Boost Your Productivity: Applying Neuroscience Principles to Online Teaching

 As we dive into this quarter’s theme of preparation and time management, I wanted to share insights that are backed by neuroscience to help you work more efficiently. I recently came across a fascinating concept from Mithu Storoni, a neuroscience researcher, that highlights the power of structuring your work sessions in a way that aligns with your brain's natural rhythms.

In her book Hyperefficient: Optimize Your Brain to Transform the Way You Work, Storoni explains how our brain works in cycles known as the Basic Rest-Activity Cycle (BRAC), which lasts around ninety minutes. These cycles are crucial for maintaining focus and avoiding burnout. Here's how you can apply this to your work as an online nurse educator.

How to Structure Your Work Sessions

Just like your body cycles through sleep stages, your brain also fluctuates between states of high and low alertness while you’re awake. Pushing yourself to work for extended periods without breaks can lead to fatigue and diminishing returns. Instead, consider working in focused blocks of time (sixty to ninety minutes) followed by short breaks.

Here’s how you can organize your day using this technique:

1. Start Strong: For the first 20 minutes of each session, tackle the most mentally demanding tasks, such as lesson planning, creating assignments, or recording a lecture. Your brain is freshest at the start, so take advantage of this peak productivity window.
2. Ease Up: In the remaining 40 to 70 minutes, transition to less taxing tasks like responding to emails, updating your LMS, or grading assignments.
3. Take a Break: After each work session, take a ten-minute break to reset. Step away from your desk, stretch, or grab a snack. This helps prevent mental fatigue and keeps you sharp for the next session.

The Pomodoro Technique vs. Creative Work

For those of us in education, some tasks demand intense focus, while others require more creative thinking. Storoni highlights how structured methods like the Pomodoro Technique, which encourages 25-minute work intervals with breaks, can help with routine tasks but might disrupt more creative endeavors.

If you're designing new course material, building innovative assessments, or brainstorming student engagement strategies, it might be better to allow your mind more flexibility. Creativity doesn’t always follow the same clock, so consider giving yourself uninterrupted time to let ideas flow without the pressure of timed sessions.

Avoiding Burnout: The Four-Hour Limit

One of the key takeaways from Storoni’s research is to limit intense mental work to no more than four hours a day. If you try to push beyond that, your brain might not fully recover overnight, leading to accumulated fatigue. For online nurse educators balancing teaching, grading, and student communication, this advice can be crucial for long-term productivity and well-being.

Practical Tips for Educators:

• Batch Your Work: Schedule 90-minute sessions for course planning, student feedback, or administrative tasks. Plan a lighter workload after a particularly demanding task to help your brain recover.
  • Did you know that our co-working sessions inThe Productive Online Nurse Educator Membership follows this guideline? Although our sessions are scheduled for 2 hours, the first and last 15 minutes are times to state goals and report out progress on goals, respectively. If you're looking for a way to work more efficiently, you definitely want to check out The Productive Online Nurse Educator Membership today!
• Know When to Step Away: If you're feeling drained after a session, don’t power through it. Take a break, come back refreshed, and your work will be better for it.
• Creative Flexibility: Give yourself time to be creative without the constraint of timers when brainstorming new approaches for your courses.

By aligning your work habits with your brain’s natural rhythms, you’ll not only become more productive but also maintain your energy throughout the day, avoiding the dreaded burnout.

I'd love to hear which tips you'll be focusing on this semester. Share them in The Online Educator Facebook Group!