It’s 8:25 am and you’re entering the lobby of your first appointment of the day. Full of confidence, your sense of achievement is sky-high because you made three customer calls on your drive to your prospect’s site – scheduling two appointments and putting out one fire. You leave your first meeting with a list of action items and a certainty of winning their business. It’s 10:15 now, and you move through the rest of the morning with one more appointment before lunch. Another positive impression and proposal request. Your energy level has peaked as you’re heading to lunch, and then it hits …
As energetic and enthusiastic as your morning was, your afternoon starts with drowsiness. No matter how healthy and small of a lunch you choose, you feel the afternoon blues approaching. After lunch, you run to Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts for your afternoon pick-me-up … which just doesn’t do it for you anymore, but you’re hooked. You push through until about 5:00 when your second wind catches you and enables you to finish the day. However, that post-lunch appointment was snoozed to death by your uninspiring presentation.
Sound familiar?
What if you could attack your afternoons with 90% of the energy and clarity you have at 7:45 am? How much more productive would you be? How much more successful would you be? How much more money would you make? Think about it – you probably have about three hours every day in which your productivity is sluggish, at best. That’s about sixty hours per month - at least an extra work week every single month.
How?
Before revealing the answer, allow me to explain how your brain works in relation to fatigue and energy. When your experience fatigue, receptors in your brain fill with a chemical called adenosine, which gives you the drowsy, post-lunch feeling.
When you consume coffee or any caffeinated drink in the morning, the caffeine fills the same receptors and gives you energy. As the day progresses and you use mental energy, the receptors empty the caffeine and fill with adenosine. When you drink coffee in the early afternoon, the caffeine can’t enter the receptors because they’re full of adenosine. Therefore, a coffee at 1:30 pm is not nearly as impactful as one at 6:30 am. This sluggish feeling goes on for a few hours until the adenosine leaves the receptors and you feel that second wind about 5:00.
The fastest way to remove the adenosine from these receptors is to fall asleep. A deep sleep isn’t required. In fact, a ten-minute nap can empty your receptors of the adenosine. Also, it takes caffeine about twenty minutes to get into your bloodstream and enter the receptors in your brain. So, do you know the idea yet?
If you want to increase your afternoon productivity, drink a shot of espresso or a cup of coffee immediately before taking a short nap. Your nap will release the adenosine and the caffeine will energize you through mid-afternoon. Try it. I’ve been doing this since 2003 and it’s made a huge difference in my days (I take a twelve-minute nap every day). If you don’t drink caffeine, take the nap and then follow it with a five-minute walk and splashing of cold water in your face.
I know, I know … how can you nap when you’re working? Well, if you’re in sales then you’re probably in the field a lot. Buy an airplane pillow, park somewhere safe, and snooze away. Use your phone as your alarm clock.
