High Performance Habits Series: Align Your Workday with How Your Brain is Designed to Function

By: Alisse Houweling

To sustain high performance, we need to structure our workday in a way that aligns with how our brains are designed to function, especially for those regularly engaged in mentally demanding focused work. 

Despite what you might think, your brain’s ability to perform focused work is limited. This makes managing when and how you use your brain for focused work essential, as optimal focus only lasts for short periods each day. To maximize these periods and sustain high performance it is crucial to structure your workday to align with its natural rhythms.

Four Strategies to Maximize Cognitive Performance and Sustain High Performance:

1. Know Your Peak Focus Periods

Know your peak focus periods so you can structure your workday to align with how your brain is designed to function. 

Understand that not everyone has the same peak focus periods. While many people focus more effectively in the morning, this isn't universal. Some individuals focus better in the afternoon or evening. Factors like light exposure, meal timing, exercise routines, work schedules can influence these optimal periods.

If you're uncertain or want to confirm your peak focus periods, conduct a self-assessment. Monitor and score your concentration levels throughout the day in 30-minute segments on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = unfocused, 5 = highly focused). Note patterns over a few days to determine when you're most alert and when your energy dips. This helps pinpoint your high and low focus periods.

2. Match Peak Focus Periods with Tasks Requiring Peak Focus

   
   

Once you know your peak focus periods, complete your mentally challenging work during these windows. 

Activities which are mentally demanding use the brain’s prefrontal cortex intensively and require significant amounts of energy to operate. These include:

• Understanding

• Deciding

• Recalling

• Memorizing

  
  

Less mentally demanding activities are those which are routine or automatic and don't heavily engage the prefrontal cortex. These activities should be reserved for periods of lower energy and may include:

• Standard email communications

• Routine Organizing

  
  

If your work involves high levels of mentally demanding work, distribute them throughout the week. This strategy allows you to leverage your peak focus periods across multiple days, ensuring all important projects benefit from your best cognitive performance.

3. Avoid multitasking

Don’t multitask—it drains cognitive energy faster because the brain is designed to focus on one task at a time. Since it cannot handle tasks simultaneously, it must switch between them, which consumes more energy than focusing on a single task. It also leads to slower and/or less accurate work. 

To maximize efficiency, focus solely on one task—like writing a report—without engaging in any other activities like checking emails or social media. By allowing your brain to work as designed, you’ll complete tasks faster and more effectively and leave a reserve of energy for other projects.

4. Balance Your Focus Time with Recovery Time

To prevent exhaustion, it's essential to alternate periods of intense focus with deliberate recovery. This balance allows you to maintain higher levels of concentration throughout the day. By incorporating recovery time, you enhance performance sustainability, by reducing fatigue, which promotes productivity and accuracy.

Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman suggests that focused work sessions should last no more than 90 minutes, in line with the brain's natural ultradian rhythms, followed by a "deliberate decompression" break of 10 to 30 minutes.

A "deliberate decompression" break involves resting the brain with relaxing activities like stretching, hydrating, or taking a short walk. To allow for proper recovery, it’s important to avoid mentally demanding tasks, such as checking emails, during these breaks.

Start Small: Practical Steps for Individuals and Managers

Implementing these strategies may seem daunting, but the key is to begin. Start with small, manageable steps that can lead to noticeable improvements. These initial successes will motivate further adjustments, gradually aligning your workday with how your brain is designed to function. 

Here are some options to get started:

For Individuals:

• Observe your ability to focus throughout the day to identify peak focus periods.

• Schedule one mentally demanding task during your identified peak focus period this week.

• Experiment with a 90-minute focused work session followed by a 15-minute break.

  
  

For Managers:

• Create buffer time between meetings to allow for recovery through deliberate decompression.

• Implement "no-meeting" blocks to provide uninterrupted focus time for your team at times which correspond to their peak focus periods.

• Model optimal work practices by respecting focus periods and taking regular breaks

  
  

Remember, the goal is progress. Consistently refine your approach to design a workday that aligns with your brain's natural function, which supports sustained high performance.