I want that treadmill! As it is I try to balance my laptop on the front panel of mine at home and it just doesn't work–try using the finger-pad mouse thing while propping the laptop up with one hand and trying to walk more than 3 mph. Granted, I've never tried actually typing; I only play Big Kahuna Reef–or try to. One thing I can do on the treadmill–and in the car–is listen to non-fiction audiobooks, which I think are great motivators. Even if you're not actually getting any work done you can learn a lot and get yourself psyched to work when you're done exercising.

While I hate identifying myself as a Christian blogger, I'll do it this once. I think part of the Christian Effect is what my family raised me with: The Strong Protestant Work Ethic. My grandfather taught me from a young age that manual labor is good for the soul – it may be tedious and frustrating but with perseverance, the task at hand is completed and you've had time to think about the things you normally wouldn't contemplate. That peace of mind and sense of accomplishment fuel optimism but also help prevent feelings of defeat in other areas of life.

The other part of the Christian Effect is community. As a Christian, you are called to be part of church body or community. This community is there to support you but it also teaches you how to participate in a team for the common good. This skill is something that is easily transferable to the work place.

Say, this blog is really aimed at the top end of the food chain. A company gym? A boss who will spend $3k on a treadmill? An actual office and not a cubicle?

Anyone who has all that is already living the dream.

Being productive is aligning your to-do list with the objectives for the week. List objectives and detail out how to get there. Turn your to-do list into a ta-da list (lame isn't it – and not even original). Sometimes we run out of ideas on how to accomplish things, or problems arise in which we have to take contingency. I love the thought of a pool table in the office, or a "rec" room. Chatting over a game of pool, or another activity clears the mind and takes you out of your pigeon hole. If you are concentrating on one single thing it is hard to be creative.

Of course, spending time together in any community that you enjoy being a part of makes you happier and productive. If you are a Christian, by all means go to church and enjoy it.

If you are not, there's no reason to drag yourself to church, though. (Well, no productivity reason.) Instead, volunteer somewhere. Join a running group. Anything that puts you in regular contact with people you actually like.

* * * * * * *
Yes, true. The act of being a regular part of a group has large, positive impact on one's life to the extent that it increases one's lifespan. But there is also something about faith. It does weird things — like increase one's optimism. There is even mainstream research about how people with cancer who have people praying for them actually have a higher success rate with treatments. So, community is good, but there's something about faith, too. Of course, you don't need church for faith…

Penelope

Use a trampoline instead of a treadmill. The jumping increases blood flow to the head and clears the mind. I have one in my cube I take no less than 4 "jump" breaks a day.

* * * * * * *
I am gearing up to buy a trampoline for the kids. But I ended up spending a little extra money to get one I could jump on too. Now I feel like that decision was sheer productivity genius :)

-Penelope

I think the church thing has a lot to do with the social element to productivity. I find that, while it might seem like having whole weeks where I'm alone in a quiet office (in my house) might seem ideal for getting all sorts of things done, after a day or so my productivity starts to wane.

Going out, talking to people, walking around and seeing what's going on, listening to someone you respect talk about something that matters — all these things inspire me to do more and better work. Without that community element, you're just out there alone, and it's much harder to find incentive.

I wanted to add, too, that there's a big difference between working and working WELL. Productivity should not be measured by the amount of time you spend doing something, but rather the quality of the end-result.

The idea of the immigrant coming to America with nothing more than the clothes they are wearing, working menial jobs to carve out their piece of the American dream, sending their kids to college to become respected members of the community is the story of America. I've seen that in my grandfather's generation and my father's, as well as in many new immigrants from all over the world.

But the idea that each generation doing the hard work to enable the next to grow and change is not unique to immigrants.

“I study war and politics in order that my children may study science and mathematics, in order that their children may study art and music.” – John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail.

There is a correlation between church and hours worked, however this doesn't mean there's a causal relationship.

This article states that girls that were raised going to church become "harder" workers later. Kids that go to church usually have involved parents. Involved parents keep close tabs on their kids' grades and performance in school. High performers in school typically get better jobs. Better jobs equal longer hours.

I'm a Christian blogger and regular reader. I'm also a positive person. I feel it's my nature, but that may be because of my faith.

One of my favorite Bible references is Philippians 4:8

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

One reason for good Christian (and perhaps other religous folks) work ethic is because Christians work to please and glorify God (not their bosses, etc).

Also, in the Bible (Ephesians), it talks about how employees should work hard for their employers as if they're working hard for God.

It could also be the optimism too.

About the treadmill thing, 37 signals has an article about working standing vs sitting.
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1001-standing-versus-sitting

Non-Christian, non-Jew, non-Muslim responding. I'm a successful, optimistic and happy atheist, with a great family and network of friends.

After a quick review, the cited study seems destined to arrive at its own hypothesis. I mean, over half the respondents were students attending a Methodist college, which leads one to imagine that many questions will have foregone conclusions. Amusingly, at the end of the study, the author admits the problems of the bias present in the sample group.

The link between productivity and church attendance is a curious one, for non-church people like me. I agree that it seems correlative, not causal. Gotta be something else.

Oh, and I love the idea of not wringing hands over a decision – Just Do It!

Thanks for interesting reading!

Uh, hold on before we start lumping all these religious "Ethics" together. Raised a Jew, I assure you there is no glory or character-building lesson from manual labor in that religion. We are taught that the sweat and the pain from working with our hands will not make us better people, but rather ensure that we get our law school applications in before the deadline.

I would argue that optimism often goes along with being gregarious and outgoing. There are plenty of hard working religious people who I don't consider optimists and are generally shy in a medium sized group setting. Its the talkative optimists that everyone notices in church group settings.

>>Lisa Cullen reports that girls who go to church work harder than other people.

It may have to do with optimism, but I think it has more to do with boundaries and perspective. Christians attend church because that is the day to honor God. Showing commitment in one area will transfer to others, and they are probably more likely to actually work while they are at their job rather than going on MySpace, YouTube, and flirting with coworkers.

From several of the foregoing comments, a reasonable piece of advice no. 5 would appear to be:

5. Emigrate.

It does wonders to focusing your attention, being creative in getting out of your cultural/ linguistic comfort zone, being able to work hard, being able to keep aside prejudices (which drain energy) and learning not to be affected by stereotyping and other implicit biases. The adjustment makes you separate the important stuff from the fluff both in your professional and your personal priorities.

And as a non-practising Hindu, I add one more thing which is not a religious point at all. Inspiration can strike people anywhere.

BhagwadGita, an enlightening book contained within the epic Mahabharata (the translation and interpretation most popular in the west is by Christopher Isherwood), has an interesting couplet.

Its first line says: Karmanyevaadhikaaraste ma phaleshu kadachan.

This means: in action alone lie your rights, your 'jurisdiction', not in the outcome. Ergo, focus on the right actions and the outcome shall take care of itself. No, it does not mean aimlessness.

Yes, that sounds like too much detachment from the point of view of more deterministic and individualistic cultures but it sure is a point to ponder.

Oh and Mahabharata is not a religious tome but a socio-cultural epic.

While running – outside – I realised that your post included an oblique reference to Jim Levine's work.

First of all Jim Levine is not "everybody". He is a highly respected – and very lean and although irrelevant, it must be said, British – Obesity researcher who promoted the idea of NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis) as a possible dent-making opportunity for tackling obesity.

Secondly, his idea is not "working while walking" but "walking while working". Their experiments were conducted amongst others on groups of school children to promote activity, in a bid to reduce sedentary behaviour. It will of course benefit many office-bound people to just get some movement into their day which will benefit their mood and might up their general productivity as you suggest. The workstation was designed in the bid to promote activity in the workplace.

Jim Levine works in Minnesota so not far from you, Penelope, so you can probably go and see the workstation in action. You will also notice that using such workstations requires a whole lot of office rewiring and remodelling. So the whole exercise is a bit like buying the best lenses cheap and then adding the cost of the frames, the polarised feature, photochromicity and finding it costs as much as a small house!

Thanks.

Hey Penelope, I try to do all those things, but it's making them a habit that's the hard part. I'm like you in that I'll create a list and not tackle it. My ADD sidetracks me and I'm off doing some project that's more of a time waster instead of something really productive.

I need to learn to stay focused on the task at hand then when it's complete cross it off then move to my next most important task. I'm working on making this a habit, but it's hard. I'm getting better and starting to see progress.

I think that I'll do a little exercise in between tasks like you suggest. Jumping jacks and push-ups usually help focus me.

Great post! It really made me look at my own situation.

The second point is a good one, unless you overdo it. One earlier comment said, "Just do it."

I knew a scientist back in the mid-Eighties at a research center where I worked. He had a "Just do it" sign over his desk.

Well, they put him in charge of a product development project, specifically qualifying a new source of clay raw material for the product. He didn't spend a lot of time checking out the supplier or reading the technical reports on the work the company had done a decade earlier on clay from the same area; he "just did it."

Because he didn't read the old reports, he didn't know about coccidioidomycosis, also known as valley fever. The soil in certain parts of the country has a genus of fungus (Coccidioides) that causes a disease with symptoms like those of tuberculosis. It is debilitating and often fatal. You don't want to sell that kind of soil to millions of customers, and you don't want to have that kind of stuff in your pilot plant and labs.

Mister "Just do it" cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. The clay he bought contained Coccidioides. Fortunately, none of the stuff got to consumers and no one at the company got infected, but the cleanup was expensive and many tons of product had to be disposed of.

The moral? "Think before you act."

I get my inspiration for my to do list by living in the Tropics. I can scratch off living on a beautiful island in the Caribbean.
Have a great day Penelope.

As a Director I expect my personnel to work hard all the time not just two good days a week. I would have to get rid of slackers like that. People in a position are paid to make decisions. If they can’t make it or are slow than they don't need to work for me. Exercise if a great way to wake up the mind and body. Just like breakfast. Both of which need to be accomplished before you enter the doors to a business. This is a competitive environment. If you can’t cut it bet your butt someone else will. You keep saying that the business will have to change, why? For the foreseeable future in 90% of the jobs out there the hiring manger will be a Boomer. Then when they are gone it will be the business minded hardworking Gen Xer who will take their place. Not a touchy feely Gen Y. They will never get into the position in the first place. There will be some companies that will change but you are talking few. The world is just too competitive not to have hard working competitive personnel.

Here's 2 alternatives to the $3K treadmill workstation: Net Runner (allows you to attach your laptop to your own treadmill – great if you work at home or want to work out while you email/watch a movie) $99.00. Also, the Trek Desk (currently in development – should be available later this year) is a work station that can be attached to your treadmill (they're also developing a Trek Desk with an exercise ball attachment so you can sit (and still exercise) when you get tired of walking. Cool stuff – I don't know how much the Trek Desks are going to sell for, but surely less than $3K!

Christianity: The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

100,000 Burmese – women, children, families – were just washed off the planet. I guess if you believe in a Christian God you can call that extreme productivity.

I don't advocate violence often, but come in my gym with that cell phone going, and you'll be pooping it for weeks.

Penelope, this is totally off topic, but after your speech at CCC today (I introduced myself to you right after), I just had to come find your blog, subscribe, and tell you again how much I enjoyed your refreshing point of view. I look forward to catching up on your past posts, and to all that the future holds! Thanks so much….Joan in Alaska

The number of individuals that self identify as practising Christians (myself included) in the comments above is interesting. I never associated Penny as a maven for the religious :)

To my point though, each religious poster has a similar take on why Christians are more productive at work – be it faith in decision-making, optimism, or simply not being distracted by YouTube, flirting, my space, etc. But here are other possible reasons, self esteem and adherence to duty.

At the heart of all major religions is the concept of respect for self (self esteem) as a child of God. Treat yourself with respect, and by implication, do whatever you do with diligence and pride because your actions are an extension of your physical self. If you do something, do it well as it represents you.

Second, in terms of adherence to duty, the saying, "…give onto Caesar that which is Caesar’s" and a myriad of other Judeo-Christian parables abound, about how servants, slaves, etc should be dutiful to a master or employer.
Basically, we make great sheep:(
In the past, the most pliable and easily ruled population has been a religious population. Religious employees simply work harder because they are less distracted, rebellious, and questioning. This fact while not entirely complimentary, also seems to be an overlooked variable in the religious/hard worker equation.

Just my two cents worth.

P.S. I refuse to be a Gerbil in my office, although exercise equipment does make for a more nontraditional storage space for clothes and books as my bedroom would attest:)

I love you Penelope Trunk! You are so sexy :)

Another optimistic and happy atheist here. As a long-time reader, I’m surprised Penelope is purporting supernatural and superstitious beliefs.

It’s no surprise to me, however, that there is a contention that religious people “work harder”. It suggests an ability to block out reality and keep plugging. Which is, in effect, what you have to do if you are a believer.

Now, if you were attempting to contend that religious individuals “work smarter”, or “make better decisions” or “have a better command of facts”, I think you’d have a much tougher case!

But that’s the nice thing about religions. To paraphrase XTC, us crazy humans can make God say whatever we want, including helping make us believe stuff about working harder and healing via prayer.

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/x/xtc/dear+god_20147941.html

You can’t save my soul – I’ve taken the http://www.blasphemychallenge.com .

My experience has been – without even consciously trying – that I have been dubbed the "sunshine of the office" by not only my boss, but coworkers as well. I tend to cringe when someone says this to me, as it makes me think of myself as like, Strawberry Shortcake, sprinkling flower petals and serving cupcakes to people while skipping from desk to desk