Productivity is a tricky animal. All businesses are ideally designed to maximize workplace success by achieving the highest amount of profit in the shortest amount of time. This essentially means optimizing job performance. How is this achieved? Many people have the tendency to go, go, go. When this is the case, employees end up running themselves into the ground, which reduces the quality of their work. Establishing a balance in workplace flow is the key to workplace success.
TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) is a non-profit organization that promotes the newest and most innovative ideas in almost all areas of study and profession. Check out three incredible TedTalks that we think can profoundly change the ways in which you understand and improve on productivity in the New Year:
Pico Iyer: The Art Of Stillness
Writer Pico Lyer unfolds the art of taking a moment of silence out of a busy schedule to sit with oneself in order to find stillness and quiet. He illustrates how just a simple five minutes of stillness can leave the mind feeling refreshed, energized, and ready to tackle what needs to be done.
Shawn Achor: The Happy Secret To Better Work
Psychologist Shawn Achor discusses positive psychology’s link to increasing productivity. He explains that if the lens of an individual’s personal reality is shaped in a positive way, the individual will be happier and more motivated, which will cause a marked increase in their ability to be productive.
Dan Ariely: What Makes Us Feel Good About Our Work?
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely breaks down the concepts of motivation, incentives, and what really drives people to work harder.
These three TED talks have the power to change current perceptions about what makes people more productive by creating a reflective, insightful examination into the human mind. Mastery and knowledge about how the brain functions best will enable more creative ideas, better efficiency, and higher quality performance. A healthy mind is an invaluable tool.
