Pot Heads get a bad rap for being lazy. This is a stereotype that has lingered for a long, long time and has fed into much of the anti-cannabis propaganda that still today impacts society as a whole. We’d like to start this blog by emphasising that not everyone who uses weed lacks motivation. In fact, there are plenty of high-flying entrepreneurs, athletes and quite frankly inspirational people who not only enjoy cannabis (or use cannabis as a medicine) but sometimes even attribute their success and out-of-the box thinking to this incredible plant.
However, anyone who indulges in cannabis will know that sometimes it’s easy to get side-tracked – perhaps something that could in fact be beneficial if you’re needing to relax, but not so great if you’re hoping to stay productive while under the influence! But being a pot head doesn’t mean your contribution to life as a whole need be any less – you just need to know to keep your focus in the right place.
If you’d like to make your day-to-day a little more fruitful and a little less languorous, try implementing some of these simple ‘productivity for pot heads’ tips.
The Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique is a time management tool designed to help you get the most out of short bursts of working. This is ideal if a little too much puff has left you with a short attention span for the day! Anyway, regardless of using cannabis or not, no-one can really give it their all for long periods of time – everyone is better off breaking tasks up into chunks. This was shown by sleep researchers William Dement and Nathan Kleitman, who discovered the pattern of 90-minute sleep cycles through the night, which persist when we’re awake, moving us from higher to lower levels of alertness.
Switching your work or chore time up to fit with The Pomodoro Technique is easy! Simple work for a 25 minute stretch, take a 5 minute break and repeat. After doing this four times, take a longer break of 20 minutes and then get back to it! You should see your prouctivity increase.
Here’s a handy web app which will help you time it.
Use the Power of Colour!
The colours we surround ourselves with make a big ifference to our mood, and therefore our behaviour too. This not only extends to wall colours, home accessories an decoration, but also our clothes and makeup. Knowing which colours trigger different responses might help you get into your most productive zone – or confident, sexy, calm, excited…you name it!
According to colour coach, Lien Potgieter, red, yellow an orange are the colours that spark creativity, movitation, confidence an inspiration – all of which will help you be your most productive self. It’s easy enough to try out, you could paint your nails, put a bunch of flowers on your desk or splash out on some coloured material to use as table cloths or throws to prompt different effects.
Create a Schedule
Creating a schedule is a powerful tool to spur on productivity, but not just a work schedule, a full day schedule – which can include your cannabis time! Your morning routine is particularly important for setting up your day for success. Author of ‘What the most successful people do before breakfast”, Laura Vanderkam, noted time and again that many successful and highly productive people begin their day with a workout, cold immersion (whether that’s a cold shower, a dip in a pool or cryotherapy!), or a meditative exercise. Interestingly, all of these things provide the body with a natural endocannabinoid boost! So taking cbd or enjoying a cbd coffee might also help get you going the right way.
After that, set your goals for the day – not the looming tasks ahead, but the goals you hope to achieve. And focus on three things. Try not to overwhelm yourself as you’ll just end up stalling! Plan in your rest time – both a middle of the day break and and end time when you can do nothing but relax. Then get to work, following your pomodoro technique.
Make Time for Relaxing
There should be more focus on your relaxing time than you might expect! But taking downtime is vital for productivity. This may sound counterintuitive, but dedicating time to just chilling has been proven to increase productivity – not just in pot heads, but for everyone. So, rather than freaking out about not getting shit done when you’re high, maybe just set that time aside for unwinding and be OK with that.
This has been demonstrated most effectively in Sweden, through a really lovely (and coffee-friendly!) cultural tradition called ‘Fika’, which is a key tool used to boost productivity and creativity in the workplace.
On the surface, Fika is simply taking a break from work or daily stressors to have a coffee (and in your case, maybe some cannabis) with friends or co-workers. But doing this routinely actually gives our brain the space to slow down, process thoughts and reconnect with fellow humans, often acting as an informal, natural way to get to know friends, colleagues, employers and even employees and discuss ideas or problems, for a willingly hard-working and harmonious society. Obviously, when there’s cannabis involved this might not be something you do with your boss or IN the workplace (unless you work in a super forward-thinking environment), but whenever you do it, setting this time aside that is dedicated to slowing down is a wonderful act of convivial defiance in a world that makes little time for something that is often pushed aside but actually essential: Happiness.
There’s now lots of evidence to suggest that trying to focus for a long time doesn’t work. One study, undertaken at the Universtiy of Illinois in 2011, found that prolonged attention on a single task, without taking a break, can drastically hinder performance and focus. Another study conducted by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang of the University of Southern California found that ‘downtime’ from work is essential to mental processes that allow the brain to make sense of what it has recently learned and also to surface fundamental unresolved tensions in our lives by looking inward, rather than lashing outward.
So, essentially, the tip is: set time aside for your cannabis break, or reserve it for the end of your day. Don’t stress about it, see it as your time to reset and refresh. Then get back to it with a burst of energy!
