Have you ever got advice? Of course, you have. The real question is how often has that advice been useful?

The problem with advice is that it may be good for some people, but not for all. Also, some advice is helpful at the start of an endeavor but could be restricting as experience is gained. Tiago Forte recently thought about this problem and wrote his conclusions on his blog at Forte Labs. His primary insight concerns the crucial difference between beginner and advanced advice.

In any given pursuit – tennis, chess, jiu-jitsu, painting – there is a hierarchy of skills that you have to acquire one by one to progress. More fundamental skills lie at the bottom, like the base of a pyramid, and serve as a foundation for more advanced skills to be gained later on.

I’ve noticed that people often want to skip the beginner stages and go directly to the advanced ones. That’s an understandable desire – why spend more time as a novice than you have to? But if you don’t have a strong foundation and try to build too high, your efforts will inevitably crumble.

How do we determine the difference between beginner and advanced advice? Tiago suggests the following:

Beginner advice tends to take the form of an extremely simple, impossible to misunderstand, black-and-white rule.

The more advanced you become, the more options and pathways become available to you, each one tailored to a specific scenario. In other words, you have to choose which advanced strategy is right for you.

How what does this mean for productivity skills? Read the full article on the Forte Labs blog to find out.

Do you only work when a deadline is right in your face? For example, if there is two weeks until the work needs to be completed, do you wait until the final 24 hours to start. For the determined procrastinator it often takes an outside factor to get work done. It begs the question, why do they let this happen?

In an article from Stylist magazine, Katie Rosseinsky explores the procrastinator’s mindset to learn why they behave the way they do and how they can improve. The question is important as it relates to her own experience.

My last-minute mindset is something I’m well aware of, and yet whenever I’m presented with a deadline, I follow the same pattern: put the work off for as long as humanly possible, then cram it all into a condensed, chaotic period of ’productivity’, which often involves working late into the evening. Even if I make time, say, in the week coming up to the cut-off point to focus on getting this task done, I inevitably waste it.

Proving she is not alone; she then points out the wide-spread reality of the procrastinator mindset.

A 2007 study published in Psychological Bulletin found that 15-20% of people chronically procrastinate, with 25% describing this as their dominant personality trait. And it doesn’t have to be confined to a work context; as Christmas approaches, many of us will once again come face to face with our last-minute tendencies when we end up doing all of our present shopping in a panicked 24th December dash.

For the rest of the article, Rosseinsky proceeds to explore why how this mindset works before sharing a few ways to avoid the temptation to wait until the last minute, such as:

So, how can hardened last-minute scramblers find a way to break out of this cycle, and is there any way of turning these tendencies into a positive? In the short term, Dignan suggests trying out the ‘two-minute strategy’. “If you can do something in two minutes, you’ve got to do it now.” Another tactic she often recommends to clients involves the humble egg-timer.

To learn more, please read the rest of Rosseinsky’s article.

Are you the type of person to work non-stop throughout the day? In many American offices, and some other countries too, there is a culture the emphasizes continuous work. This means employees don’t stop for breaks, lunch, or even at normal quitting time. This happens due to a belief that this non-stop work ethic makes for a more productive workplace. However, is that true?

According to recent studies, taking breaks not only leads to greater productivity, but also better mental and physical wellbeing. An article in the Harvard Business Review by Zhanna Lyubykh and Duygu Biricik Gulseren titled, How to Take Better Breaks at Work, According to Research, highlights reasons why breaks are important.

Like batteries that need to be recharged, we all have a limited pool of physical and psychological resources. When our batteries run low, we feel depleted, exhausted, and stressed out.

Pushing through work when very little energy is left in the tank puts a strain on well-being and work performance. In extreme cases, nonstop work can lead to a negative spiral: A worker tries to finish tasks despite their depleted state, is unable to do them well and even makes mistakes, resulting in more work and even fewer resources left to tackle those same tasks. This means that the more we work, the less productive and more exhausted we can become. Think about reading the same line for the fifth time, for example, and still not absorbing it.

The good news is that taking breaks can help employees to recharge and short-circuit the negative spiral of exhaustion and decreasing productivity. 

Since breaks are valuable, what is the best way to take one? The authors provide a few suggestions, starting with break length:

A longer break does not necessarily equate to a better break. Disengaging from work only for a few minutes but on a regular basis (micro-breaks) can be sufficient for preventing exhaustion and boosting performance. For example, workers can take short breaks for snacking, stretching, or simply gazing out of the window. Further, timing of the break matters — shorter breaks are more effective in the morning, while longer breaks are more beneficial in the late afternoon. This is because fatigue worsens over the workday, and we need more break time in the afternoon to recharge.

Read the rest of ways to optimize your break time by reading the rest of the article.