I Want You To Procrastinate
How to take effective breaks in the hustle of everyday life
There was a point in my life where I seriously considered buying a waterproof notebook. Unlike other articles that teach you how working properly will maximize your efficiency, here I’ll showcase how calculated laziness is just as important for your focus as any actual work itself. You’ll be problem solving from the shower in no time.
Effective breaks boost your productivity, elevate your mood, and increase your overall sense of well-being. Through the lens of an increasingly faster pace of the internet and hustle culture’s undying grasp around the throats of aspiring content creators, breaks are seen as the enemy of progress.
Breaks are not the enemy of progress, but are the cause of it.
The Two Brain States of Productivity
In her book A Mind For Numbers, author Barbara Oakley discusses our brain’s two modes, Focused and Diffuse Thinking.
Focused thinking is exactly what it sounds like, and is our main driver when it comes to any task that requires our attention. This could be anything from finding the bug in your 100 lines of code, to writing an article on Medium.
Diffuse thinking is what happens when you’re not actively engaged in problem solving, and occurs when we feel relaxed and allow our entire mind to wander. Oakley swears that diffuse mode is especially useful for more strenuous tasks, like math and science. I swear the same for creative pursuits.
Procrastination, then, isn’t a flaw in our work ethic, it’s a necessity.
Ever forget a word for something, only to remember it a day later in the middle of washing dishes? That’s the power of diffuse thinking. A fun note, I came up with the idea to frame this part of the article using Oakley’s insights after I had left my desk to eat cookies. Diffuse mode in action, everybody.
It’s counterintuitive, but the best way to fully engage your brain is by making time to not use it.
The Two Kinds of Breaks (And How to Make Them Work for You)
Breaking for energy
In my third year of college, I was performing the best I ever had in every area of my life. The only tax I paid for that much thriving was in my sleep schedule. I was constantly overworked and under-slept. I had been reading a book about sleep in an effort to combat the stressors of campus life, but my only real respite from most days was about a thirty minute gap from when my last class ended to when I had to clock into work.
It was in those thirty minutes that I invented the coffee nap.
The Coffee Nap (Or, a Practical Procrastination Method)
How caffeine affects the brain
The book I was reading was Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep, where he explains that caffeine “hijacks” the brain’s adenosine receptors, delaying any feelings of tiredness you’d have naturally. More importantly, though, is that
levels of circulating caffeine peak approximately thirty minutes after oral administration.
Which meant that I could slam a cup of Joe, take a short nap and walk into work completely wired.
Hell yeah.
I noticed the effects immediately. As long as I could get home and fall asleep quickly, I could wake up, throw on my uniform and be out the door in about twenty minutes. The rest was a physical commute — in my college town, everything was within walking distance from each other.
By the time I’d get to work, I’d be fully awake and alert, not groggy in the slightest.
And while I wouldn’t propose this to be a long term solution — if I learned anything from Why We Sleep, we should all focus on getting more and better quality sleep, but in the short term, the thirty minute coffee nap routine was something that helped maintain my success during that period of my life.
Longer naps
If a short nap can yield these results, it makes logical sense that a longer naps would provide even greater boosts to productivity. Unfortunately, being asleep longer means going into the deeper phases of sleep, which, even if preempted by a healthy dose of caffeine, still won’t be enough to counteract the grogginess of deeper sleep.
The best long term solution is to simply go to bed earlier. Restructure your day to guarantee enough time for your body to replenish itself.
Breaking for Productivity
Productive meditation (Deep Work and shallow exercise)
In Cal Newport’s book Deep Work, finding ways to meditate productively, that is, to occupy your body with physical activity so your mind can rest and wander, will drastically improve your mental clarity and productivity.
Engaging in any form of meditation has significant benefits on well-being, so long as it is consistently performed.¹ So get up and stretch for a few minutes. Go for a neighborhood stroll. Even performing simple chores can give the mind a break to wander and solve problems for you.
Everyday I try to step outside and put my body in motion.
As far back as high school, I remember making it a point to get up and walk around for a bit. During my psychology class I’d ask to use the restroom, only to go for a two minute walk around the buildings as the sun rose. Even though I didn’t know it then, I was priming my brain to return to the classroom refreshed, more capable of deeper engagement with the material than before I had left.
Heavier physical activity
Where longer naps are a detriment to your focus, ramping up the amount of exercise you do only yields greater benefits. Not only will more strenuous physical activity increase your capacity for attention, but will also give your body an energy and mood boost.
I’ve been making it a habit to get on my exercise bike for around twenty minutes to start my day. Even with a minor time commitment, I’d end each session feeling like I could tackle the rest of the day with ease.
Procrastinate, slack, laze about
No matter how you take a break, finding time to mentally rest and reset is the most important thing to do for your own productivity. So, for your own sake, take a break.
Stop and smell the roses for a while before taking the next step towards your greener pasture, you’ll find it that much more effortless.
¹ This note on meditation is in reference to Happier, No Matter What by Tal Ben-Shahar, that also inspired my third article on Medium.
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