Achieving peak productivity and work fulfilment by working smart

For years, most of us have heard the story of the woodcutter. A group of woodcutters were tasked with cutting trees in the forest. One of the woodcutters took the longest breaks but turned in the maximum logs, whereas those with the minimum breaks mysteriously produced fewer logs. A detailed investigation revealed the reason for this anomaly: the woodcutter with fewest work hours used the breaks to sharpen his axe: the resulting tool increased his productivity allowing him to achieve more with apparently less effort.

This story has been the benchmark to explain the difference between hard work and smart work: the productive woodcutter being the epitome of smart work. The story is so lucid and the message in the story so important that a cottage industry has sprung up to explain what smart work translates to in daily life. The interpretations have ranged from reflection and continuous learning to sycophancy and even unethical tasks.

I am going to present the concept of hard work Vs smart work in an entirely different perspective based on neurosciences – or the knowledge of functioning of the brain – the one organ all of us claim to have (at least in the physical sense). In today's day of artificial intelligence and robotics, it is time we understand our natural intelligence to avoid being afraid of artificial intelligence.

Looked at from neurosciences perspective, the entire science of smart work involves the right mix of 3 powerful chemicals called neurochemicals in the brain.

1.      Dopamine

2.      Serotonin

3.      Oxytocin.

Let’s understand these chemicals and how they lead to smart work in life.

Dopamine:

The chemical, dopamine, is the ultimate source of motivation for EVERY task in life – from the most mundane tasks like walking to more advanced tasks that need deep cognition and analysis. Also called the reward or happiness chemical, dopamine creates feelings of euphoria and fulfilment when it floods the brain. Reduced dopamine leads to demotivation – and in that state, the same work takes longer time and drains you A LOT aside of producing inferior quality work. SMART work is all about producing optimal dopamine levels in your brain. Now, dopamine isn’t your servant and won’t obey your command to flow. How then do you trick your brain to produce more dopamine?

Let’s take an example: Imagine someone you love to spend time with - your best friend, family, kids, partner or perhaps your first love. Alternatively, recall an assignment in your academic pursuit or a project at work or a life ambition like community service that you always wanted to do and were totally absorbed in.

When spending time in the above mentioned tasks or with people, you almost NEVER notice the hours gone by. Time and hours pass unnoticed and work happens effortlessly. Why?  Because when you enjoy work, dopamine automatically starts flowing in the brain at a steady rate, producing feelings of happiness or euphoria as it flows. Since you love these feelings (everybody wants to be happy), you want to do MORE of this work that you love to produce more dopamine to maintain the feelings of happiness - you work even more. This additional work produces more happiness and a virtuous cycle is maintained. In other words, when you love your work, you are now working NOT for external rewards like a job title, appreciation from boss or professor or money but for the internal feelings of pleasure created by dopamine. External rewards and other extrinsic factors are almost a byproduct of your work - not the reason for your work.

Now let’s look at the opposite perspective. Think about an academic subject or work assignment you simply didn’t like or enjoy but had to do for extrinsic factors like money, prospects of promotion or academic pressures. Think about how you felt while doing the task. Every second felt like an hour, you had to force yourself to work and you felt drained out even though you work fewer hours. It is almost as if the mental drain due to the lack of interest was more than the physical drain introduced by the number of hours. Why does this happen? Because when you DON’T like a task or a person, dopamine flow stops and you experience a physical pain, demotivation and even depression – these are horrible feelings that no one wants to experience.

Seen in this light, our brain does not perceive long or intense hours as hard work, it perceives uninteresting work that you force yourself to do for external factors as hard work. Take a look at this graph to understand how hard work impacts productivity negatively.

Summarizing the above,

1. When extrinsic factors like fat pay check, job titles, promotions, corner office, society status, peer or parental pressure are the sole factors that spur you into action, you will have to work LOT longer and intensely to make up for your lack of natural interests. Your dopamine drops, you feel horrible, your quality, quantity of work and health suffers. 
2. When you are spurred into action by intrinsic factors like your love for the work you do, dopamine shoot up in the brain – you feel excited and euphoric, your quality, quantity of work drastically improves AND smart work kicks in. 

The FIRST secret to smart work is to do what spurs dopamine in your brain by doing what you love to do.

And this need not be a challenging task – keep observing yourself as you work and ask yourself:

1.      When you get up in the morning, do you have an automatic urge to go to work or do you feel you are dragging yourself to work?

2.      Do you feel an internal sense of fulfillment for the greater part of working day?

3.      How important are factors like money, job titles, position, perks, social status? Would a negative change in those factors affect your motivation much?

If you answered NO (even a faint no) to ANY two of the questions above, you need to move on. Experiment with yourself and see what interests you along the way – it could very well be things outside your current profession. The longer you stay in your a profession shorn of your interest, the longer you live without dopamine (and the lower your satisfaction in life).

Next article: How chemicals serotinin and oxytocin affect smart work

How do you view smart work? Have you experienced the power of dopamine while doing what you love? Please share those in the comments box below so everyone can benefit from it. 

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Raja Jamalamadaka is a technology veteran, an entrepreneur, mentor to startup founders, coach to senior industry executives and a board director. He also serves on several CEO search panels. His primary area of research is neurosciences - functioning of the brain and its links to leadership attributes like productivity, confidence, positivity, decision making and organization culture. If you liked this article, you might like some of his earlier articles here:

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