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Boost your productivity - book your next holiday!

Having launched our business in 2016, I wasn’t entirely sure how taking time off over Christmas was going to work out. However, reflecting on the numerous times I’ve spoken with business owners about the importance of taking time away from the business was all the justification I needed.  

Taking 3 weeks off and going to the other side of the world has provided a great opportunity to have new experiences, read new articles, and stimulate new thinking.

Dan Sullivan, co-founder of multi-million dollar, Toronto-based, Strategic Coach is a firm believer in the importance of taking time off.  He says "Entrepreneurs get paid through problem-solving and creativity. You can create a solution in a shorter period of time if you are rested and rejuvenated." It’s obvious when you think about it. It is very hard to be creative when you’re working every hour of the day, feeling as if you’re chasing your tail from morning til night.

Whilst away, I came across the "Zeigarnik Effect" which is the difficulty people have to completely forget about something when it is left incomplete. Ring true? It certainly does for me and helps to explain why I often wake up with a solution to something that was incomplete before I went to sleep. Similarly, I have found that being away for this long break over Christmas and New Year has enabled me to find (and plan) ways to complete previously incomplete actions.

Jennifer Deal is a senior research scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership and an affiliated research scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California. I read an article of hers whilst away which includes the following extract from New York Times essayist Tim Kreider which really hit home:

"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration - it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done."

Here are three things I learned whilst taking three weeks off recently:

1.     Making time to simply be allows better engagement of all three brains. Having become an mBIT coach a couple of years ago, I have blogged already on the subject of engaging your gut, heart and head brains when making decisions. There is no shortage of articles out there evidencing how taking a walk (or meditating) when you’re trying to make a decision enables greater clarity which results in better decisions. I believe this is a very simple illustration of how our inner wisdom works when we don’t get in the way and taking time off often enables this space to be created.

2.     Experiencing new things, in new places, with new people or simply in a new way drives innovation. This is obvious, although often overlooked when caught up in the day to day. Being fortunate to spend time on the other side of the world in a very different climate has allowed me to reflect on how I want to work, on how other businesses work, and to explore different solutions to those issues that our clients often bring to us for support.

3.     Saying ‘yes and’ rather than ‘no but’ really does stimulate positivity and drive motivation. Trying this with even the simplest of communications (for example in a holiday conversation about determining what route to take) enables all manner of learning from seemingly ‘chance’ situations. Try this when someone you work with says something you don’t agree with if you would typically respond with ‘no but’. Practising saying ‘yes and’ stimulates a more creative result, even when you may not agree with what’s been said…

There’s also great benefit to be achieved by disconnecting from our "always on" world, which is something that many of us try to do when on holiday. If this resonates, you may like this TEDx talk by Leslie Perlow

http://www.ted.com/watch/ted-institute/ted-bcg/leslie-perlow-thriving-in-an-overconnected-world

To find out more about how South West Growth Service supports businesses to maximise their productivity, please email us at [email protected] or contact me direct.