Research Proven Work: How To Maximize Your Potential

Oh, work… Some love it, some hate it. Part of us wake up on gloomy, wet, cold, overcast Monday mornings and can’t wait to rock. Others crawl out of bed and drag through the day. Still others aren’t formally preoccupied and chores and obligations fill their schedule.

Optimal Work? Undefined

Misery and grief or pleasure and comfort, which work causes matters. The age-old dilemma of how much, how long, how hard, and how to work has a distinct answer because we view work unequally. One who squeezes every ounce of energy out of their bodies for 12 hours per day could be happier than the 7-hour office worker. The former likely finds passion, purpose, enjoyment, and pleasure in their work; the latter corresponds in boredom, meaninglessness, misalignment, and sorrow.

There is no short, simple, science-based answer to when, where, why, who with, and how to perform your work. Not the length, type, location, or atmosphere for “optimal” work has been defined. How can it be when Jackson prefers metal in his ears while developing software, whilst Rob delights in restaurant chatter? Why assume Peter who pulls all-nighters to grow his side-project is worse or better than Marleen who works as little as possible?

No One-Size-Fits-All

The solution to work is personal, despite the reality of office cubicles or labor being so streamlined and impersonal. We’re all unique in our core values, beliefs, attitudes, plans, decisions, and actions, the elements of human psychology. Identically, we’re different in our wants and needs for social and physical work orbits. Jim loves staring at computer screens overflowing with stacks of code for 12 hours at a time. Alice loves rushing to and fro in a hospital to save people’s lives. Jim can’t imagine Alice’s medical labor. Alice can’t fathom Jim’s programming shenanigans. Both treasure their positions.

Individualities ought not to be ignored. As an employer, negligence of a person’s standout wants and needs can leave you with talent walking out the door. As an employee, ignorance will turn you into a less efficient and effective, less productive and creative, less capable and eager, less happy and motivated, and “less… and…” Overlooking unique quotas is a fatal blunder. Costly in the professional, psychological, and physical domains.

Master A Work-Life Balance!

What’s more, this is why the work-life balance is part crap. How is your work-life balance related to mine? How can you assume what aligns with my wants and needs automatically aligns with yours? Right, you cannot. Precisely for that reason any amount of hours or periods of work-rest stated on the internet as “optimal” or “science-based” err on the side of utter bullshit. Your optimal is your optimal. Your science-based work routine, periods of work and rest, is your science-based work routine—which you discover after trial and error.

Life ebbs and flows. Babies are born. Cars are crashed. Bones are shattered. Muscles are torn. Loved ones die. Hearts are broken. Technology is invented. Work demands change. Switch out “balance” for “harmony”. A work-life which allows you to harmoniously—in a complementary rather than competitive manner—integrate work and life demands, is the “balance” you’re seeking. Enough of work and life to where they grant opportunity to one another. Ample free time for idea generation, and work time for idea implementation.

All-Nighters On The Side

Extra pursuits are meant to be viewed in analogical respects. Side-gigs, side-hustles, underground art, part-time businesses… Name a thing folks stack on top of their day job and it qualifies as an extra project. These, so long as they compliment your wants and needs, are beneficial. All-nighters aren’t necessarily horrific if they’re spent on a passion project or startup idea your head is absolutely racing about.

Adhere to what propels your goals forward, and you needn’t go on a quest for a work-life equilibrium. When you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes your sacrifice. Opportunity cost isn’t a myth. Are you really in need of more rest to perform your best? Do you really need to work 6, 8, 10, 12 hours on the project, or would 4 suffice? More leisure or work is just that—more leisure or work—and neither rest nor productivity is part of the deal.

Everything Is A Sacrifice

Sacrificing. That is what you’re doing during work or rest. You sacrifice point A for B. You pay in time, money, and energy to plop down on the sofa and binge TV show seasons. You pay in time, money, and energy to sit down at the desk and work incredulous shifts. Is one necessarily superior? No. It circles back to you, your psychological, physical, and professional demands. Skewed needs readily remold the meaning of “balance”.

Therefore, work performance tips and hacks are alphabetical soup of no meaning whatsoever. Noise. Pop culture gizmos pouring information into your fast-paced, always-on, stressed out head. No timer has been “shown” to “maximize” your “focus”. No length of workday has been “revealed” to “boost” your “productivity”. No rest activity has been “unveiled” to “recharge” those batteries “faster”. Tell me, how can even the maddest scientists measure one’s focus or productivity? Spoiler: as of today, they cannot.

Make Your Body Work.

What genuinely works is what has worked for millions of years. Meaning, staying coherent to your evolution as an animal. Maximizing not unquantifiable metrics, such as “productivity” or “creativity”, but your brain and body. Working in a way which diminishes human performance is counterproductive. The usual stuff: not sleeping enough; malnourishment from ultra-processed garbage; smoking and drinking; not moving around adequately; anti-social behavior and/or isolation; irregular days without sleep-wake and work-rest routines; psychological detachment or misalignment with work.

Doesn’t take a genius to recognize that a brain, body, and mind which functions correctly is at the same time one which performs in work-related activities. The kicker? There’s no other principle. A 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 hour shift can be identical in the person’s well-being and the amount of work they do. A healthcare, software, office, artistic, entrepreneurial, freelance, or corporate job can be identical in the fulfillment it provides.

Substance Of Work (quality) > Work Time (quantity)

Put differently, work is not a lever stronger than one’s holistic well-being. Don’t mix time at work or time at leisure with benefits or downsides. The time is meaningless until the substance is accounted for. Passionate work feels like leisure. Meaningless leisure drags on like work. Unfulfilling jobs are chores. Purposeful free time is a blessing. Quality over quantity.

In the end, it boils down to your wants, needs, and views of work. Love it? Can’t wait to work day in and day out? Wonderful, you’ll err on the enthusiastic side. Hate it? Can’t wait to get home at the end of the day? Okay, you’ll incline toward the dispassionate. To maximize your work capacity, maximize your human, bodily capacity—there is no alternative.