Taking More Downtime Improves Productivity

Americans take less vacation time than anyone else in the Western world. In the United States, we like to say that an overworked person “works like a dog.” In Europe, they say an overworked person “works like an American.” It’s even worse in Japan. They have a word there, karoshi, that means “death from overwork.” In the U.S., we have suicide hotlines. Japan has karoshi hotlines and even protesters in the streets demanding “No more karoshi!”

The American middle class is somewhat more prosperous than many of its European counterparts, so we do get something for our efforts, but that doesn’t mean we’re doing everything right, even if you think the tradeoff is worth it.

Ohio University found that the most productive 10 percent of employees don’t work a full eight-hour work day. On average, they take 15-20-minute breaks every 52 minutes. And it found that nurses who work six hours a day are 64 percent more productive (and 20 percent happier) than nurses who work eight hours a day.

This shouldn’t really be all that surprising. We all know from our own experience that we’re less productive when we’re tired.

Our minds and bodies need to recharge. If you’re almost out of juice but keep working anyway, your energy, motivation, engagement, and creativity will crash. They might not crash to zero—you’ll still be able to sit in front of your laptop and produce something—but you won’t be able to produce very much, and what you do manage to knock out may take you twice as long and only be half as good.

Individually, we know this, but our culture steadfastly refuses to recognize it. The American work ethic is a wonderful thing, and it’s critical to our prosperity, but it leaves us with this blind spot. Overwork is something we don’t talk about much except at home and among our friends. It’s hardly ever mentioned in the workplace. Most businesses are obsessed with productivity, as they should be, and yet they fail to take this obvious and empirically proven fact into account, that additional rest time boosts productivity.

There are things every one of us can do about this even if we can’t reduce our work hours, starting with recognizing the difference between productive downtime and wasted downtime. Eating bon bons on the couch while watching Dr. Phil reruns is wasted downtime. It allows you to rest, but it doesn’t recharge you. You’re also wasting downtime if you beat up on yourself for not working. Remind yourself that you will get more done if you take some quality time off.

But you can’t take a single weekend and call it good for the rest of the year or even the rest of the month. You have to build it into your life in order for it to work properly. Start here:

1. Wake up early but don’t start work early. Spend that time existing in a quiet state by yourself. Make a cup of coffee and sit on the patio, or go for a walk in the park or just around the neighborhood. Don’t read the news on your phone, and for goodness’ sake don’t check your work email. Nobody expects you to be productive during this time; nobody who doesn’t live with you even knows you’re awake.
2. Spend your lunch hour the same way—which means not at your desk, even if you stop working while eating. Eat in a restaurant, in a park, or at home if you can. Even the break room is better than at your desk.
3. Spend entire days doing nothing at all when you can. Most exhausted people find they can spend all day at the beach watching the waves without getting bored if they can just give themselves permission to do so without guilt-tripping themselves. An entire day lounging in a hammock with a compelling novel is like charging your cell phone all night.