Frequently Asked Questions About WrkfloW And Wellness-Driven Productivity

Your brain is working 27/4 to manage the systems of your body. This is a complex undertaking. It requires that your brain 1) keep track of the resources it has available, and 2) make educated guesses about what you need next. This process of tracking, predicting, and preparing is called allostasis, but you can think of it in terms of your brain managing a budget. If you are feeling stressed, anxious, frayed, burned-out, and/or having a hard time innovating, your budget is likely overdrawn and running in the red. The most metabolically expensive activities in your brain's budget are learning, innovating, and turning your ideas into value and impact. Your brain won’t invest the resources needed for these activities if you’re running in the red. That is why a tired brain is a biased brain. Biased by old ideas, old ways of doing things, and outdated information. In this workshop we give you a look inside the secret life of your brain and teach you how to leverage it's built-in features to unlock wellness-driven productivity. You will learn how to: ​Master your energy resources Use your feelings as a roadmap for action Rest productively Amp up your innovation This workshop ends with a Sound Bath.

Building systems into the workday that support wellness-driven productivity is key to unlocking your company's full potential. In this workshop we help you take stock, build a plan, and teach you neuroscience-backed tools and protocols to integrate wellness into the workday so you can boost productivity while protecting your health and wellbeing. You will leave this workshop with a clearer understanding of your goals and values and the common focus thieves that steal you away from reaching your full potential. You will map out an action plan that prioritizes and protects focused work, and develop a tailored WrkfloW system that supports science-driven culture change at your company.

In this workshop we introduce you to neuroscience-backed tools and protocols to help you break free from old, painful habits and replace them with new, nourishing habits that are in line with your goals and values. You will learn the Rebel Human CRAFT system for behavior modification: Conscious awareness, positive REBELLION, leveraging ALLOSTASIS, building in FRICTION, and TREATING yourself at the right time. Changing habits is not solely about self-control, will power, and discipline. It's about crafting a system that sets you up for success.

Rules of engagement: Make sure this page is running in its own stand-alone private browser window (Incognito in Chrome, Private in Safari, InPrivate in Edge). Close all applications that are a distraction. Silence all notifications. Put your phone away. Tell your team you are unavailable for the next 45 minutes. Focus on just One Thing for the length of the timer. Do not check your email, go onto social media, check your texts, pick up your phone, open Slack, or any of the other thousand things you do to interrupt yourself when things get hard. Press PLAY to begin!

WrkfloW is a 3-STEP 45-minute guided protocol for doing your best work while protecting your brain health. It is customized based on how you feel and how you want to think. Use it anytime you want to get through your work more efficiently. 1-BRAIN PREP. After you answer a few questions, Jenny will guide you through a tailored manipulation (breath, focus, movement, and self-talk) that will change your neurochemistry to get you prepared to do your best work. 2-WORK. A countdown timer will begin, this is when you do your work. 3-REST. When the timer ends, stop your work. Jenny will guide you through a few minutes of non-sleep deep rest. This practice is crucial for maintaining your mental health and ensuring you can be your most innovative, creative self. Because nobody is turned on when they're burned out.

Before you start, block out 45 minutes on your calendar. Close all applications that are a distraction. Silence all notifications. Put your phone away. Tell your team you are unavailable. Now move this URL to its own standalone Incognito or Private browser window: https://www.mywrkflow.com/get-turned-on Meet you there!

Pick One Thing to work on during STEP 2 of The Protocol. This can be writing a report, drafting a proposal, researching an idea, developing a strategic plan, debugging code, etc. Whatever it is, your goal is to do it without opening your email, popping onto social media, checking your texts, picking up your phone, opening Slack, or any of the other thousands of things you do to interrupt yourself when things get hard.

If you have made yourself unavailable and have gone Incognito, click GO to build your Protocol:

Yes! You can use this while practicing an instrument, learning a new language, making art, and even for tidying your office or home. And students can use WrkfloW to help them complete homework or study for a test.

Keep going! You can either pause the timer and press play when you are ready for your Guided Rest or scrub the slider back to give yourself another 30 minutes of work time. Either way DON'T SKIP THE REST. It might seem like a good idea in the moment, but you will pay the price for it later. Rest is a neurolobiological imperative!

The New York Times wrote about “strategic renewal” which includes workouts and longer vacations, but what we are doing here is technically called non-sleep deep rest. In the 1950s William Dement and Nathaniel Kleitman discovered that we sleep in cycles of roughly 90 minutes, moving from light to deep sleep and back through the cycle. This was coined the Basic-Rest Activity Cycle. It was later discovered that this same 90 minute cycle existed in our waking lives as well. These are ultradian rhythms mentioned above in the FAQ “Why can’t I work for more than 90 minutes?” During the day we move from alertness to fatigue every 90 minutes. If we push through using coffee and sugar, this leads to impatience, bad decision making, irritability, and the increase of cortisol levels. A study by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson showed that elite performers, including musicians, athletes, actors and chess players performed best when they practiced in uninterrupted 90 minute sessions.

Deep Work, a term coined by Cal Newport* in his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, has two key elements: First, it is work that is performed in a state of distraction-free concentration. Second, it is work that is cognitively demanding. If you check email every five minutes, that’s not deep work. If you are not being pushed cognitively, it is not deep work. Deep work runs counter to shallow work, which includes meetings, emails, texts, and all of those things you have to do, but that don't really "move the needle." Deep work creates new value, improves your skills, and creates output that is hard to replicate. Deep work is what differentiates you, and gives your work meaning. And by prioritizing depth in an increasingly shallow world, deep work is what gives you a competitive advantage. *Please note that Wrkflow is not affiliated with Cal Newport or his book Deep Work. His name is mentioned here to provide a citation for the term Deep Work.

It should be put away, out of sight, across the room, or in another room. If you look at your phone every time you have down time, you are out of cognitive shape and can use WrkfloW to build your focus and concentration muscles.

See The Science Behind for the full explanation. Breath: Learning to manipulate your breath allows for greater control over your physiological, mental, and emotional states. Because of a connection between respiration (the breath), the heart, and the brain, we can change how we think and feel by changing how we breathe. This is an example of what we refer to as embodied neuroscience. Focus: When we focus our eyes for a sustained amount of time (between 30 seconds and 3 minutes) on one point at the center of our field of vision, neurochemicals are released that keep us in a highly focused state. Different neurochemicals are released when we shift into panoramic or "landscape" vision. This lesson teaches how to increase energy and focus or conversely how to feel more calm and relaxed by using your eyes in different ways. Focus also refers to the “spotlight of our attention”. It’s important to know the difference between sensation and perception, and the difference between interoception and exteroception. Knowing these subtle ways to move our attention around are the building blocks to using the spotlight of your attention to feel less scattered, anxious, and stressed. Movement: When we increase our movement, our heart rate increases, increasing our energy levels. If we bring our heart rate up and keep it up for at least a few minutes, we release endorphins and adrenaline which brings us pleasurable feelings and boosts our mood. Certain movements can also lower your heart rate and help you feel calmer. Self-Talk: Feel more in control of your mindset and "code over" old ways of thinking. Update your operating system to have a different view of yourself and the world around you. Understand how your mindset has been crafted by family, friends, and broader culture. Understand how your mindset affects others. Understand the impact of thoughts and words on your mindset. Non-Sleep Deep Rest: Non-sleep deep rest is when we close our eyes, rest our bodies by reclining or resting our head on the desk, and removing as much noise possible. If you are not in a quiet location you can play nature sounds, or a singing bowls track. This kind of rest is a neurobiological imperative if we are to optimize brain function and performance. It also puts a deposit into our body budget.

At least once a day and up to 4 times a day. We recommend taking a short walk between WrkfloWs.

Ritual helps make a particular behavior a habit. Rituals also help minimize friction that could prohibit you sinking into your deep work. WrkfloW was created to be a large part of your ritual. The brain prep, the timer, and ending with non-sleep deep rest are all rituals that don’t just serve as ritual, but as neurological boosters.

If you finish your prescribed and intended work before your session before the timer goes off, you can either click on the chapter marker for non-sleep deep rest and take your rest, or take on another short task that you’ve been putting off. The countdown timer itself often has a race effect. You will feel super focused to finish the task before the timer goes off. You will notice you work more efficiently with that increased focus so it’s good to take advantage of that.

Yes! Students as young as 11 can use WrkfloW for practicing an instrument, learning a new skill, doing homework, or studying for a test.

WorkfloW™ helps you find your focus and flow by operationalizing the neuroscience of brain optimization. It is a tool that merges performance optimization and mental health maintenance so you don't have to choose between your mental health and productivity. We believe that the status quo of work life in America is not working. People are pushed to take on too much, respond immediately to notifications, emails, and texts. There are too many inefficient meetings. Wellness benefits go unused. Healthy habits are taught but not supported. WrkfloW helps change this by integrating wellness into the work day.

Master Brain! Go through each of the Master Brain videos. Start with the first, and do it every morning for a week. Then move onto the second video, and do that every morning for a week. Etc. These video practices are like going to the gym for your brain. If you are out of cognitive shape (look at your phone every time you have down time, don’t read books, don’t think deeply while taking walks, don’t do strategy games or board games) you’ll have to do some training or else true deep work will be extremely difficult. Deep work is focused, uninterrupted and pushes you beyond your level of competence, to the edges of your cognition. In the beginning, doing a WrkfloW session and keeping your attention on one thing may feel like it pushes you to the edge of your cognitive abilities no matter what the type of work happens to be. That’s ok. Just continuing to do WrkfloW sessions will help you build your focus muscle so that you can start to increase the difficulty of your work and tackle increasingly challenging goals. Add Rituals. Adding ritual makes it easier to slip into deep work.

WrfkloW uses the neuroscience of brain optimization to help you unlock the benefits of deep work using a 45-minute three-step protocol: 1) Brain Prep, 2) Countdown Timer for your deep work, and 3) Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR). Brain Prep is a 2-3 minute guided video practice that gets you prepared to do deep work. It is customized for you based on the type of deep work you will be doing, and how you currently feel (i.e., tired, worried, distracted, etc). Based on the 5-Dials (see The Science for a full explanation), Brain Prep guides you through manipulating your breath, focus, movement, and/or self-talk to get the right mix of neurochemicals flowing to best support your deep work. Following Brain Prep, a Countdown Timer begins. This is when you transition to your deep work–brainstorming a new idea, writing new code, designing new technology, fleshing out a novel idea, writing a chapter in your book, etc. The Countdown Timer runs for 30 minutes with a gentle alert (the sound of a crystal singing bowl). This lets you know that it is time to wrap-up your deep work for this session and transition back to your WrkfloW video for your guided Non-Sleep Deep Rest. Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) guides your brain and body through 5 minutes of deep rest. Rest is not a nice to have, it is a neurobiological imperative. It puts a deposit into your body budget and helps you stave off the negative effects of unmitigated stress while promoting positive neuroplasticity. Each time you engage in NSDR you are healing important circuitry in your brain–setting yourself up to operate in the world with more ease and proficiency. In short, WrkfloW is the operational ritual for deep work. It helps you take the steps necessary to do intentional, focused, uninterrupted, and novel work. The Brain Prep practice feels like a fun ritual and knowing it is getting your neurochemicals primed is rewarding in and of itself. The Countdown Timer gives you a sense of urgency that further enhances your focus. The NSDR is like a gift or a treat at the end. You will find it deeply pleasurable and it will inspire you to come back to WrfkloW time and again to continue enhancing not only your deep work, but your life and wellbeing.

WrkfloW creates the ritual and framework to achieve deep work. More deep work in your life will help you with the following: You will get more done with less friction. Rather than forcing productivity, you will get your best work done more easily because you won’t be swimming upstream. Your work will be more inspired and creative. You will feel like you have more focus and energy. Fatigue won’t feel like a regular block on your day. You’ll be giving yourself little bits of rest and following your ultradian rhythms, so you’ll never feel like you’re fighting exhaustion. You’ll also have a better chance at becoming an expert. Researchers have found that there isn’t a correlation between IQ and expertise. However, there is a connection between the amount and quality of practice and level of expertise. This is true across all fields. The robust research looked at surgery, acting, chess, writing, computer programming, ballet, music, aviation, firefighting, and many other areas of expertise. A key factor is deliberate, intentional practice. This is deep work. Deep work is focused, uninterrupted and pushes you beyond your level of competence, to the edges of your cognition.

Smart phone notifications have trained your brain to be an expert at getting distracted. Every notification now feels urgent. You feel like you must stop what you were doing and obey the notification. You don’t have to. WrkfloW is designed to help support you in taking the reins back on your attention. We want YOU to consciously decide what to pay attention to.

Changing behavior is really hard. If you’re here because you want to do things that make you feel less anxious and stressed, or you want to stop getting distracted so easily, behavior needs to change. Studies show that behavior change is easier if we build ritual around it. WrkfloW provides a framework and ritual into your work rhythms. The protocol includes brain enhancing practices that not only boost performance, but updates the operating system that is the brain, so it has new features (i.e., positive neuroplasticity) leading to better health and wellbeing.

Managers estimate the average employee at their workplace spends 2.5 hours each workday using their smartphones to access digital content that’s unrelated to their jobs (link). All that time on your phone looking at social media, watching YouTube, and doom scrolling is further exhausting your brain. It’s a withdrawal from your body budget. It’s making your more irritable, impatient, and short-sighted.

See the Daily Action Plan to help you structure your day so that you are set up for success. You will find lots of tips on morning and evening routines and rituals.

Your focus is a valuable resource. When you invest your focus dollars wisely, they pay dividends in the form of creativity, innovation, productivity, health, happiness, and a greater capacity for collaboration. But, when you spend your focus dollars foolishly, they cause damage in the form of stress, anxiety, burnout, frustration, anger, and costly mistakes. Your focus is also a limited resource. You have a finite amount of focus dollars you can spend in any given period. Once those focus dollars are gone, you need deposits before you can spend again. This is a neurobiological fact, and there is no way around it. How are you spending your valuable & limited focus dollars? Are you able to convert them into novel ideas that generate value and impact, or are you letting them slip away.

You can read here and here how fewer work hours leads to increased productivity. It’s been studied and proven effective. Happy, more productive people. Send those articles to your boss.

Many businesses give you access to meditation apps, gym memberships, or after work classes. Those are lovely offerings but they don’t get used. If you do use them, you may be a little resentful that you have stay at work longer to attend the class or workshop. You may even feel like you have to be there so your manager sees you’re using the benefits, which leads to further resentment. You may be too exhausted after work to do any of the things. The work culture is telling you that you need to work at a frenzied, inhumane pace, constantly interrupted by notifications and “emergency meetings” and then go take care of yourself on your own time. It is possible for companies to operate in a way that truly supports your wellbeing during the workday.

Productivity is a side effect of a healthy, happy you. When you are rested, exercised, walked, and fed, you are more joyful, generous, creative, clear, and collaborative. Productivity follows.

More AI, apps, wearables, and VR are just keeping you on screens outside of work when a good walk in the fresh air is a more effective response to burnout and malaise. Technology has created the problem so we need to take back control and just step away. Close the laptop. Turn off the phone. Open a book. Turn everything off so you can turn yourself on.

You don’t need to take it from us. You can believe the Stanford Management professor, Bob Sutton. Read this article on how strategic slowness will be the key to success in this new distracted world.

Being unavailable for blocks of time is necessary for your work performance and mental health. The 24/7 frictionless communication channels have forced you to make a concerted effort to create boundaries of time and space for your development personally and professionally. Unfortunately most companies won’t support you in creating blocks of time for you to focus without interruption. We hope that articles like this Forbes article will help raise awareness around this problem. When you are unavailable to meet, chat, talk, Zoom, Snap, and Slack, you can actually do your work.

You can copy and paste the following and send it around. This will help them understand why you are prioritizing time boxing, focused work, brain preparations, and rest. I have started prioritizing focused work so that I can train my brain to resist distractions. I’m using WrkfloW’s protocol to enhance my performance and brain health. In order to do this, I need 45 minutes chunks of time to be uninterrupted. I ask kindly that when you see “WrkfloW” on my calendar, that you not call or pop in. I will have all of my notifications off and my phone in airplane mode. This protocol also guides me through non-sleep deep rest in order to charge me back up so that I can perform optimally throughout the day without any slumps. Rest is a neurobiological imperative and it will keep me more focused, patient, energetic, and creative throughout the day. When I optimize my brain and mental health, my performance is optimized. The two are inextricably linked. Thank you for supporting me in doing my best work.

If we push through using coffee and sugar, this leads to impatience, bad decision making, irritability, and the increase of cortisol levels. A study by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson showed that elite performers, including musicians, athletes, actors and chess players performed best when they practiced in uninterrupted 90 minute sessions, then rested.

The techniques used in Headspace and Calm are often too difficult, are not focused on brain optimization, are seen as too "woo-woo" and/or "spiritual," are viewed as taking time away from work, and feel like just "one more thing" to do. There are many “guided meditations” that involve someone talking to the user which doesn’t require the user to learn how to manipulate their nervous system, giving them the tools to create a true state change. Recent studies have shown Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal to a greater extent then mindfulness-based techniques (Cell Reports 2023). The authors of a 2018 study of mindfulness meditation and motivation, published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision,write that, "After(mindfulness) meditating, people lacked motivation. They didn’t feel like doing work, nor did they want to spend much time on it. Being mindful made people focus less on the future and instilled a sense of calm – just as it promises – but that came at the cost of wanting to get things done… after meditating, people performed no better or worse than people who did not meditate, although mindfulness should have helped people perform better because it allowed them to focus on the task at hand" (link). Apps also keep you on your phone and as soon as you open your phone, ALL THE APPS are singing their siren song.

Pomodoro Timer, Forest, Structured, and Habit Tracker. Pomodoro and Forest provide a countdown timer to support time blocking. Structured-Daily Planner and Habit Tracker provide a goal tracker/checklist, reminders, and progress dashboard, along with a countdown timer. All those things are nice, but the countdown timer used in those productivity tools is not much of a step up from setting a timer on your phone. A countdown timer on its own does not help you prepare your brain for focused, deep work. If you are tired, anxious, filled with self-doubt, or feeling distracted, a countdown timer alone is not going to get you into the right brain state for focused, deep work. It can take 20 minutes just to get focused and ready to start working, trying to get into the flow, wasting valuable time. WrkfloW speeds up the time it takes to focus significantly through the Brain Prep, which gets the right cocktail of neurochemicals flowing so you dive in quickly, get your work done more efficiently, and ensure it’s your best, most creative work.

Focused, uninterrupted workis what adds value, improves skills, and creates output that is hard to replicate. Focused work is what "moves the needle" and gives work meaning. And in an increasingly shallow and distracted world, focused work is what gives you a competitive advantage. Deep work is a little more than just focused work. It is work that is cognitively challenging. This work REALLY moves the needle. You can read more about that in our FAQs.

WrkfloW builds in SWIFT (Short Wellness Interventions For Transformation) into your work. Wellness supports that rely on you finding time to do it after work is not fair or humane. The WrkfloW protocol to Get Turned On guides you through nervous system manipulations using breath, focus, self-talk, movement, and non-sleep deep rest to get you turned on during your focused work sessions. These neuroscience-backed manipulations shift neurochemicals are being released in your brain which transforms how you actually feel, your mindset, and ultimately updates your human operating system. The library of SWIFT supports are organized by emotion and situation to help you in a pinch. Every time you do a manipulation, you are creating new neural code, and retraining your nervous system. See the FAQs and The Science to learn more about the science behind the WrkfloW protocol.

Research by Dr. Gloria Mark's (read her new book) shows that we spend an average of 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention and it takes about 25 minutes to get back to the original task. Dr. Mark also finds that on average we are switching between apps 500 times a day. Your smartphone has rewired your brain to be an expert at getting distracted. Everybody’s attention has shrunk over the last ten years and looking at your phone in public settings, in meetings, at meals, with friends, while talking, and even while working out has become normalized. This is bad. Relationships with yourself and others suffer. Your ability to sit with your emotions and thoughts has been hijacked by the smartphone. Your ability to trust your own wisdom to make a decision has been stolen. Your ability to even have a complex idea or thought has been killed. This is Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron made real. However, instead of an alarm going off in your head every time you have a thought, you have a notification alert. Or you don’t even have an alert, just an urge to check your phone. There is very little room for novel ideas and innovative thinking in this new world as it is now.

Rest is a neurological imperative, not a nice-to-have. It’s necessary if you want to maintain your energy, creativity, innovative thinking, patience, have the ability to collaborate, and ultimately do your best work. Napping is great, but you can also get just a few minutes of Non-Sleep Deep Rest to put a deposit into your body budget. We built rest into WrkfloW so you get regular rests throughout the day. The CEO of Google uses NSDR so we are hoping the behavior will spread quickly. This is a game changer that the leadership team must embrace. See #29 for some copy you can send your manager! Click here if you just want help resting right now. Non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) is when you close your eyes, rest your body by reclining or resting your head on the desk, and removing as much noise as possible. If you are not in a quiet location you can play nature sounds, or a singing bowls track on headphones. (Note: Calm music activates the motor networks of the brain, so it prevents you from getting into a deeply restful state.) NSDR is an essential deposit you need to make regularly if you want to optimize your brain health and performance. We provide virtual sound baths for NSDR for companies regularly.

“Wellness Week,” brown–bag workshops on “managing stress” and the once a week yoga class are nice offerings but our research shows that very few people see long term benefits. You need SWIFT (Short Wellness Interventions For Transformation) built into your every day, multiple times a day to rewire the brain and update the human operating system. For work to be more humane and for innovation to thrive, wellness needs to be integrated into the work day. WrkfloW is here to make this the new normal.

Send this to your boss. Consider banning email and watch your productivity and sense of wellbeing increase.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Most everyone has great ideas. What sets people apart from the pack is being able to convert ideas into value. A key step in doing this is to take your ideas and turn them into a set of specific, prioritized, and executable tasks. You might be tempted to simply jump straight into a new project, but skipping the step of mapping out a plan with clear and executable tasks will quickly lead to overwhelm and missed opportunities. Included in the Daily Action Plan packet is an Idea Converter sheet. As ideas come to mind, simply jot them down on the left hand of the sheet. Don’t let new ideas side track you from your current work. Simply capture them. Then, set aside time each week to evaluate those ideas, decide which is worthy of your focus, and then do the work of defining the set of executable tasks that will turn that idea into value. Each task should be well-defined and take no more than 90 minutes to complete. Then, slot those tasks into your Focused Work time boxes and use the WrkfloW Protocol as needed to do the deep work of converting those ideas to value.

Anxiety and burnout are at an all time high and you are looking for ways to balance work and life, take care of your health and wellbeing, and perform at a high level. Pandemic recovery, the mental health crisis, the divisive political climate, inflation driven budget cuts, and the culture of distraction add to the challenge. The Great Resignation has highlighted to top companies the importance of investing in you, and there is a need to do more with less. Our research indicates that current corporate wellness programs are underutilized, mainly because employees either do not have the time to prioritize their health and wellness or do not make the time, and/or ineffective because they are not based on science-driven practices and protocols. WrkfloW is easily integrated into your workday and has a positive impact on your overall contributions while protecting your mental health and wellbeing. Additionally, because it sets the brain up for focused, deep work, this tool increases wellbeing without taking time away from work.

The human brain is not designed to multitask. Rapidly shifting attention from one task to another is cognitively inefficient, takes a toll on both productivity and performance quality, and leads to burnout, anxiety, and mental health problems. Research on multitasking estimates that the mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of your productive time (link). You probably grab your phone to check texts, email, and social media without even thinking about it. You probably get stuck in negative thoughts like frustration, resentment, and self-doubt. You probably don’t take the brain breaks necessary to optimize your performance and protect your mental health. You probably jump from one thing to the next, never fully engaging or moving the needle forward on your important work. Your work suffers. Your mental health suffers.

Feeling worried, self-Doubt, distracted, sad, and overwhelmed is okay. Emotions are really helpful signposts guiding you towards what you need to do to protect and care for yourself. We built a library of SWIFT supports that you can use when you need help. They are organized by situation and emotion.

Take an inventory of how you’re spending your time and find out what you can completely remove from your life. If it’s not connected to your values and it’s a withdrawal on your body budget, you should get rid of it. If you end up labeling every part of your work “not connected to my values” and a withdrawal, then we will help you reframe it. Or maybe it’s time for a different job! We can help you through this process using our Inventory.

Research shows that focused concentration is very difficult to maintain for longer than 90 minutes let alone 8 hours! Focus is a valuable and LIMITED resource that requires regular replenishments and deposits thoughout the day. We recommend not even attempting to focus for more than 90 minutes at a time. This is because our bodies follow ultradian rhythms, periods or cycles of alertness that last about 90 minutes. After 90 minutes, your body sends you signals that you need a break (loss of focus, feeling fidgety, hunger, drowsiness). Most of the time we ignore these signals and push through. But, this leads to an accumulation of stress and a breakdown in focus and creativity in the long-run.

One in five Americans (57.8 million in 2021) live with some type of mental illness, ranging from mild to moderate to severe anxiety and depression. Anxiety is the highest reported mental health disorder in the U.S. with 42.5 million Americans suffering from this illness. A study of U.S. knowledge workers and a mix of C-Suite, HR leaders and employees found that two-thirds of respondents have experienced work-induced mental health problems in the past two years 68% have taken time off work because of a mental health condition. 59% believe their mental health hindered career advancement. 68% worry that disclosing a mental health condition would harm their professional reputation. 58% feel mentally or emotionally unsafe in the workplace. When the status quo is making you sick and sad, you need to say “f#@k the status quo”. Anthony de Mello said, “Most people end up being conformists; they adapt to prison life. A few become reformers; they fight for better lighting, better ventilation. Hardly anyone becomes a rebel, a revolutionary who breaks down the prison walls. You can only be a revolutionary when you see the prison walls in the first place.” We are the founders of Rebel Human, a company that builds tools to push back against the status quo when it is hurting people. We like to say, “In a culture that demands acceleration, go slow. In a culture designed to distract, pay attention. In a culture intent on isolation, connect. When norms are cutting us off, numbing us out, and making us sick and sad, be a Rebel Human.”

Master Brain unlocks your ability to wield your focus and attention with precision. It will hone your brain and unlock your capacity to sit quietly, without stimuli, and choose where you place your focus. To do the type of work that moves the needle, you need the ability to sit quietly, with clarity, and access your own powers of discernment.

Biometric-focused solutions such as Muse and Sens.ai require expensive hardware and have the unintended consequence of keeping you tethered to and dependent upon your devices. This disconnects you from your own self-awareness and intrinsic motivation.

TIME BOXING (doing ONE THING for a specified amount of time) to protect your focus and priorities. You can go to the WrkfloW Daily Action Plan for help you plan time for this Time boxing helps you prioritize getting one task (or batch of tasks) done during these focused work time boxes. You can use the WrkfloW Protocol to get this work done more efficiently during your Focused Work time box.

Your brain is a valuable resource but the technologies of today are destroying it. Email, Slack, Teams, Zoom, social media, 24/7 connectivity, constant interruptions, and chronic urgency are breaking your brain. The mission of WrkfloW is to fundamentally transform the way that people work and therefore the way that people live. By leveraging important insights from the fields of neuroscience, organizational behavior, and social psychology, WrkfloW helps individuals, teams, and companies push back against the status quo and prioritize wellness-driven productivity. We built WrkfloW to retrain your brain to focus. We built WrkfloW to heal the interoceptive networks of the nervous system, which are foundational to mental health. We built WrkfloW so you can take care of your brain/mental health DURING the workday. We built WrkfloW because wellness is the true driver of productivity, innovation, and creativity.

A shut down ritual helps you clearly delineate the end of the work day so that you can be fully present for your life outside of work. Too many of us carry work with us 24/7 and this is neither healthy nor productive. Having a clear boundary that marks the end of the work day is especially important when you work from home. A shut down ritual can help. You can customize this ritual, but it is important that it becomes an algorithm—something you follow each and every day to indicate that work is done. Here are some ideas: Quickly jot down some wins for the day Make a quick list of your priorities for tomorrow Confirm that there are no emails that need to be taken care of before you leave Turn your phone to Do Not Disturb Close your computer Say your shut-down phrase* *Some people like to say a short phrase either out loud or to themselves to indicate that their work day has ended. In the book Deep Work, Cal Newport explains: “When you’re done, have a set phrase you say that indicates completion (to end my own ritual, I say, ‘Shutdown complete’). This final step sounds cheesy, but it provides a simple cue to your mind that it’s safe to release work-related thoughts for the rest of the day.”

Work-sanctioned napping was a flash in the pan because companies couldn’t successfully reimagine what work could look and feel like. They created nap rooms and bought nap desks, but didn’t embrace the act of napping as acceptable. The culture of work was still prioritizing the hustle and employees felt guilty taking advantage of the nap infrastructure. This could have been a big step forward in reimagining and rebuilding work culture but it failed. We hope that education on brain health and what it needs to operate optimally will help change work culture. See #04 to learn more about Non-Sleep Deep Rest.