Business Owners and Ballet: Boost Your Productivity
I’m drafting this on a Monday, which is the day I have ballet class. In a few hours I’ll walk to class. It takes me longer to walk than to drive, which shortens my workday (gasp!)
There’s nothing about ballet class that makes me technically better at my job. I will not make any money from it (after all, I pay for the classes.)
In other words, there is no financial benefit to my ballet class for me. But is there an ROI?
Hell yes there is.
February 7 is National Ballet Day. Right now, one of my non-work activities is ballet. Your “Thing” may not be ballet. It might be another type of dance that you’ve always wanted to try. But it might be something else entirely separate from dance: an activity that you enjoy (or even suspect that you might enjoy) but haven’t been indulging because:
You’re too old
You won’t be good at it
You don’t have time for it
It won’t make you any money
You haven’t done it in a long time (or you’ve never done it)
It’s not a serious adult pursuit
Some of these reasons are “better” than others, but none of them are actually good reasons for not pursuing the Thing.
Just for context, I crossed the Rubicon of 50 about a year and a half ago. I never took lessons in ballet or any kind of dance when I was a kid, and my parents always told me that I was clumsy and uncoordinated. My body is not particularly flexible either.
Interestingly, ballet for me (and likely your Thing) can make you more productive. It’s all the different aspects of the activity that are not linked to intensive focus on logic and reasoning that paradoxically improve productivity.
How hobbies can help you have a more productive day
I’ve written extensively about the role of the brain in productivity. Basically, learning how to use your brain will help you achieve sustainable productivity without working more or harder. Brains are not computers, and they need rest breaks.
Also, brains are not computers, so rest breaks aren’t about shutting off completely. Human brains like to stay active in some way, but there are a lot of ways for the brain to be active without focusing on prefrontal cortex tasks like planning, crunching numbers, playing with spreadsheets, etc.
An activity like dance, or needlecraft, or woodworking, or playing softball in a rec league, or painting, or drawing, is a great rest break for the brain. You’re using different areas of the brain from logical thinking patterns, and human brains love to be creative.
Depending on your activity, you can also get exercise and/or social benefits as well. If your Thing doesn’t have these, that’s still perfectly great. The additional benefits are just a bonus.
Brains need oxygenated blood to function well, which you get from all kinds of exercise. Human brains also need socializing (online doesn’t count.)
Ballet is physical, so I’m getting exercise. There’s a lot of discipline to it if you’re serious, which I’m not really, but there is some discipline in consistently showing up (and that I do). There are other people in the class in addition to the teacher, so although we’re not bosom buddies there’s still some socializing happening.
Ballet also helps me because I have a tendency to just get lost in my head, whether I’m walking around or doing chores or whatever. I have to concentrate with my body to do the positions right in ballet, so it’s a big exercise in staying in the moment and listening to my body.
Hobbies can help you live well into old age
Last week, I wrote about how a healthy old age incorporates a lot of the same habits as productivity does. All the research seems to agree that for both mind and body, if you don’t use it, you lose it when you get older.
The good news is you can start using it at any age, even if you never really paid attention before. I’m always wowed by the accounts of women who started bodybuilding in their 60s and 70s. I recently saw an article about a guy who took up rowing in later life, and now at the age of 93, his biomarkers are better than some athletes in their 30s and 40s.
In other words, there is no such thing as being too old for a hobby. There is absolutely no such thing as being too old to learn anything new.
Now, it’s true that I am too old to dance with the Bolshoi Ballet. Or even the Long Beach Ballet, assuming there’s such a thing. Those ships have definitely sailed. But just because I’m too old to make a career out of ballet doesn’t mean I’m too old to learn it.
In fact, given that technology keeps leaping ahead, if you don’t keep learning you’ll find yourself behind the curve. You might even lose out on jobs (I know some people who never learned spreadsheets back in the 90s and had to retire early because no one would hire them.)
But even aside from work, continuous learning is one of the key drivers to a healthy old age. Just because you graduate from college or retire doesn’t mean you get to kick back and decide you’ve learned all you need to know. Your brain wants to keep learning things.
Hobbies are great for this. You don’t need to become an expert on your Thing, though you certainly can if you want. You could keep learning new watercolor techniques, or how to use a new quilting tool. Or new dance steps and sequences.
Beginner’s mind is really helpful. You don’t have to be good or get good at your Thing - it’s totally unnecessary. Even if you’re not a beginner, staying open to learning and not getting frustrated because you haven’t mastered it is good for your brain and also creativity.
When you don’t keep falling back on the “usual” or the routine, your brain might come up with some exciting new things. Some of which might be applicable at work, but even when they’re not, building your creative “muscle” is never a bad thing.
It’s also a great idea to have some activities for when you retire, and getting started now will only help you when you stop working. If your entire life is wrapped up in your career, what are you going to do when the career goes away, as it will eventually? If you have some activities that you enjoy, the transition will be a lot easier.
But wait, don’t I and other productivity experts recommend habits and routines? So that you don’t have to keep making the same decisions over and over again, which just increases decision fatigue?
Yes, having these habits and a routine can help you be very productive. But the routine should be for everyday decisions that you really don’t need to keep making over and over again.
For example, I’ve made the decision to walk to Monday evening dance class. That means I have to leave by a certain time to be punctual, and there’s a certain amount of time I need to get ready. Therefore on Mondays, I stop work at a specific time.
I exercise in the morning after I wake up (except Mondays!) and stretch and have breakfast afterward before I take a shower. That’s my morning routine.
In the evening about an hour before I plan to go to bed I dim the lights, put on classical music, journal and do word puzzles. That’s my evening routine. I don’t have to keep making decisions about what to do next, I’ve already made the decision once. That frees up the time in between for decision-making and creativity.
When I get to dance class, we have our warmup and then it’s whatever steps our teacher wants to show us. Beginner’s mind! You might have a different idea for a painting you want to make, or some photos you want to take.
Daily routines provide a framework so you’re not constantly making small decisions, which contribute as much to decision fatigue as big ones do. The framework also gives you plenty of freedom in between your routines to be creative and try new things.
Your brain wants you to keep trying new things. They say old dogs don’t learn new tricks, but I’m not even sure that’s true for dogs, and it’s definitely not true for humans!
Hobbies and ROI
If you think that money is the only measure that counts or is worth anything, I can’t help you. (No one can.) But I seriously doubt you read all this way if you think the almighty dollar is the be-all and end-all of life.
On the other hand, I did say there’s an ROI to my ballet class. My investment is my time and money. Since I’m an adult learner, I don’t have to buy leotards, tights, etc. if I don’t want to, and I won’t need pointe shoes. My dollar investment is just the cost of classes, about $20 a class. It does add up, as does everything including my coffee habit.
What am I getting for my time and money? As I noted earlier, continuous learning, exercise, and socialization are just a few benefits. Note these are lifetime advantages as well, as most hobbies will give you. There are also some specific upsides to my ballet practice.
Better communication with my body – part of the reason I was considered clumsy was a combination of bad eyesight, which I fixed with LASIK years ago, and poor proprioception. My interoception isn’t that great either, and ballet helps with both.
Better balance – necessary as I age.
Improved posture – well… still working on this, but standing tall in class is helping.
Mindfulness/staying in the present moment – it’s a struggle for someone with her head always in the clouds, but it’s important for mental health.
Greater appreciation when I watch ballet – now I know how difficult some of the moves really are!
There are plenty of activities that bring all these amazing benefits. And that’s the point. It happens to be ballet for me, but it could be something totally different for you. And maybe in a few years, I’ll switch to something else.
That Thing you’re loving today doesn’t have to be the same Thing tomorrow. And if you’re not sure what your Thing is, great news! You get to explore and try new things to see which ones you might want to stick with for a while.
Recap (tl;dr)
Hobbies and activities outside work make for a richer life and help you be more productive in the workplace. Even though you may not make any money at all, there’s an ROI when it comes to the benefits you get out of it.
If you recognize the importance of hobbies but don’t have time, click here to schedule your free consultation to see if we’re a good fit to work together.