12 Science Approved Hacks To Boss Your Productivity
11. Look At Cat Pics
No, seriously.
A study in Japan has found that those Youtube videos of baby animals being cute as all hell are good for more than just making you feel warm and fuzzy on your commute.
In Japan, Kawaii (cute) objects are popular due to the positive feelings they illicit and the study looked at how these feelings translate into productivity. They found that viewing pictures of baby animals stimulated a "caregiving" nature in the test subjects. This has the effect of improving fine motor skills (gentleness) as well as making them more socially open (kindness).
They found that the age of the cute animal in question correlated to how strong the effect was, with baby animals up to 30% more effective that adult animals. They believe that this technique could be used to improve performance in tasks such as driving, office work and customer relations.
So, next time you're feeling burned out, just take a quick break to watch some kitten videos and tell your boss that it's for the good of the company.