When it comes to creativity, productivity, and generally getting things done at work, there’s no shortage of helpful “hacks” offered to optimize your output.
Beyond the annoying use of the word “hack” in this context, these are simply tactics. What you really need is a strategy that first optimizes you.
I’ve known for a long time that to be my best at work, I need to work out. But historically, as soon as things get busy and the pressure mounts, exercise was the first thing I dropped.
That makes no sense if you know better. These are the benefits when you make regular exercise a part of your routine:
- Improved concentration
- Sharper memory
- Faster learning
- Prolonged mental stamina
- Enhanced creativity
- Lower stress
Show me another “hack” that gives you all that. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
We know that taking a walk break during work leads to innovative ideas, solutions to problems, and general creativity. So without even considering the health, longevity, and sleep benefits of regular exercise, working out represents the ideal work optimization strategy.
My next three months are going to be insanely busy. But rather than get stressed out and neglect fitness, I’ll instead remind myself each morning that the most important thing I have to do that day is hit the gym.
And it works. I get more done — with higher quality performance and output. Plus, you know … health.
Exercise isn’t a distraction from work. It’s part of your job.
Regular Exercise Is Part of Your Job
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The crazy-smart way to talk to yourself
by Brian Clark
We all talk to ourselves inside our heads. Interestingly, studies show that how we address ourselves during our inner monologues makes an amazing difference in our performance, well-being, and overall wisdom.
Psychologist Ethan Kross performed pioneering research that shows a dramatic difference in life success based on how people conduct self-talk. It boils down to this:
Talk to yourself with the pronoun I, for instance, and you’re likely to fluster and perform poorly in stressful circumstances. Address yourself by your name and your chances of acing a host of tasks, from speech making to self-advocacy, suddenly soar.
So, when LeBron James said, “I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James, and to do what makes LeBron James happy,” he’s (maybe) not being a narcissist. He’s actually stepping outside of himself and objectively explaining a decision that worked best for him.
Become the voice of reason
The research Kross performed shows that this inner third-person commentary has some truly exceptional benefits. Here are the three most prominent:
1. Better Performance: Research subjects were given five minutes to prepare a speech explaining why they should be hired for their dream job. Half of the subjects were instructed to describe themselves using “I” in a prep document; the other half were told to address themselves by name. Those calling themselves by name performed better according to independent judges. These participants also experienced less depression and felt less shame.
2. Higher Well-Being: Neuroscientist and clinical psychologist Jason Moser measured electrical activity in the brain as subjects engaged in different varieties of self-talk. Subjects that used their first names instead of personal pronouns in the face of stressful situations reported a dramatic reduction in anxiety levels, which corresponded with a vast decrease in energy consumed by the frontal lobes.
3. Greater Wisdom: Referring to yourself in the third person creates psychological distance, much as we are generally better at advising others than we are at following our own advice. The research shows that people who achieve psychological distance think things through in a more wise and measured way. “The psychologically distanced perspective allowed people to transcend their egocentric viewpoints and take the big picture into account,” Kross concluded.
Embrace the distance
Speaking to yourself in the third person resembles the entrepreneur’s maxim to “Work on your business, not in it.” In this case, you’re better able to evaluate yourself because you’re not so wrapped up in yourself.
By toggling the way we address the self — first person or third — we flip a switch in the cerebral cortex, the center of thought, and another in the amygdala, the seat of fear, moving closer to or further from our sense of self and all its emotional intensity.
So go ahead and talk to yourself in the third person. And if you slip up and start speaking to yourself out loud, just make sure you have your AirPods in for appearances sake.
Why speaking to yourself in the third person makes you wiser (Aeon)
What’s the beef with plant-based “meat?”
By Trudi Roth
My friend, who’s a vegetarian for health reasons, is having a fast-food renaissance. He’s already a devoted fan of Del Taco’s Beyond Meat tacos, and is eagerly anticipating Burger King’s new Impossible Whopper.
The proliferation of plant-based meat into on-the-go meals points to the fact that what was seen as a food fad is now a bona fide nutritional shift. This is not your mama’s veggie burger, which was really an option for vegetarians, not omnivores. Alt-meat is made to appeal to beef lovers by looking, tasting, and “bleeding” like its cow-based counterpart.
And yet, vegan-friendly plant-based meat provides as much protein as meat, and also significant fiber. When you factor in the much lower carbon footprint of plant-based meat, it’s better for the planet, too.
Still, it’s made in a lab, so can it be truly be healthy? Let’s get to the meat of the matter.
Where’s the beef?
Just because a product is “plant-based,” doesn’t mean that it provides the same health benefits as eating raw vegetables. Alt-meat is comprised of either pea protein (Beyond Meat), soy or potato protein (Impossible Burger), plus coconut, sunflower, and/or canola oil, vegetable-based “blood” (beets or yeast-grown heme) and other loads of other additives.
Alt-meat is, in short, a highly processed food, which by definition isn’t as healthy as whole foods. Plus it’s made to emulate beef, so it’s got a comparable calorie count and fat content.
Plant-based meat is absolutely safe — but it’s not a health food. While there’s a lot of uncertainty in nutrition science, and meatless meat may avoid the cancer risks of red meat, for the most part, it is probably about as good for you as the meat it’s imitating.
That said, these meat substitutes have some advantages over meat. At least it’s missing the growth hormones and antibiotics fed to cows.
A whole different animal
Still, the synonymous lock on protein that animal meat has traditionally enjoyed is lessening. Beyond Meat’s impressive recent IPO speaks volumes to the paradigm shift that’s underway.
Just as the iPhone wasn’t just a new kind of telephone, alt-meat isn’t just a new kind of burger — it’s an evolution in the food chain.
This will be generational. All change is. Most Baby Boomers are going to stick with their beef, right up to the point where their dentures can’t take it anymore. But Gen Z will find the stuff as embarrassing as Def Leppard and dad jeans.
In other words, we’re at the (cow) tipping point now. As prices fall, it looks like eating animal-flesh in abundance may go the way of the buffalo.
- This Is the Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry (Outside)
- The rise of meatless meat, explained (Vox)
further: flashback
The Go-Go’s – Our Lips Are Sealed
Beauty and the Beat, 1981
The Go Go’s became the first all-female band that wrote their own music and played their own instruments to achieve a No. 1 album, which included the lead single Our Lips Our Sealed. Beauty and the Beat sold over two million copies, making it one of the most successful debut albums of all time and a cornerstone of American new wave. (YouTube)
further: sharing
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