Many know the pain of trying to have a productive day at work after a bad night’s sleep.
But there may be methods to help you procrastinate less and focus more.
Dr. Wladislaw Rivkin, associate professor of organizational behavior at Trinity College Dublin, says a lack of sleep affects your ability to exercise willpower.
This means you become more easily distracted and have trouble concentrating on the tasks at hand, he wrote The conversation.
But rethinking your to-do list, thinking more positively, and even watching a funny video can help you get the most out of your workday if you’re sleep-deprived.
Here are Dr. Rivkin’s four tips for focusing on work after a bad night’s sleep.
Many people know the pain of trying to have a productive day at work after a bad night’s sleep, but there may be ways to help you procrastinate less and focus more (file photo)
Be strategic about your to-do list
It can be a mammoth task to get through dozens of emails when you’ve barely slept all night.
That’s why Dr. Rivkin recommends crossing all tasks off your day’s to-do list who ‘need willpower’ the day after a bad night’s sleep.
Instead, activities that are simple and don’t require hard thinking or much thought are best.
But if you can’t do this, Dr. Rivkin suggests scheduling your more taxing tasks early in the day because you’ll likely have more energy then.
This was discovered by psychologist Dr. Roy Baumeister, whose 2002 review, published in the journal Self and Identity, looked at a person’s depletion of energy and self-control.
He wrote, “Few failures of self-control occur in the morning, when people have had a good night’s sleep.
“On the contrary, self-control seems to become weaker as the day progresses.”
Rethink your mindset
A lack of sleep can lead to less willpower to perform challenging tasks, such as always smiling at customers or concentrating on a task while there is noise in the background.
Some experts have suggested that exercising willpower to perform these tasks drains mental energy, making people less willing to use further willpower.
But research suggests you can think yourself out of this by thinking of willpower as a resource that can be easily replenished.
In 2016, researchers at the University of Zurich, who conducted a review of previous studies, found that when people struggle to achieve goals, it may be because they believe their resources are limited.
But if a person considers his own energy and willpower unlimited, he will feel less exhausted after exercising it.
The study’s authors wrote: ‘Clearly, humans need food to function properly, they get tired, and they need to spend some of their time sleeping.
“But if people think there’s such a limitation, say because they’ve been taught the power model of self-control, that belief itself limits their willpower.”
Dr. Rivkin said that according to his own research, published in the journal Human Resources in 2021, employees who think resources are limitless perform better at work on days when they haven’t slept well.
He said that while experts don’t yet fully understand the limits of willpower, “you might try to rethink how much exercising willpower depletes your mental energy.”
Change your situation if you can’t change yourself
Avoiding situations where you have to use willpower to get a job done can be the key to a successful workday if you’ve had a bad night’s sleep.
This may include limiting distractions to make it as easy as possible to complete the task.
Dr. Rivkin explains, “If you’re on a diet, it’s easier not to buy chocolate at the supermarket initially than to forego it every time you open the kitchen cupboard.”
He pointed to a review of more than 100 papers by researchers in the Netherlands in 2011, which found that those best at exercising willpower often avoid situations that require it.
And a 2014 experiment in which 38 college students were asked if they wanted to work in a room with more or fewer distractions found that those better at exercising willpower chose the room with fewer distractions.
Dr. Rivkin said, “Especially on days when you’ve had a bad night’s sleep, strategies that avoid the need to use willpower altogether can help you be more productive and complete your work tasks.”
Watch a funny movie
Do you instantly feel happier when you watch a video of a dog doing something funny?
Well, research suggests that watching a video during the day can actually boost engagement, organization and creativity at work, Dr. Rivkin said.
His own research, published in 2004, found that watching funny content can improve employee effectiveness as it brightens your mood and relieves mental strain.
Dr. Rivkin added, “On days when you haven’t slept well, it can be helpful to distract yourself by watching a funny video if you feel your mental energy is low.
“But be careful not to get addicted.”