Lately, a few of my coaching clients are feeling too busy. They’re working lots of hours and still not getting what they need to get done. They feel frenzied, scattered, and burnt out.
I ask them how they want to feel, what would be ideal. They say they want to feel in flow and like they’re making progress on what matters most to them. They want to feel more energetic, focused, and in control of their time.
Busyness is not productivity, though we often confuse these two feelings. I define “real” productivity as accomplishing what matters most, using a focused, time-bound approach. “Real” productivity is like a Sci-Fi gizmo, expanding time and space. It makes you feel flow, in control, and free from the frenzy of the hamster wheel.
Four Steps to Real Productivity:
1. Take time to think on a regular, scheduled basis. Busyness and noise tamper creativity. Carving out even 30 minutes a day on your calendar to deep, focused thinking helps you tap into your internal genius. One of my clients though he’d feel guilty doing this because there’s no defined work-product. For him, we created a structure where the work-product would be “insights into priority ___”. That one small step gave him the permission to set aside and protect this time.
2. Decide what is most important for you to accomplish and define priorities. Productivity guru Nir Eyal says, “you can’t call something a distraction if you don’t know what it’s distracting you from”. If you don’t know what your priorities are, you’ll be sucked into other people’s priorities.
Include goals for the different dimensions of life that are important to you, whether this means work, relationships, health, or spirituality. We are multi-dimensional human beings.
Use one timescale to set your goals and a shorter timescale to chunk the goals down and pivot if needed. I generally use a quarter, a week, and a day to set priorities and goals.
The quarterly goals are the big-ticket items I want to deliver on, in the dimensions that are most important to me at the time. Our lives are like seasons. It’s perfectly fine for one area of your life to rise above the others in your focus for a time and then re-juggle.
The weekly and daily goals are sub-tasks needed to get the quarterly goals done, mixed in with all the surprises thrown at us. Even the best planner can’t control for everything, so give yourself permission to re-prioritize and pivot as needed.
3. Be intentional with your time. Block out time on your calendar for both routine things that have to get done, as well as your priority work. Some experts say to get rid of your to-do list entirely. I like to brain dump all my action items onto a running list and then pull out those things that MUST happen, whether because of timing or because they are a priority. On that calendar, include your personal priorities, or else you’ll risk your work-life balance. I put my gym workouts on my work calendar and call that time “BLOCKED” so no one at work schedules a meeting with me then.
If you want to go next-level, try the time box approach, where you give yourself a specific amount of time to complete a task and put that on a calendar. Bounding the time helps you accomplish more tasks and can release you from perfectionist tendencies. Not everything deserves the same level of “perfect” – sometimes its better to get a minimum viable product done and off your plate. This opens up brain space to work on other priorities.
4. Prevent and stop distraction in its tracks. Distraction makes us feel fragmented, dissipated and out of control. Believe it or not, 90% of the time, we distract ourselves. Often, we distract ourselves with things we can pretend are important, like checking email or doing one more bit of research before writing. Distraction comes from us trying to run away from feelings of discomfort such as boredom or loneliness. As Nir Eyal says, “time management is pain management”.
One tactic to handle this self-distraction is to use the 10-minute rule. When you’re feeling distracted, tell yourself “I’m going to do this task for 10 minutes. In 10 minutes, I can stop it I want.” This enables you to “surf the urge” of the feeling without denying it. Feelings come and go, even though they seem permanent. At the end of the 10 minutes, you’ll likely be into the task and want to keep going. I use this trick when I sit down to write my fiction stories, and it really works!
By following these steps, you will be able to better make and keep promises to yourself. Doing what you say you’re going to do in the time you’ve given yourself to do it will make you feel accomplished and in control. It will also build your self-confidence. Doing tasks with your full attention will help you feel more flow, joy, and contentment.
For more on focus, see here.
Recent Comments