What’s the Most Productive Way to Lunch?

Many of you reading this, especially if you’re business owners, may not even take lunch, believing it’s not a productive thing to do. Maybe you grab a power bar or hit the drive-through or munch a salad quickly at your desk. 

That’s the productive way to do it, right?

Wrong.

Creating a productive workplace includes time for lunch… for everyone

Most of you reading this are knowledge workers. You might work in retail, hospitality, or manufacturing sectors, but your job is mostly based on your knowledge and experience. What’s the most important part of the body for a knowledge worker? Your brain.

And the human brain is a resource hog. Particularly when you’re using it for “thinky” work and really concentrating on what you’re doing. The brain weighs around two pounds, so it doesn’t contribute much to your body weight. However, it uses about 20% of your body’s energy. It needs fuel, and while a power bar is better than nothing, it’s not great fuel either.

You know what to eat. There are always new “studies” touting a new berry or plant that’s supposed to be especially good for your brain, but vegetables and fruits are all good fuel. Especially when you get all the different colors of the rainbow throughout the day which contribute different antioxidants that you need.

So if you have a great colorful plate and some high-quality oils and protein, you’re good to sit at your desk and cram it in, right? Uh… that is gonna be yet another no.

Lunch is a great time for a productivity break

When you’re eating lunch at a table and not a desk, you don’t have to worry about spilling anything on your electronics, for one thing. More importantly, though, the human brain is not a computer.

Computers don’t really need breaks (although it is helpful to close all your browser tabs and shut it down periodically.) You can just plug them in and recharge them and allow them to run 24/7. Human brains? Not so much.

For the vast majority of human history, we lived in tribes, didn’t have chairs (much less electronics), and spent most of the day hanging out with our fellow tribe members. Sure, we hunted and gathered in groups when we were hungry, but there was no real work as we know it today to speak of. Our brains did most of their development during these couple of hundred thousand years, so they’re not accustomed to the work we do today. As our brains are “plastic” and adaptable, we’ve been able to accommodate the work. But it’s not great for human health.

We only got electricity in the nineteenth century, so about 200 years ago. The eight-hour day, which was a concession that unions won on behalf of workers, dates only from the early 1900s. There’s nothing magical about it, and it’s certainly not based on science.

Thirty years ago, in the early 1990s, very few college students, if any, had their own computers in their dorms. We all went to the computer lab instead. Now thirty years may seem like a long time, but in terms of the hundreds of thousands of years of human history, it’s hardly any time at all. 

Smartphones have only been around since this century.

That all means that the human brain has not evolved with this technology. To use a computer analogy, we’re using hardware that’s hundreds of thousands of years old to run 21st century software. Obviously that’s not a good match.

One of the best ways to maintain productivity in the workplace is to work with the hardware you’ve got. And the human brain hardware likes breaks. Especially when you’ve been focused on something for an hour or so, it would really like a break. And at some point it would like some more high quality fuel too.

Taking time for lunch is good for your brain, which means it’s good for productivity. It’s also helpful for your digestive system to eat at a reasonable pace. Put your phone down – your brain needs a break, not to be constantly stimulated.

Eating with another person can be a productive thing to do

I used to travel a bit for a job I had, and I remember one time I was in the airport eating my lunch and reading a book I had brought with me. A man (of course) interrupted my reading to tell me that I should be eating with someone else because he had just read a book about eating lunch with other people. I… am sure my face could not have been welcoming to any of this.

I haven’t read that particular book, but the point of it is that you can meet all kinds of people and get to know them, yadda yadda. On one level this makes a lot of sense to me. On another level, since I’m an introvert, if I’ve been “peopling” all day I’d rather just sit and read my book.

You don’t have to do it all the time if you don’t want to, but grabbing lunch with a friend, colleague, mentor, or anyone else at least occasionally is both smart and contributes to productivity in the workplace. Heck, invite your enemies! (You know the old adage: keep your friends close but your enemies closer.)

You can catch up with someone you haven’t seen in a while, or get to know someone at work a bit better and build or strengthen relationships without ever talking about work. It satisfies the human need for social connection (which so-called “social” media does not). It also gives your brain a break from work and the fuel it needs.

April 13 is National Make Your Lunch Count Day. If you’ve been eating at your desk while working on your computer or scrolling your phone, try taking an actual lunch break with some good food and maybe even some good company.

Recap (TL;DR)

Cramming in lunch as you’re trying to cram other things into a busy day is counterproductive to productivity. If you want to foster a productive workplace, give everyone the time to eat lunch and show the way by letting them see you do it too. And once in a while (or more often if it suits you), eat lunch with another human being with no screens on the table. 

If you’re too distracted to eat lunch, grab your free copy of the Distraction Quiz and find out what your Distraction Type and how to deal with your most common distractors.