Short podcast episode (+1 #645) in which Brian Johnson (with David Perlmutter present) gives practical peak-performance advice: use focused work blocks of 50–90 minutes followed by 7–20 minutes of deliberate recovery, eliminate multitasking and distractions, create bright-line boundaries (including a "shutdown complete" at day end) to avoid burnout and support sleep and relationships.
You're listening to Brain Health 101, an optimal living interview with David Perlmutter and Brian Johnson.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. In our last plus one, we talked about how the peak performance guys recommend we craft our optimal work to rest ratio. Pop quiz. You recall the ratio pop answer, 50 to 90 minutes on, 7 to 20 minutes off, making nice rhythmic waves. And more importantly, did you practice it yesterday? Today, as promised, I want to talk about the importance of creating boundaries lest we teeter into the realm of burnout and or never leave the realm of sub awesome performance. First, let's talk about the boundaries required to get into true 100% on mode. Guess what? All that multitasking, flitting back and forth from one thing to another, that's not awesome. Captain Obvious here with a friendly public service announcement. We need to create bright line boundaries and focus on one thing, the most important thing if we want to have a shot at operating in our upper threshold of productive performance. We all know that, right? Yet do you still paper cut your attention and never really go deep because you're too busy multitasking? Well, as the peak performance guys put it, for 99% of us, effective multitasking is nothing more than than effective delusional thinking. So to be all in on, we need to eliminate distractions and truly go all in for our 50 to 90 minutes of peak performance work. Got it. Then what? Then we need to truly recover during that 7-20 min off phase. Go for a walk, meditate, take a nap. If you're not like me, go throw some spears into your backyard. But whatever you do, don't go online and read the news and or catch up on your social feeds or anything else that's going to blow up your brain and nervous system and neurotransmitters and not offer you a true recovery period. Again, boundaries 100% on, 100% off repeat. But only if you like sustainable peak performance. Remember, boundaries or burnout. Oh, and this is even more important. At the end of the day, remember our chat about shutdown complete. Well, that's a really good boundary to make sure you properly recover via some epic sleep while also ensuring some solid deep love time. Boundaries equals awesome.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optimize with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me.
