S Is For Sustainable

When it comes to productivity and improving your ability to accomplish your priorities in a shorter period of time, making sure that your “productivity tank” is full helps you squeeze the most out of each day without working more hours. The S in the LaserBrainTM Method stands for: Sustainably filling up your productivity tank.

As you hopefully know by now, your brain is not a computer or any other type of machine. Its capabilities during a 24-hour period are not limitless. As you continue to work and demand work from your brain, you’re also draining it. That’s why filling it up at the end of the day is so important.

Making decisions affects your ability to be productive

Decision-making power dwindles with each decision you make, no matter how small it is. When you keep working for too long, the executive function parts of your brain get tired. Then your brain will resort to the faster, more emotional system instead. At the end of the day, you’re more likely to make mistakes and poor decisions.

Many people who’ve tried eating well have run into this same issue. You have a healthy breakfast and lunch. Then you get home after a long day at work and snarf down some ice cream and cookies for dinner.

That’s because the “thinky” part of the brain is exhausted, and when the emotional brain steps in, you get emotional decisions.

That’s why it’s so important to have a full stop to your work at some point. Not continuing to read emails or checking “social” feeds or “just doing this one last thing”. A time when you close the computer and put your phone away. Doing other things that don’t tax your brain is key to refilling the tank and being ready to go the next day, not to mention helping prevent burnout.

Improving productivity by taking care of your body and physical health

If it’s good for your brain, it’s good for productivity. There are physical aspects to taking care of your brain.

• 7-8 hours of sleep every night - only about 1% of the population are “short sleepers” who need only four to five hours a night. It’s highly unlikely that you’re one of these people. If you drink coffee or energy drinks or caffeinated tea all day, guess what: you’re in the 99%. There’s a lot of maintenance that the brain and body do each night that can only be done while you’re sleeping.
• Physical movement - while going to the gym for a half hour a few days of the week is better than no movement at all, this isn’t optimal either. For peak performance, your brain needs fresh oxygenated blood, and that comes from movement. Take some short walks during the day - they’re great to recharge after a session of deep work. Energy begets energy so some movement in the late afternoon might keep you going better than a coffee, and it won’t interfere with sleep.
• Nutritious fuel - corporatized and commoditized food isn’t good for your brain, and it’s not good for your body either. You know this. There is some variability among humans as to what foods specifically will bring you to peak performance, but no bodies operate well on stuff that’s been engineered to hit the fat/salt/sugar trifecta. Minimally processed foods, generally speaking, are what you want to ingest.

Be more productive by taking care of your mental health and having fun

Free lunch! It doesn’t happen in finance, but it does happen with your productivity tank. Proactive activities that are fun and enjoyable for you are actually good for you and your brain. The more fun you have and the more joy you can bring into your life, the more you can refill and be recharged and refreshed when you're at the workplace.

• Crafts, hobbies, other activities - anything you do just for the fun of it and without the intention of monetizing is good for your brain and your mental health. If you’re doing crafts with the intent of opening up an Etsy store or having a stall at the holiday market, that’s a side hustle and doesn’t count. You might do these activities solo or with other people; they might include physical movement or they might not. (Ideally, you’d have a mix of everything.) The only critical factor is that you must enjoy doing them most of the time. Anyone can have an off day where the yarn gets all tangled or the glue on the airplane kit doesn’t set right. But these are minor setbacks.
• Creative play - many business owners think of creativity as painting or drawing, and then believe they’re not creative because they don’t paint or draw, or they do it badly. Those can be creative play, but the key here is that it absolutely does not matter if your stuff looks (or if you’re jamming on a musical instrument, sounds) like sh*t. You’re not trying to be Leonora DaVinci here, or even necessarily master your creative play. Give yourself the gift of messing around and messing up. If you go to pottery class and your cup looks like a mangled dinosaur, that’s great. Let yourself play.
• Socializing - even for introverts! Those of us who need to recharge by ourselves don’t need to be in as much contact with other people as those who recharge in a crowd, but some contact is still necessary. Humans are a social species, and we need real contact and connection with other humans. I say “real” because “social” media doesn’t count. Our brains don't register typing or clicking mouse buttons as communications with other humans, because they’re not. Talking to someone on the phone, meeting in person, and potentially videoconferencing (I haven’t seen the research on this) counts.

What doesn’t promote productivity

You might have noticed in the earlier paragraph about the things that promote mental health and productivity that I specifically called out proactive activities. The human brain likes to be active, which doesn’t mean that it wants to crunch numbers or code or plan all day. However, passive consumption isn’t that great for our brains.

In other words, coming home and sitting on the sofa with a big glass of wine and streaming your favorite murder shows is actually not good for your brain. It’s tempting to do this when you're tired at the end of the day, especially if you had a day full of distractions and interruptions. It feels like relaxing, but the issue is that you’re taking in entertainment that someone else has created and drinking alcohol that could interfere with your sleep later in the night.

The best thing you can do for your brain, counterintuitively, is to go for a walk or play cards with friends and family or do your crafts. It is more effort, but it’s the kind of effort that your brain likes. It uses different areas of the brain from the one that you use all day at work.?

You can make it easier to do crafts if they’re easy to get to and laid out so you can start right away instead of hunting for your supplies. Have your card decks easily accessible. If you have a dog, they have to go for a walk anyway, so the whole family can go before or after dinner.

As with everything, sometimes you’re just going to veg out. Or have a slice of delicious pizza that contains processed cheese, processed crust, processed tomato sauce, and processed pepperoni. You’re going to have days where you’re not feeling well or you have some kind of injury where you can’t work out.?

(Although, I will tell you if you look up workout videos on YouTube you might be surprised how much you can do even with certain injuries. I broke my foot and I searched “broken foot workout” and found tons of videos to work out to.)

The key is to make sure that most of the time, you’re not vegging out. You’re eating the nutritious food, moving your tuchus regularly throughout the day, spending time with loved ones reading or talking or playing cards or walking the dog instead of everyone sitting around with a screen in their face.

Recap (tl;dr)

You need to refill your productivity tank each day, because it drains as you’re working. The good news is that the proactive things you like to do, such as creative play or talking with friends or doing crafts, are great ways to refill the tank. (Just avoid sitting around in front of a screen with a glass of wine in your hand.)

Want more LaserBrainTM Method? The book is coming early 2025, but you can also message me to schedule your free consultation.