January 2008 - The Psychology Lounge ™The Psychology Lounge ™

Productivity is such a mystery for most of us. In a previous article, I wrote at length and I admit, rather philosophically, about getting things done. In this article, I am going to do something a little different. Clients often ask me for specific tips to help them get moving and increase their productivity. We’ve all had the experience of being completely blocked, seemingly unable to get anything done, and struggling to get moving. Some of this is mood and energy based. When we are tired, sleep deprived, or blue, it’s hard to motivate to do anything, especially tasks that are not fun or interesting. But life demands that we function even under these circumstances, so here are 5 tips for how to get moving when you are blocked.

productivity

1. Priming the Getting Things Done Pump

The first secret of increasing your productivity is to prime your “getting things done” pump by getting something done, anything. Pick a small task that you’ve avoided or failed to do for a long time. It can be anything. It should take no more than 5 or 10 minutes to complete. The key here is that you are going to complete something, and it’s something you’ve been avoiding for a long time.

I picked a Microsoft Class Action legal settlement form that entitled me to $125 in rebates on computer products. I had sent it in a long time ago, but it had been rejected and returned on a technicality. I pulled it out, found an appropriate receipt to attach it to, and put it in an envelope, and mailed it. Time? About 8 minutes. Not only did I get something done, but I made $125 in 8 minutes, that’s $937 per hour!

The principle is to get something a small task done, which flexes your “getting things done” muscles. By picking something you’ve avoided for a while, you get an even bigger kick.

2. The Smallest Piece Technique

You can use a related technique even for huge and complicated tasks that we all tend to avoid starting, and thus never finish. If you have a huge task, break it down into component pieces. Then pick a very small piece, a piece that will take 5 to 10 minutes, and do it.

This breaks the ice and gets you moving on the big task. Often once you’ve done the first small piece you can then do more pieces. Often it is best to use a pump-priming strategy here. Pick the smallest piece there is, and get it done. For instance, if you want to do your taxes, you might simply set the task of pulling out your tax folders and putting them on your desk. That’s it, you are done. (But now you want to do more, don’t you!)

This also works well for getting started with exercise. Rather than saying to yourself, “I’m going to take a 1-hour walk”, and then doing nothing, decide to take a 5-minute walk. Once you are outside and walking, you probably will find yourself walking for more than 5 minutes. The key is to set the task of walking 5 minutes every day, and then you break down your resistance.

3. The Dice Man (or Woman) Technique

The next technique is a good one if you find yourself frozen with indecision. You have many important tasks to do, and you can’t decide which one to do first. You are like an octopus that is pulled in many different directions by each of its tentacles and hence is frozen in place completely. This can really harm your productivity.

In this case, use the Diceman strategy. The The Dice Man is the title of a comedic novel published in 1971 by George Cockcroft under the pen name Luke Rhinehart, in which a psychiatrist begins to make all his life decisions using a set of dice. (It’s a wild novel, and pretty interesting.)

To use this strategy, make a short list of the some of your main tasks. Number them 1-6 or 1-12. Then throw one or two dice, and do the one that the dice indicates. Or you can throw darts at the list, or even just toss a penny onto the list, and do the task the penny falls upon.

What this does it to short-circuit the part of your brain that is trying to prioritize many equally important tasks, and gets you moving and finishing a task. Often, once you do this, it is much easier to continue picking tasks and doing them. Sometimes the secret to productivity is just to do anything.

4. The Entertainment Strategy

What about those tasks that are just plain boring? For instance, like filing, or unloading or loading the dishwasher. The best way to do these tasks is to pair them with some other activity that is fun.

For loading or unloading the dishwasher, you could use a phone with a hands-free headset, and talk to someone you like while you take care of the dishes. The same technique is useful for straightening up the house. For filing, this is also a good technique. Another approach is to do the boring task while watching or listening to some entertainment. I find baseball and football games on television perfect for tasks like filing. Both have many slow points, which allows me to get a lot done without missing key points. Listening to a good show on the radio also works. I have a whole bunch of multitasking media consumption methods that help increase my productivity. Even the famous writer, Tim Ferris, uses this technique, putting the movies Casino Royale and Shawn of the Dead on repeat, muted, late at night, to provide an illusion of social contact while writing late at night.

5. When All Else Fails, Bribe Yourself!

Another way of increasing your productivity, and getting unpleasant boring tasks done is to pair them with specific rewards. For instance, let’s say you have a big task to do like doing your taxes. This is a task that takes a couple of days. Before you start, set yourself a specific reward once you have finished. It could be that you get to buy something for yourself. Or go do an activity that you like. The key is to make sure that the reward is big enough to motivate the task. Telling yourself you get to eat a piece of pie after spending two days doing taxes won’t work. It probably will take something bigger, and not pie! I call this strategy “paying yourself to get things done.”

So there you have it. Five quick ways to increase your productivity, explode your resistance and get something done! Good luck!

I have to go now and pay one bill.

Protecting Your Brain (and Your Heart) With Fish Oil

Fish oil to protect brain A fascinating idea is how to protect your brain using simple nutrients. Can we protect our brains from depression, Alzheimer’s, even stroke using simple nutrients or over the counter supplements? I’ve written about the continuing search for predictors of Alzheimers here, but what if a simple nutrient could help prevent it?

The Wall Street Journal just published an interesting article about using fish oil to treat or prevent a variety of illnesses. They even summarize the findings with recommended doses of fish oil. For instance, to prevent heart disease, they recommend one gram of EPA or more per day. For optimum brain health, take one-half gram of DHA or more. Even Rheumatoid arthritis may respond to 2 grams or more of fish oil.

Fish oil contains omega-3 fatty acids, of which there are two main ones; EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). Repeat after me if you want to really impress your physician: “eye-coh-sah-pent-ah-eh-no-ick acid” and “doh-coh-sah-hex-ah-eh-no-ick acid”. Now you see why articles always say EPA and DHA!

There is a very interesting tie in with DHA and Alzheimer’s disease, as explained by an article on medicinenet.com. It turns out that people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) tend to have low levels of a brain protein called LR11, and about 15% of those with AD have a gene mutation that reduces LR11. LR11 works to clear the brain of amyloid proteins, which are implicated in the production of beta-amyloid plaque that clogs the neurons of those with AD. Scientists tested DHA in rodents and in cultures of brain cells and found that DHA causes a higher production of LR11.

So should you be taking fish oil capsules, and how many, and which brand? I’d say if you eat oily fish like salmon 3 times a week or more, don’t worry about it. But for the rest of us (all of us?), it may make sense to add fish oil capsules to our vitamin regimen. A 1999 Italian study found that adding 3 capsules a day reduces the incidence of sudden cardiac death by 45%! The subjects in this study mostly also took baby aspirin, which may work to increase the effects of fish oil.

I’d certainly talk to your doctor about it. Be sure to print out the Wall Street Journal article, which demonstrates that there were few if any side effects. Some doctors think taking fish oil will make you bleed more easily, but studies of very high doses haven’t found this. In fact, the main side effect is belching fish smells, but I have found this is dependent on the brand and type of capsules you take.

Here’s a quick rundown on what to look for in fish oil capsules. First of all, they vary as to how much of the essential ingredients they contain. Most capsules contain 1 gram of oil, but much less Omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA. Some contain as little as 200mg. of the Omega-3’s, which means you have to eat a LOT of capsules to get much EPA or DHA. Often the bottles will mislead you by citing the amount per serving, and when you look more carefully you will see that one serving is 3 or 4 capsules!

So you want as high a concentration of EPA and DHA as possible. You also want fish oil that has been molecularly distilled to remove any possible contaminants such as pesticides, dioxin, etc.

Although I rarely make product recommendations, I heartily recommend Trader Joe’s Fish Oil capsules. Priced at $7.99 for a bottle of 100 capsules, these capsules are molecularly distilled and contain 300 mg. of EPA, and 200 mg. of DHA per capsule. That means that 2 capsules make up 1 gram of Omega-3’s. So it is easy to take 1 or 2 grams of Omega-3’s per day, at an affordable cost. These compare favorably with much more expensive brands of omega-3 capsules. Another trick is to store these in the refrigerator, so the oil doesn’t turn, and occasionally break open a capsule and smell it. Although it may have a slightly fishy smell, it should smell rancid or strong.

So there you have it, a simple way to reduce heart disease, autoimmune disease, and inflammation, and improve brain health. Cost? About $0.16 per day for 2 capsules.

As always, as I am not a physician, and certainly not your physician, talk to your doctor and do your own research before consuming more than a capsule a day of fish oil.

The Psychology Lounge ™

by Dr. Andrew Gottlieb (650) 324-2666

Monthly Archives: January 2008

Increase Your Productivity: 5 Easy Ways to Get Things Done Even When You are Stuck

Protecting Your Brain (and Your Heart) With Fish Oil