
You’ll be more productive if you break your projects into small tasks and tackle them one at a time. Not to mention, you’ll save time by delegating things that you’re not amazing at to someone who could do them in half the time. If you want to delegate something, but don’t know anyone who can do it well, train someone. Training is a time suck in the beginning, but after the person’s trained, you’re free![vi]
Use Perfectionism Wisely
You’ll increase your productivity a lot if you know how to manage being a perfectionist. Making sure every detail is impeccable can devour time and cause imperfections in areas where you really need to be perfect. Here’s the deal, we all have limited time, energy and alertness. If we spend too much of it trying to be perfect in places where perfectionism doesn’t improve the outcome of the project, we’re wasting resources. Apparently, most people with high standards are somewhat guilty of wasting time and brain fuel in the name of perfectionism.[vii] Before tackling each to-do, ask yourself if doing it perfectly or exactly a certain way would impact the outcome of the project. If the answer is “no,” then consider it a “good is enough” task.
Cheers to a successful 2017!
SOURCES
[i] Dr. Laura Klein, Ph.D., Penn State University; Heidi Skolnik, M.S., sports nutritionist
[ii] Nutrition Bulletin & Journal of Psychopharmacology
[iii] Rice University
[iv] Science Direct Research Journal
[v] University of London, Forbes Magazine
[vi] Harvard Business Review
[vii] Dr. Gini Graham Scott, PhD; Business Insider, Inc.
WEBSITES
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563214005810
https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2014/10/08/multitasking-damages-your-brain-and-career-new-studies-suggest/#510c96e02c16
https://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/01/the-worst-thing-on-your-to-do-list-first.html
https://hbr.org/2012/07/why-arent-you-delegating
https://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/managerial-time-management-2168-9601-1000171.php?aid=76071
https://www.sarahnamulondo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/A-Survival-Guide-for-Working-With-Bad-Bosses.pdf
https://www.inc.com/business-insider/habits-that-are-killing-your-productivity.html
https://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/caffeine.html
