How to Stop Wasting Time and Maximize Peak Performance
You wouldn’t intentionally choose a stupid way to work.
Everyone has a time of day when they are most efficient and effective – a peak performance time.
If you expect the best from others, you should know when they are at their best.
Adapt to maximize:
Adapt to individual peak performance times in order to maximize peak performance.
One person’s peak performance time is between 9:00 a.m. and noon. But your peak performance happens from 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.
- How are you protecting peak performance hours?
- How are you maximizing peak performance hours?
Acknowledge that people have peak performance hours.
Discuss how to minimize disruption to enhance peak performance time. The Yerkes-Dodson Law suggests that difficult or intellectual tasks require less stress.
Establish a rule. Everyone has the right to close their door and turn off their phone during a peak performance hour.
Give people control. You stress people when you control people. After discussing peak performance time, discuss how your team might maximize time and energy.
Tip: Don’t mess with top performers. Give them freedom. Poor performance requires intervention. Top performance earns freedom.
How are organizations hampering peak performance?
How might leaders acknowledge and honor peak performance times?
Bonus material:
How to be Healthier, Happier, and more Productive: It’s all in Timing (WSJ)
4 Ways to be more Productive, According to Experts (TIME)
I liked the Time Magazine’s suggestion to create buckets of responsibility for your tasks. I think I am going to put that into practice!
Thanks Lisa. Yes, that’s been a useful strategy for some of the leaders I work with. We get overwhelmed when we put everything in ONE BUCKET.
As the Yerkes-Dodson Law suggests I find that my own peak performance times will vary depending on the activity. If I am writing a research paper or a short story some of my best work comes out of late nights. If I am learning a new task or listening to a lecture I find I do better in the morning. After lunch…who knows? The point you make about allowing people that work for you the freedom to do what they must during their peak hours is really interesting. The fact that you are even entertaining a subject like this is a sign of progression in the field of leadership. Why wouldn’t a leader want to encourage his followers to recognize and harness those peak times? Leaders of the past might have said, “I want you to give 110% the whole 10 hours!” Honestly, though, that’s not realistic. Recognizing your workforce’s strengths and weaknesses includes recognizing such phenomena as peak performance times.