I am not a weather forecaster so I cannot tell you what your weather has been like or is going to be like where you are, but I can tell you the weather here in Houston has been less than ideal.  Its been colder than normal, with a lot of rain.  Now don’t get me wrong…I LOVE rain!  A good thunderstorm is perfect for just laying on the couch and watching Lifetime.  Yes that dreaded Lifetime for you men out there.  But cold weather and rain…Bah Humbug (and its not even Christmas)!!  Ha!

No seriously…I don’t mind rain at all, but rain and warm weather are such a better combination than rainy and cold.  We know that when there is rain, there are dark skies (for the most part).  And it has always been said that dark skies cause depression. In fact, it has also been said that the highest rate of suicide is in Seattle because it rains there almost all the time.  I am not here to confirm or deny that.  Nor am I going to give you any stats.

What interested me more was the amount of productivity when it rains.  How much more do I get done or not when it is raining outside?

The Harvard Business School did a study on the effects of productivity due to weather.  The new research paper reports that a decrease in sunny weather is directly related to an increase in worker efficiency. In “Rainmakers: Why Bad Weather Means Good Productivity,” the authors show that workers are especially productive on rainy days, simply because they’re not tempted by the possibilities of a sunny day—a walk in the park, for example, or an afternoon at the beach (taken directly from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6975.html).

So your challenge is to recognize what your level of productivity is when it rains this week (as the forecast says it will here in Houston).  I am going to watch more closely!  Good luck!  And let me know what you think!!