Three Things: Reduce Fatigue and Increase Productivity

There’s so much to do, and you want to be productive, but sometimes it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day. Would it help if you had more hours? Or would you just burn out from working constantly? If nothing else, you’d probably be tired.

Research has proven that fatigue decreases productivity — and productivity increases after rest. So if we do things right, breaks during the day make us more efficient, and even though we may work fewer hours overall, we can get more done than if we worked constantly in overtime.

And as a bonus, if you have flexibility, breaks don’t have to come within a traditional schedule. Look for opportunities for overlap between the things you’re going to do anyway and time them between bouts of focused work. For instance, maybe breakfast can be a break between early work tasks and your next work tasks?

In this Three Things video, Darden Professor Manel Baucells, an expert in quantitative analysis, explains three important lessons his research has shown about how the right kind of fatigue management can lead to increased efficiency.