Let's face it.
A non-stop 8 hours of work is not easy. To most of us, it's tiring, boring and unproductive.
We've been taught to divide our lives into 3 parts: 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, and finally 8 hours of leisure. Naturally, we assume that we should do these things in such order.
What if that doesn't work for everyone?
What if we can strategically incorporate some fun, leisure and excitement into our working hours?
What if there's a smarter way to mix work and play together so you look forward to both your weekdays and weekends?
Here's the thing, it's extremely hard, if not counterproductive, to exert willpower in one go and focus for 8 hours straight.
Our bodies function in circadian rhythms so we are designed to work in periods and cycles.
If you plan for 8 consecutive hours as work (even if you have an hour of lunch in between), it's rarely productive for us.
So to be productive both professionally and personally, you should aim for a balanced schedule that incorporate some mind, body& emotions refreshment sessions in the middle of the day.
Instead of having a 9am - 5pm work schedule, try to put a long 3 hour session of rejuvenation buffer in-between.
During these few hours, you can go hit the gym and bring some fresh air to your brain.
Or you can go meet your mentors and have a long chilling wisdom chat so you have some advice, directives and guidance.
Or you can spend some quality time reconnecting Mother Nature and read <The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin> to gain some leadership insights.
This 3 hour block is deliberately placed in the middle of the day to give you a long enough break for your brainpower after an intensive morning work session.
It's there for you to be social, to invest some time in your personal development, and to recharge your batteries before you go dominate your round 2 of the day.
Whether it happens at 11am - 2pm or 12pm - 3pm doesn't matter, what matters is that you've blocked out your morning work session for the highest value prioritized tasks and get 70-80% of your day done.
Round 2 is for you to tackle other less important lower value tasks.
When you design your day like this, not only you have 2 solid productive sessions in the morning and near the evening, but also you have something to look forward to in the middle of the day so that you are compelled to stay focused in the morning before the fun begins.
So a sample schedule can be something like this:
12:00pm - 7:30am: 7.5 hours of sleep
7:30am - 9am: Morning Success Ritual to Jump Start Your Day
9am - 12pm: Uninterrupted Block of Time to Crush Your Highest Value Priority Tasks
12pm - 3pm: Time to Have Fun and Refresh Your Body, Mind and Emotions!
3pm - 6:30pm: Round 2 to Finish the Low Priority Tasks
6:30pm - 10:30pm: Spend Quality Time with Family & Friends, or Learn New Skills
10:30pm - 12pm: Night Journaling & Plan the Next Day
Isn't it more motivating when you realize you have something cool to enjoy after a few hours of work, instead of waiting for the whole day to pass and unwind in the evening?
Try it out, tweak the schedule and play around to see how much productive you can be!
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