The relentless push for productivity misconstrues how our brains work

Is there anything more tedious than the endless drive to make every waking moment more productive? “If I can save ten seconds on a process that happens ten times per day, that’s a minute and 40 seconds saved per day,” a productivity guru recently advised in Time magazine, to take just one example. “Over the course of a year, that’s ten hours saved.”

If that sounds exhausting, the good news is that there are many reasons to avoid putting ourselves under this kind of relentless pressure – not least the latest neuroscience on how the brain regulates focus, as we explore in “How to shift the brain’s inner gearstick to optimise the way you think”.

It has to do with a tiny bundle of blue-tinged neurons in the brainstem called the locus coeruleus. According to new research, this structure acts like a gear lever that sets the pace of our brain’s processing. In Gear 1, the mind can wander freely; in Gear 2, we are highly engaged and attentive; and in Gear 3, we are hyperalert and quick to respond to a crisis.

What various experiments have now shown is that moderate locus coeruleus activity – Gear 2 – is the optimum state for many types of cognitive activity. It increases our concentration, while also allowing for the kind of thinking necessary for problem-solving. Gear 3 may be useful when we are facing an emergency, but it reduces our capacity to think analytically or creatively.

Crucially, it turns out that the locus coeruleus can easily be tipped into Gear 3 whenever we are under pressure. If we are constantly pushing ourselves to achieve more and more in a limited amount of time, we may find ourselves stuck in this overwhelming and exhausting brain state, which will only reduce the quality of our output in the long term.

With that in mind, it may, in fact, be foolish to insist on driving the engine of thought at ever greater speeds all the time. What is too often overlooked is the need to give your brain plenty of opportunity to return to a lower gear. For high-quality thinking, contrary to much of the productivity advice, downtime may be just as productive as uptime.