How are self-care and productivity connected? What happens when you overwork yourself?
In Free to Focus, Michael Hyatt discusses ways to simplify your life and work. He discusses some important things to add to your routine in order to keep yourself healthy and productive.
Below, we’ll look at why self-care is essential for keeping a productive mindset.
Take Care of Yourself
Hyatt begins by challenging a common misconception about self-care and productivity: the idea that time is flexible while energy is fixed. In other words, people commonly think that they can work as few or as many hours as they need to, while always maintaining the same level of productivity.
However, it’s really the other way around. Time is fixed—there are only so many hours in a day—while your energy levels rise and fall based on how well you take care of yourself. In other words, in order to stay productive, you must take time to rest and attend to your needs.
| Beware of Overwork Hyatt says that staying productive in the long run requires you to take enough time for rest and other self-care needs, but how much time is that, exactly? It may be helpful to approach that question from the opposite side and ask instead how much time you should try to work each week. There’s no universally correct answer, but research has provided a couple of benchmarks. First of all, regularly working more than 45 hours per week is harmful to physical and mental health in numerous ways. Such a schedule doesn’t leave you with enough time to fully recover before going back to work, so the harmful effects of work stress build up over time. That can eventually lead to exhaustion, anxiety or depression, and even heart disease. Therefore, it’s usually best to limit yourself to working 45 hours in a week, and fewer hours whenever possible. Second, researchers estimate that the maximum number of productive hours for the average person is around 55 per week. Working more hours beyond that doesn’t result in any significant amount of extra work getting done—you’re simply too tired to be productive. Naturally, working so many hours will also worsen the health impacts we discussed in the previous paragraph. So, if 45 hours is your “soft limit” for each week, 55 hours should be your hard limit. |
A Self-Care Checklist for Productivity
While you can’t create more time in your day, Hyatt says you can make the most of the time you have by taking good care of yourself. Tending to your physical, mental, and emotional well-being will maximize your energy and, consequently, your productivity.
Some specific self-care habits that Hyatt urges you to practice include:
- Sleep: To maximize your energy and productivity, try to get at least seven hours of sleep every night. For more restful sleep, keep your bedroom at a cool temperature and as dark as possible, and avoid looking at screens (TV, phone, computer, and so on) before bed.
- Eat: Your eating habits have a major impact on your energy levels throughout the day. Try to eat mostly natural, unprocessed foods for sustainable long-term energy. Also be mindful of what you drink—juices and sodas tend to be loaded with sugar, which will give you a quick burst of energy followed by a crash shortly afterward.
- Exercise: Regular exercise not only improves your physical health, it also enhances cognitive function and creativity. Just 20-25 minutes of moderate activity per day—such as a brisk walk or a set of yoga exercises—can produce a noticeable difference in your energy and productivity.
- Socialize: Taking time to nurture positive relationships with family, friends, and colleagues pays dividends in terms of both personal well-being and professional success. Not only will spending time with people you like make you happier, it will also give you valuable opportunities to network, ask for advice, and exchange favors. Hyatt recommends evaluating your social circle to determine which people give you the most energy and which leave you feeling drained.
