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Even if you desperately wanted to, you could not work well beyond a reasonable limit of hours. When it is too strenuous, your body and mind are bound to let you know and mete out punishment for abusing their optimal performance. At work, you are likely to see a decline in productivity, lack of focus and depleted efficiency, quite the opposite of what most people strive to achieve. So, if improvement is not attainable by piling more resources, time, people, money, it is by organizational adjustments. What you have at hand is often enough to bring about such benefits, the only task is learning to make the most of your present asset.
We do not realize the existence of some of these assets. For example, sleeping is a grossly underestimated activity, despite the fact that a good sound night is a guarantee of replenished energy, renewed focus and mental composure. Relatively small cuts in the amount and quality of your sleep, especially if compounded over time, can contribute to massively deregulating the entire organism and undermining the strength of the cognitive apparatus. Sleep deprivation can be held responsible for a drastic collapse of productivity, efficiency and creativity at workplace, no matter how many tired hours are added up in compensation.
Simple tricks can do a great job too. If you are snowed under work, as many are nowadays, there is no better way to let you mind rest a bit than putting obligations on paper. Not only does it do the job of organizing your future workflow nicely, reducing its complexity, but it also induces some comfort for the mind, transferring responsibility on to the to-do list. Having this visual tool at your disposal, it is easier be a manager of your own responsibilities and a controller of their execution.
In most leadership training sessions, instructors make a point of refreshing participants' awareness of the fact that most people are programmed to deal with the most difficult and the most important things first. Some try to fight it, doing themselves a great disservice. When you delay easier tasks or some kind of gratification, your focus and determination to get more demanding things done grows. Just look at what people do at dinner. They first eat soup and the main course and only then proceed to take delight in dessert. The same order should apply in the workplace.
Our frame of mind is a fickle creature and, for better or for worse, it can have a strong influence on the quality and amount of people's output. That is why it is wrong to give it a free hand in generating mood for you. You cannot always restrain yourself, but monitoring and reacting to what is happening to you emotionally really merits your attention. Do not deny that you need a break or a weekend getaway. Put down your working tools, a laptop, a smartphone, a graphics tablet, and take some time off or change the pace for a day or two. When you come back, you will be much more productive.
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