4 Reasons You're Not Feeling Productive - The SEED Check

You know that feeling...

The one where you're on an important call, but you aren't taking in a word. You've reread the same email 3 times and still aren't sure what the client is asking. The feeling where you show up to the meeting late, but wait, wrong room! If you had a battery meter, you'd be getting a prompt to put yourself on "Energy Saver" mode.

Hold up. Before you go for that 4th cup of coffee (trust me, been there, done that, doesn't help), I've got another solution for you.

Whenever I feel myself start to drag at work, I do something really simple. I do a SEED check.

Sleep

Eat

Exercise

Drink (water)

If you haven't done any of these recently, your lack of "Let's F'ing Go" isn't because of personal weakness or low willpower. It's because you haven't taken care of yourself well enough to get the most out of your brain or body. You're leaving money on the table here. Caffeine isn't going to cut it.

Let's talk specifics.

Sleep: Gone are the days of heroic all-nighters and treating 5 hours of sleep as a badge of honor. All the science says we need 7-9 hours to function optimally. Quick exercise so you don't have to test this yourself:

Think back (maybe WAY back) to the last time you got a full 8 hours of sleep before a workday. How was the quality of your work that day? Probably pretty high, right?

Okay, now recall the last day you sacrificed 2 hours of sleep to work for 2 more hours. Did you make mistakes that you had to go back and fix later? How was the quality of that work? I imagine it dropped significantly.

In short - more sleep, less work wins every time. 

Movement: It's critical for your mind to function at its best. Heck, some companies are paying their employees to do it at work. It doesn't need to be a full-blown workout either, though that was a staple when lived behind a desk. If you want to feel the difference right away, go for a walk. Outside is better, but even a loop around your room or your office gets the job done. If you feel like you've got too much work to do, take it with you. Go on a brainstorming walk or take a call on the move.

Eat: Your body and your brain NEED food to run. Whatever we eat, our body turns into energy. It's like fueling a car - if you're running on empty, you're not going to get very far. Unless you're 5'2", a child, or cutting for a bodybuilding show, you should be eating 2000+ calories a day. Research shows that Chess Grandmasters burn 280 calories an hour just sitting there. So if your job is especially physically or mentally taxing, you've got to eat to stay at your best.

Drink: Now let's talk water. Remember in biology when you learned that 60% of the human body is water? True fact. Whether you're sweating from a workout, exhaling, or going to the bathroom, you're losing water. That means you need to be replenishing it throughout the day; 6-8 cups of water is a great baseline. Less than that, you're going to start thinking and feeling like a dried-out husk. Nobody wants that.

I came across this HydroMATE Water Bottle when hanging out with a friend. It's a bit kitschy, but its heart (and design) is in the right place.

To recap, before you get down on yourself for being a lazy POS or burn through the Starbucks giftcard you won at the last company meeting, check your vitals. Have you moved? Have you eaten? Have you drunk water? Have you slept?

If the answer is no, or yes but not enough, you at least know what the PROBLEM is.

Now, the solution? 

My suggestion is to tackle the easiest one first. From experience, by the time you notice a problem, 2, 3, or even all 4 of these things are low. So chug a glass of water, take a walk, grab a snack, and plan to get to bed early tonight.

If you want to go full Tim Ferris on this, you can run a little experiment. I have my clients do this every week to measure progress and identify small ways to improve consistently. If you want to do it for a short period, it works just as well daily.

Instructions

Rank yourself on these 5 factors every day, either morning or night:

• On a scale of 1-5, how was your nutrition today? Take into consideration quality of food, quantity of food, and consistency of meals.
• On a scale of 1-5, how was your movement today? Take into consideration how much you moved and how you felt doing it.
• On a scale of 1-5, how did you sleep last night? Length, quality, and how you felt waking up are all useful to look at here.
• On a scale of 1-5, how hydrated were you today? Take into account both amount of water and how consistently you drank throughout the day.
• On a scale of 1-5, how was your energy today? This is a broad-strokes look at your day. If the other numbers are high, this one is likely to be high too.

Then, for each of these rankings, ask yourself this:

• What can I do tomorrow to increase this number? 

After a week, notice how each of your numbers, alongside your baseline energy, has changed.

Your body and your boss will thank you.

About the Author: I'm a Coach and self-proclaimed Workplace Pirate. My goal? Help Millenials create a better balance between their work, their passion, and their health. I left my tech startup job because I was obscenely stressed, burnt out, and losing control of my health. I left my career as a fitness coach because the more people I helped, the more I realized the greater problem couldn't be solved with more pushups and a protein shake. 

Now, I live outside Boston with my partner and as many plants as I can reasonably keep alive. If I'm not coaching or writing, I'm skiing, running on the beach, or reading a book.