television. It's exactly when I take a break from work that these kinds of things come unbidden into my mind. While I may not be working overtime in the formal sense, as long as I write these ideas down and act on them I've benefited the project that I'm working on. These ideas could have been the product of many more caffeine induced, chained to the cHere are three words that probably come to your mind when you think of the term Overtime:

1. Stress
2. Caffeine
3. Deadline

However, I'm going to propose three more that work just as well:

1. Sleep
2. Relaxing
3. Television

While the second list seems extremely out of place, it is just as relevant to working overtime as the first list. The reason for this lies at the feet of two of the biggest misconceptions people have about overtime:

1. The more overtime you work the more you get done - Just because you’re working a ton of hours doesn't mean they are all productive hours. Work is like a bell curve: Once you reach that optimum point your productivity will decline.
2. You get more done if you work overtime at work - How long can you spend in the same room working focusing on the same thing and still operating at 100%? I would guess it wouldn't be tremendously long. A change in scenery can mean all the difference sometimes.

So if you don't work all your overtime at work and you don't work hours and hours of overtime, how do you make your overtime productive? This is where that second, seemingly strange list of terms above comes into play. I find that a lot of my ideas and new takes on problems occur when I'm relaxing, maybe even sleeping or watching television. It's exactly when I take a break from work that these kinds of things come unbidden into my mind. While I may not be working overtime in the formal sense, as long as I write these ideas down and act on them I've benefited the project that I'm working on. These ideas could have been the product of many more caffeine induced, chained to the cu

f place, it is just as relevant to working overtime as the first list. The reason for this lies at the feet of two of the biggest misconceptions people have about overtime:

1. The more overtime you work the more you get done - Just because you’re working a ton of hours doesn't mean they are all productive hours. Work is like a bell curve: Once you reach that optimum point your productivity will decline.
2. You get more done if you work overtime at work - How long can you spend in the same room working focusing on the same thing and still operating at 100%? I would guess it wouldn't be tremendously long. A change in scenery can mean all the difference sometimes.

So if you don't work all your overtime at work and you don't work hours and hours of overtime, how do you make your overtime productive? This is where that second, seemingly strange list of terms above comes into play. I find that a lot of my ideas and new takes on problems occur when I'm relaxing, maybe even sleeping or watching television. It's exactly when I take a break from work that these kinds of things come unbidden into my mind. While I may not be working overtime in the formal sense, as long as I write these ideas down and act on them I've benefited the project that I'm working on. These ideas could have been the product of many more caffeine induced, chained to the c

curve: Once you reach that optimum point your productivity will decline.

You get more done if you work overtime at work - How long can you spend in the same room working focusing on the same thing and still operating at 100%? I would guess it wouldn't be tremendously long. A change in scenery can mean all the difference sometimes.

So if you don't work all your overtime at work and you don't work hours and hours of overtime, how do you make your overtime productive? This is where that second, seemingly strange list of terms above comes into play. I find that a lot of my ideas and new takes on problems occur when I'm relaxing, maybe even sleeping or watching television. It's exactly when I take a break from work that these kinds of things come unbidden into my mind. While I may not be working overtime in the formal sense, as long as I write these ideas down and act on them I've benefited the project that I'm working on. These ideas could have been the product of many more caffeine induced, chained to the c

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So if you don't work all your overtime at work and you don't work hours and hours of overtime, how do you make your overtime productive? This is where that second, seemingly strange list of terms above comes into play. I find that a lot of my ideas and new takes on problems occur when I'm relaxing, maybe even sleeping or watching television. It's exactly when I take a break from work that these kinds of things come unbidden into my mind. While I may not be working overtime in the formal sense, as long as I write these ideas down and act on them I've benefited the project that I'm working on. These ideas could have been the product of many more caffeine induced, chained to the c

television. It's exactly when I take a break from work that these kinds of things come unbidden into my mind. While I may not be working overtime in the formal sense, as long as I write these ideas down and act on them I've benefited the project that I'm working on. These ideas could have been the product of many more caffeine induced, chained to the cubicle hours, but because I took a break and let myself off the hook for a bit they came to me regardless and I'm refreshed. A fresher, more mentally alert worker is always preferable to a bleary eyed zombie.

Don't get me wrong, there are times when you need to put the long hours in at work. You definitely won't always be able to just "come up with" ideas without putting serious thought into it. However, when you do get these kinds of ideas unexpectedly, you need to act on them. Write them down in detail and use them. You will be surprised how valuable non-traditional overtime work can be.