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This winter has been cold. Yes, winter usually is, but this winter has been especially cold, icy and snowy. It has been the mother of all winters, and most of us are just happy that it's almost over (I hope!). But, what has this extreme weather done for your productivity? Well, according to researchers from the Harvard Business School, the recent weather has been good for employee productivity.

Harvard Business School Associate Professor Francesca Gino analyzed preexisting data on employee productivity from a midsize bank in Tokyo. In a two-and-a-half year period the bank filed 56,000 loan applications, which involved a large amount of data entry. The researchers then correlated the data with Tokyo's meteorological data for the same time period. What they found is that when it rained, employees became more productive.

"We found that an increase in rain correlated with a decrease in the time it took for workers to complete their tasks. To be precise, a one-inch increase in rain was related to a 1.3 percent decrease in worker completion time for each transaction," Gino said.

However, this information differs from what people think about their own productivity. Before the study, Gino surveyed 200 workers, asking them to predict how sunny weather impacts their productivity. More than 80% said the nice weather would increase their productivity levels.

So, use this horribly long winter to your advantage at work, because as soon as summer hits you're productivity levels are likely to decrease. To combat this summertime productivity plummet, try holding meetings outdoors or even finding an outdoor space to complete creative work.

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