MEDIA COMMENTARY: How to optimise your workday, according to neuroscience

This feels like a tricky time at work. Employers and politicians are lamenting a lack of productivity growth, while employees are skittish about job security, the rise of AI and the potential for less latitude to work from home. Fortunately, neuroscience offers some clues aboutoptimising the workday, so we asked four experts for their tips.

Is sleep important for your brain?

Ian Johnston is an associate professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney with a focus on cognition. He says the best thing people can do to boost their productivity is sleep well. A rested brain is your primed blank canvas for the day ahead, he says. And while many people focus on sleep quantity and quality

[https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/health-and-wellness/how-to-beat-insomnia-in-

two-months-by-going-to-bed-at-midnight-20250313-p5ljfb], Johnston suggests finding a transition activity to help flip your brain switch into the “on” position in the morning is key.

“I shifted to walking to work,” he says. “It takes me about an hour and that one hour of walking to work and walking home every day is a massive mind cleanser.”

He recommends using that time to let your mind wander, think about your day ahead and, later, process what has happened so you can be more present at home too.

Executive coach Sara Sabin believes in device-free time first thing in the morning. “We’re trying as much as possible to stimulate the creative, intuitive and critical brain,” she says.

Step one on her list is everyone’s first (and often toughest) hurdle: don’t start your day with your phone. Begin instead with five minutes of breathing exercises and light movement, rolling your shoulders and rotating your joints.

If you’re having trouble with a full hour of alone time in your own head, you can try Sabin’s more structured morning method instead: “Recall in as much detail as possible the events of your day yesterday,” she says. “This is to work the memory muscles early in the morning.”

Then spend five minutes reading or journaling and five minutes visualising the day ahead.

“These practices all prime the intuitive and creative brain, strengthen memory and wake up the body, which sets a strong cognitive tone for the day,” Sabin says. “You’re preparing yourself, not relying on AI to lead your thoughts.”

The morning is the best time of day for critical thinking

Sabin calls the first couple of hours “on” time. She says this is the best part of the day for deep and original thought.

This is the time of day you should prioritise strategic planning, brainstorm new ideas, solve complex problems and make decisions that require your intuitive input. It’s also the best time of day to write in your own “authentic voice”, she says, so it’s a good time to write a speech or prepare for a presentation.

“This is your golden zone for building critical thinking and creativity,” says Sabin. “Do this work without AI. You’re actively strengthening neural pathways by working through challenges yourself.”

Johnston says our brains can be trained to associate certain surroundings with a particular kind of work. “What you want to try to do is set up a range of cues and triggers, which are triggers for studying or work behaviour,” he explains.

“It’s much better when you’ve got a discrete place to do work in. It’s one of the reasons why I come into the office whenever I can, rather than work from home, because when I’m in my office, I’m only here to do work, and the entire environment is set up to do work without distractions.”

How giving your brain a break boosts productivity

Dr Judi Newman describes herself as an expert in social cognitive neuroscience. In a new book about educational leadership, Influence, she writes about the importance of being able to switch between periods of high arousal to moments when you allow your mind to wander.

“For an ‘aha’ moment or insight, your brain requires very specific conditions to notice the very subtle messages,” she says. “This is why you only have insights at 2am in the morning or while in the shower or walking the dog. For high productivity at work, you need to make room to create these conditions.”

Part of the magic is knowing when – and how – to take a really excellent break.

University of Sydney professor Sabina Kleitman is a world expert in metacognition (understanding your own thoughts) and meta-reasoning (thinking about thinking). She says you should avoid making important decisions when you are in a state of “under-arousal” (aka bored).

If you notice you’re bored, do something actively different, whether that is playing a game or reading a book or listening to a podcast. “We need to stimulate our brains back into an engaged state,” she says.

Newman says the brain runs out of fuel – oxygen, glucose and neurotransmitters – very quickly. But that depletion can be easily fixed with a brain break, she says. “A brain break is two to 10 minutes of anything that is joyful that does not involve new learning.”

Ideally, do something with movement or laughter or connection with others. “If you work through your email at the very start of the day you are going to be on cognitive load,” says Newman. “Follow with a brain break.”

But if you’re in “the zone”, don’t waste it, adds Kleitman, who thinks rigid break schedules can interrupt productive flow. “[You don’t have to] break just for the sake of a break,” she says. “Don’t break if you feel like you’re in your peak performance state.”

Use AI to enhance critical thinking, not replace it

Johnston says it is a good idea to have separate workspaces, or at least separate logins or devices, for work and non-work tasks. This helps to regulate distractions, he says. That extends to the use of AI.

“I’m lucky that we have an institutional workplace AI system,” Johnston says. “And then I also have my own private account for ChatGPT, which I use for my own stuff. You could say I have two AI personas.

Sabin recommends using the afternoon for tasks like research, collaboration and communication, first without AI, [https://www.afr.com/technology/doctors-fear-ai-is-making-them-worse-at-their-jobs-20250831-p5mr6j] and then building that in.

By carving out the morning for creative thinking you’re ready to “use your own lens to note patterns or insights” and “formulate your own point of view”, she says.

“[This] builds your trend forecasting muscles and helps you stay sharp as a critical thinker who adds new perspective, not just regurgitated data.

“Use AI to support neural integration after you’ve done the thinking work. You stay the originator; AI acts as your assistant.”

Kleitman also flags the importance of remembering what AI is good at – and where it fails.

Kleitman says humans are able to know their strengths, where they might have gaps, and respond to new information or challenges to their opinions in proportion to their own knowledge and expertise. AI cannot. It presents every statement as if it is the global authority on the subject, despite plenty of evidence of mistakes and hallucinations.

“Metacognition is a human advantage that AIs don’t possess – yet,” she says. “Currently, AIs cannot do this and will appear fully confident about most of the answers they provide. That’s why it’s so important for us to verify everything an AI says.”

Why it’s important to have a nightly self-careroutine

The last part of your day is a good time for reflection and a routine to switch back into home mode. Sabin recommends doing a small thing to put yourself first. “When you take a plane, they say put your own oxygen mask on first, so that you have more energy to serve other people,” she says.

Newman says you can also recruit your “sleeping mind” to help you work through difficult problems by spending some time before sleep meditating on your goals. This way, while you are asleep, the part of your brain responsible for regulating wakefulness will work on the goals and problems for you.

Ultimately, knowing your own strengths and weaknesses is the true key to building a day that is the most productive, Kleitman says. “For me, if I need to brainstorm with someone, I will schedule that for 12 o’clock because that is when I’m sharpest.”

Contrary to the no email in the morning strategy, Kleitman says she likes to use the time when she’s still getting into full gear to do administrative tasks like email, “because it’s not when I am most adapted to creative thought”.

She says you should reflect on and understand your own individual cognitive preferences and, as much as possible, let your brain be the compass for your routine. “Of course not everybody has the luxury to do this, but if you do, you should absolutely use it.”

As featured in FINACIAL REVIEW