Refresh Your Mind - And Excel at Work

03/07/07

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. It’s a cliché that people repeat, but few managers really seem to take the dictum to heart.

Those who do, however, know a secret the others may not: Playing, especially by engaging in a hobby you enjoy, can make you a lot more effective on the job. How? By relieving stress and refreshing your mind, of course. But also by making you smarter and wiser.

To get ahead at work, then, renew your interest in a longtime hobby or start a new one. Make sure it’s something so unlike what you do all day like dancing, painting, or woodworking, that it diverts your mind from work completely.

You’ll find that the benefits are twofold: First, while you busy yourself with something else you enjoy, your magical unconscious mind—free of your conscious attention—will busy itself solving your problems, providing insights, relaxing you, and offering a fresh perspective once you return to your main job in life. You work better and faster.

The other benefit is this: You gain knowledge in an area that could fertilize your thinking at work. For example, solving a problem in your hydroponic tomato shed at home might suddenly shed light on a problem at work. Or striving to understand how an electronic circuit conducts energy may help you solve a staffing problem in your department.

The best managers have wide ranging knowledge and a wide curiosity about life. If they want to learn about leadership, they are as apt to pick up a book on Lincoln or Churchill as they are a business book devoted to the subject. And they know that learning to reckon latitude by the stars or identifying birds or restoring old Packards has benefits far beyond the enjoyment yielded by the moment.