The single best way to increase your productivity.

It requires more effort and elbow grease to get a job done when using a dull knife, scissors, or saw. We recognize facts like that and, if we’re smart, we’ll stop and do a little a sharpening. People work a lot like this as well. When we’re rested and recharged, we get more done. It is such a simple concept and yet many of us push on with our work as though our attention and energy will remain as sharp as it was the first day back from a restful vacation. What are we thinking?

We Americans are no slackers, however, so the notion of stopping to smell the roses – and not pruning them in the process – is, well, a bit akin to anarchy. We have sayings like, ‘work hard and play hard’ or ‘working vacation’, as though our playtime has to be difficult or contain an element of work or we can’t enjoy it. There are lots of articles out there on why this is a bad thing and I won’t reiterate them here because you also know it is a bad thing. The problem is, you probably just can’t stop yourself.

Years ago, I lived in Switzerland. The country shut down for one month in summer. Literally; one entire month. In addition to businesses closing, many shops also closed. You had to be patient or clever to be able to buy something you wanted if you remained in the country during that summer month. But it didn’t matter for the majority of Swiss because they were off somewhere delightful like Spain lying on a beach. When they returned, they were rested, pleasant, and ready to go to work. How did they do it? They had sharpened their most important tool – self.