Know your attention span and work more productively

Leader Question: How long can you concentrate on your work at a stretch?

"But my day only has 24 hours!!!"⏰ #true but watch what you do in those hours. You might already guess, it's all about productivity ;) The #1 topic for many leaders and teams. That's why we'll start with the hard facts today, we don't want to waste any time! One of the most important factors influencing productivity is our attention span. 💪

Did you know that kids can only focus for a short period of time? About 10 minutes! Later on, it's 20 minutes and it's not until they're 12 years old that it's 30 minutes. That's pretty low if we take a closer look at a jam-packed schedule - you remember our last newsletter? We as adults can concentrate for about 90 minutes at a time. That's the time we can purposefully pursue an activity and tune out our surroundings.

How long can we work productively? 8 - 12 hours a day is allowed by law, but experts do not think it is reasonable. The question is above all, can a person be productive for that long at all and achieve error-free results? Industrial psychologists from Sweden, neuroscientists from Austria and Australian researchers, among other experts, consider much shorter working hours to be more productive. According to them, the time span in which a person's concentration can remain consistent is between 4 and 6 hours. Every hour beyond that reduces cognitive abilities and thus the quality of work. This is true even if we were to take several breaks during overtime.

We are not machines and after several concentrated hours our brain gets tired - humanly! Our working memory is theoretically able to store loads of information over a longer period of time and to keep it ready on demand, but at some point our HUMAN brain can no longer absorb any more information. As a protective mechanism our head reacts and starts to sift out information by either disposing of it, forgetting it or simply not processing it anymore. #Error

So what are the best working hours? Several studies around the world have addressed the issue of productive concentration. The unsurprising result: less work leads to more satisfaction. Amazon, Toyota and other companies, for example, saw an increase in profits when working hours were reduced. So in the long run, people work more productively when hours are between four and six. It's one way to enable a better life-work balance. More family time, leisure time, sports and other activities lead to healthier and more motivated employees. Sick leave is reduced = good for the company. So the initial extra costs of creating new positions are quickly balanced out. #yes 📣

In Short: Hardly anyone can concentrate for 8 hours a day. And if we're being completely honest, we know this about ourselves too! The attention span of an adult is about 90 minutes. In an absolute world is not interrupted in this time, questions asked, emails checked or customer calls squeezed in! Work concentrated and keep your team's back! The ideal concentration time, which yields the best fruits of work performance, is then between four and six hours in total. During this time, the most important tasks should be laid. Let's do this!