The eight-hour workday was created during the industrial revolution in an effort to cut down on the number of hours of manual labor that workers were forced to endure on the factory floor.
In the process of measuring people’s activity, they stumbled upon a fascinating finding: The length of the workday didn’t matter much; what mattered was how people structured their day.
Instead of working for an hour or more, and then trying to battle through distractions and fatigue when your productivity begins to dip, take this as a sign that it’s time for a break.
The eight-hour workday can work for you if you break your time into strategic intervals.
We naturally plan what we need to accomplish by the end of the day, the week,or the month, but we’re far more effective when we focus on what we can accomplish right now.
The interval strategy only works because we use our peak energy levels to reach an extremely high level of focus for a relatively short amount of time.
Breaking your day down into chunks of work and rest that match your natural energy levels feels good, makes your workday go faster, and boosts your productivity.
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