Want to be more productive? Get the Happiness Advantage

By | October 21, 2013
New Dentist Reception

Happiness is hanging out with colleagues

At the Build Network blog, Jeffrey Goldsmith writes about happiness expert and former Harvard researcher Shawn Achor. In the research projects, Achor primes some subjects to be happy (by giving them candy.) The takeaway is that happy people outperform others:

“I can give you an SAT test, a Sudoku puzzle, a crossword puzzle – any of 15 different tasks all requiring intelligence – and prime you to be in a happy group, a neutral group or an unhappy group,” says Achor, citing a study of 65,000 businesspeople. “The happy group will outperform the others every time.”

How can you apply this approach yourself? During one tax season, Achor managed to improve both the happiness and productivity of tax managers at the accounting firm KPMG simply by asking them to do one of these tasks during the workday:

  • Jot down three things you are grateful for
  • Write a positive message to someone in your social support network
  • Meditate at your desk for two minutes
  • Exercise for 10 minutes
  • Take two minutes to write down in a journal the most meaningful experiences of the past 24 hours

How about you — is there anything in your daily routine that contributes positively to your workday? Leave your suggestions in the comments.

One thought on “Want to be more productive? Get the Happiness Advantage

  1. Od. Luis Marcano

    It´s very interesting the relationship between hapiness and productivity

    That evidence shows that emotions are important for our jobs as Dentists, and we´d better take care of them, for the sake of ours and our patients´

    I found pretty interesting the first exercise: Jot down three things we are grateful for

    Thanks for sharing these tips!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *