You can compartmentalize your work life by changing your clothes when you get home. This helps you separate your work and home lives, particularly as more and more businesses adopt casual dress codes.
My biggest findings from the experiment,
1. To pick the most productive clothes to wear, decide on what will make you the most productive: being more confident, or being more relaxed. Then wear clothes that make you feel that way
Over the last few weeks I discovered something interesting: dressing down made me feel more relaxed, while dressing up made me feel more confident. Confidence and comfort are both ingredients you can use with the other resources at your disposal (like your time, energy, willpower, and so on) to become more productive, but in many situations one will help you more than the other.For example, on days when I was talking to a lot of people (over the phone, in person, or wherever), dressing up allowed me to feel more confident, which made me a lot more productive. On the other hand, on days when I wanted to hunker down and write as much as possible (like today), wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt allowed me to feel more relaxed and comfortable, and let me express my thoughts more freely.
The fancier I dressed, the more self-assured I felt, and the more confident I became. Conversely, the more I dressed down, the more I felt at ease, and the more relaxed I became.
To use clothes to become more productive, start by defining what you want to accomplish. Then work backward to what mindset you’ll need to get there, and then pick the outfit that will create that mindset for you. If you want to relax, feel free, and brainstorm some great ideas, maybe the most productive thing you could wear is pyjamas. Throughout the experiment, I had the most energy, focus, and motivation when what I wore fit best with what I needed to accomplish.
Most people have a natural “equilibrium” when it comes to their clothing. That is, if left alone without any people around, some people might choose to wear pyjamas, while others might choose to dress business casual. I recommend that you use your natural equilibrium as a starting point, and dress up or down from there. Be wary, though: there are downsides to dressing up and down relative to your natural equilibrium. I didn’t observe too many with business casual wear (my equilibrium), though I found it more difficult to relax, and put a lot more pressure on myself wearing a suit, and I lost focus easier, and often acted like a slob wearing my jammies.
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