Some days, you wake up on the right side of the bed.
A new study from researchers in Canada indicates that simply feeling sharp can snowball into a day of efficiency, reaping a tidy extra 40 minutes of productivity.
In the study, researchers tracked participants for 12 weeks. Their goal? To better understand an evergreen tenant of humanity: trouble following through with plans.
Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, on days when people felt mentally alert, they were not only more likely to make a list of tasks to accomplish but also to complete them.
The study participants were college students who completed daily tests that measured how quickly and accurately they could think. Questions included their sleep, goals and general workload.
On days when students woke up feeling sharp, they completed more of their to-do list. When they felt hazier, it became harder to finish routine tasks, putting the productivity “gap” between their best and worst days to around 80 minutes of work.
Thankfully, researchers emphasized that how mentally sharp you feel varies from day-to-day, meaning that you’ll have the opportunity to get more sleep than usual — which was associated with better performance earlier in the day.
By contrast, putting your nose to the grindstone only works sparingly. Your productivity can increase for a single day of extra hours, then levels off if it’s extended. This, researchers believe, lowers mental acuity and makes it harder to keep working.
For those looking to improve their mental sharpness, the study offered a couple tips: Get enough sleep and avoid burnout as best as you can.