Did you know that studies show we are most creative in the first 2-3 hours in the morning? Most people think they need to respond to emails from customers and colleagues at the start of their day. However, by doing so they squander their most creative period of the day to a mundane task.
My son works at a restaurant. Like most restaurants, the first event in the morning is not reading and responding to emails, but to review the day’s menu and plan out all the activities, priorities, and timing to leverage the period when workers are at their most creative. By contrast, 2:00 in the afternoon tends to be the point where most people are at their lowest in terms of mental energy levels.
Exercise has been shown to improve blood flow to the brain and releases chemicals that can not only improve mental energy but also improve your mood, so much so that it can be detected by others. If you need to tackle a sticky problem in the afternoon when mental energy is waning, rather than sitting in a conference room, take the participants on a brisk walk to improve blood flow to the brain and improve everyone’s cognitive ability. Plan a workout before activities, such as making calls to customers, to elevate your mood and improve your outcomes.
While exercise can restore mental energy, laying quietly or taking a nap when mental energy is low can also help you be more creative. When mental energy levels are low, our minds tend to wander and sometimes our daydreams can unlock solutions we can not see when we are engaged in active tasks. So by rearranging your daily activities, you can leverage your biological peak times and improve your job performance.
Does your daily work schedule take advantage of your body’s best times to perform tasks?
