I am a big fan of instrumental soundtracks that I can listen to as background music while working. If you look at some of my favorites soundtracks (exceptional works like The Rock, Inception, or Gladiator) they are most likely composed by Hans Zimmer. Hans Zimmer is amazing, and one of the the most prolific composers in movie-making today. He is in his late 50s and already has 100+ titles to his credit (and shows no signs of slowing down). And not only is Zimmer producing a lot, most of them are of exceptional quality, either nominated for or winning many awards.
Compare that with nearly another other composer in the same age range as Zimmer. All pale in comparison in either volume of output, quality, or both. I spent nearly an hour researching online looking for a peer of Zimmer's who rivals his output for the past 30 years. I found no one even close. So why is Zimmer so prolific, when 99.9% of the other movie composers are not?
You Can Be Prolific
Not only composers can be prolific. Gerry Spence, Isaac Asimov, and Kobe Bryant are all examples of people who excel in their respective fields for decades.
As leaders, we should aim to dominate our areas for as long as we choose to. Do you choose to?
“As leaders, we should aim to dominate our areas for as long as we choose to.”
When I talk about prolificacy, I mean being a productive leader for 40, 50 or 60 years. Anyone can get lucky and have a good quarter or a good year. But producing large amounts of high quality output over decades is much more difficult.
Factors of Long Term Productivity
Many factors contribute to long term success (ambition, talent, opportunity), but only one is an enabler: your health. You can abuse your body and your mind for a few years while you burn the candle at both ends chasing success, but eventually your health will fail you. Without a solid foundation of health, you cannot focus on activities, projects and relationships that add value and bring about long term success and productivity.
There are four components of health that enable you to achieve long-term energy and focus (in priority order):
- Nutrition
- Sleep
- Exercise
- Stress management
1. Nutrition
If you can only focus on one factor of health, please make it your nutrition! It should not be so surprising that your body's fuel has a profound impact on every aspect of your life. Unfortunately, I know many people who pay more attention choosing the type of fuel they put into their cars, than the fuel they put into their mouths.
Personally, since 2010, I have been following a modified version of the Paleo diet and it has radically changed my day-to-day performance. If you are interested in learning how real food can positively affect your productivity, I recommend the Primal Blueprint as a great starting point. Please note, however, that diet and body chemistry vary by individual so what works for me may not work for you. I do recommend that people follow an unprocessed diet and only eat real food. There are many variants to choose from. Let google be thy guide.
Since softuary.net focuses on leadership and productivity and not health and nutrition, I will not get into the details of various natural diet and lifestyle options. Just be aware that nutrition has the single biggest impact on your day-to-day quality of life, decision-making skills, and overall level of sustained output. If you only feed yourself cigarettes and M&Ms then beware; eventually the principle of Garbage In, Garbage, Out will catch up with you.
2. Sleep
Sleep is the key to a great life. Good sleep is the differentiator between having a thriving life and simply getting through each day. I am consistently amazed at how people view sleep deprivation at work as a badge of honor when there are clear links 1 that show decreased productivity and decision-making skills when operating with little sleep. These negative results are comparable to intoxication. Would people view coming to work drunk as a similar badge of honor?
Sleep definitely deserves its own blog post so I won't go into the details. Just remember, if you try to skimp on your sleep, you're fooling yourself. You are not magically finding more time. In fact, you are degrading the quality and productivity you produce for the hours you are awake. Trust me, I know that when deadlines are tight it is hard to put the work away and get some much needed sleep. Your organization needs you at your best; you cannot give it to them if you don't sleep properly.
3. Exercise
Since most leaders produce value with their mind and not with their physical action (such as farm work or factory work), taking care of your mind should be a top priority. Good news is that studies show exercise has a positive effect on your cognitive performance.2
Physical exercise is the admission price for having the mental and physical energy to get through tough, extended hours day after day. Sure, you probably want to look fit, but looking good is a side-effect of health, not the other way around. For our discussion, energy production and mental acuity are more important than vanity.
You are not a professional athlete and you don't need to train like one. Following the 80/20 rule of fitness, we should perform as little exercise as we can get away with, and still achieve the level of energy production that we need.
There are two crucial ingredients to exercising for energy:
- Be active. Move as much as you can. No elevators. Use a standing desk instead of seated desk. Go for walks throughout the day. Move, move, move! I don't consider this exercise, but more like natural movement that our bodies are built for.
- High intensity work. Your week should have 1 - 3 high intensity workouts. These could be functional movements (squats, deadlifts, push ups, pull ups) or sprint intervals. There is no excuse for not squeezing in some high intensity work. 15 - 20 minutes a few times per week is not hard, but it does take willpower. No equipment or time for a gym membership? Go with bodyweight only movements.
Remember, exercise (and particularly high intensity exercise) triggers a stress response much like our day-to-day stressors.3 It increases cortisol levels, which, if continuously elevated over time can create health problems. Therefore, it is important to take care of your diet and sleep first and avoid daily chronic cardiovascular work (sustained heart rate at greater than 80%).
But what if you love cardiovascular workouts? If you are a devoted runner, biker, swimmer, or cross country skiier then great, go for it! But please get a heart rate monitor and keep your heart rate less than 80% of your maximum. And if time is an issue, use your workout hours to listen to audio books or simply let your subconscious mind work on whichever tricky problems are presenting themselves.
4. Stress
Finally, stress management. This is one area that I have very little expertise in. If I were to give advice it would be hypocritical (like taking marriage advice from a divorcé).
Like many leaders, I take responsibility for all activities in my organization and the inevitable problems that arise. Even when you remain calm, stress gradually piles up until physical and emotional symptoms start to manifest. I'm sure you've experienced some of the classic symptoms: shortness of breath, sharpness towards employees and family members, headaches, poor quality output and sloppy work.
There are many techniques available to help with stress management. Some I have tried and most I have not. As I mentioned previously, stress management is an area that I still need to grow in, so I will explore the effectiveness of various techniques in future blog posts.
So what about you? Do you agree with these four pillars for long term productivity? If no, what are your top four?
Take care and I'll talk to you next time.
Image Credit: Photo used under CC0 Public Domain
1: Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication, 2000, A Williamson and A. Feyer
2: Shorter term aerobic exercise improves brain, cognition, and cardiovascular fitness in aging, 2013, Chapman, Aslan, Spence, DeFina, Keebler, Didehbani, Lu
3: Acute hormonal responses to two different fatiguing heavy-resistance protocols in male athletes, 1993, K. Hakkinen , A. Pakarinen