Falling in love is a thrilling feeling. Everything around you becomes more exhilarating and vivid and the stuff that used to drag you down suddenly doesn’t really bother you anymore.
Unfortunately, it’s also been scientifically proven that falling in love makes you less productive. Especially, this is about the study. Of course, you always can find some websites for help, but this won`t work every time.
In a study involving 43 individuals who had been in a new relationship for less than 6 months, participants were tasked with specific mental exercises such as being asked to separate irrelevant from relevant information. The results? Participants struggled to perform due to their very low concentrations levels. Dr. Henk Van Steenbergen of the Leiden University Institute of Psychology, who conducted the study, noted that in the early stages of a new romantic relationship, the ‘high levels of passionate love in individuals are associated with reduced cognitive control’.
So is there anything you can do to stay focused and productive when falling in love?
The answer is yes and here are some tips how.
1) Go Big Picture
If you’re caught up in the thrill of the moment, a good way to keep your focus is to take a good overhead look at things. Think about what your big picture goals are and connect the importance of completing the tasks at hand to achieving those goals.
Struggling to study for an exam? Think about how getting an “A??? will boost your grade point and help you get into the college you want to or land you the job you want when you graduate. Trying to knock out the latest post on your blog? Envision building a huge audience that will bring in a lot of revenue for your site? Don’t care about working out anymore? Imagine how you need so stay in shape to keep your edge on everyone else and live a healthy life.
By going big picture, you’re keeping your new relationship in perspective and maintaining your sense of self. You’ve still got a long life to live, a whether or not this new love works out in the long-run, it’s crucial for your productivity to have goals or dreams that are more important than your romantic relationships.
2) Stay Sharp With Constructive Self-Talk
Emotions are very powerful things, and if you’re not careful, they can quickly override your critical thinking skills and spin you off course. Disciplined, positive self-talk can keep you on the productive path, though. As with ‘going big picture’, by consistently reminding yourself that life is about learning and strengthening yourself, you’ll keep from obsessing over your new relationship and thinking that being with this new person is all you’ll ever need.
This form of self-talk is also highly effective at keeping you productive if the relationship doesn’t work out. It’s all-too-common for break-ups to send people into a funk which often leads to sluggishness, fatigue or even depression. So be mindful of what you’re saying to yourself, your sense of well-being and career will thank you for it.
3) Laugh It Off
When you’re head-over-hills in love, you tend to think so dramatically about the relationship that its significance dwarfs everything else – which invariably leads to your productivity dropping. Laughing at the relationship though knocks it’s importance down a notch or two and while you’ll still view it as something great, it won’t be as distracting.
Look at it like this, if you got a new car that you loved, would you spend all day thinking about it or running out to look at it?
Probably not.
And that’s how you want to view your new relationship. You’re glad to have it, you want to keep it, but it’s just another thing in your life and you not going to throw everything else out the window because of it.
4) Work In Compartments
If your trying to force yourself to work but those new feelings of being in love are just making it too hard to concentrate, you’ll only get more frustrated if you keep pushing it. The way to deal with this is to tell yourself you’re only going to work for a short amount of time (10 minutes, a half-hour…whatever is a relatively short time span) and then you’ll take a break. Doing this can help you focus on your task while getting you back in the swing of being productive again.
5) Put A Cap On Things
If you think you’ve got 10 hours to finish a project, there’s a good chance it won’t be completed for 10 hours. That’s because you adjust your focus to the amount of time you have and don’t push yourself to complete it sooner. Now factor in being distracted by an exciting new relationship and you could be looking at needing double the time or more to get what you need to done.
A great way to deal with this lapse in incentive to work is to give yourself a much shorter amount of time to work on the project; if you have 6 hours, tell yourself you only have 2. Setting a tight cap on how long you have to complete something will cause your psyche to adjust accordingly and you’ll be more focused and motivated to get things done.
6) Incentivize Yourself
Bribery has been around forever because it works. And when you pitter-pattering heart keeps getting in the way of your productivity, bribing yourself to get what you need to done is a great way to go. Whether the reward it playing around on Twitter for 15 minutes, taking a quick walk or an ice cream cone, as long as it’s something that inspires you to lock down on the task at hand the purpose will be served.
7) Get It Out Of Your System
Sometimes, no matter what you try, you can’t settle down enough to get things done. The feelings that come with falling in love can be like juggernauts stomping in your attempts to be productive and when that happens it’s time to just step back and do something completely different. Call her up. Shoot off a few texts. Or see if she wants to meet up for a drink. The break will allow you to recharge and it will satiate the part of your brain that keeps getting in the way.
Now get back to work.