Top Three Productivity Hacks for Exponential Growth
In a society where we’re all conditioned to have to be on 24-7 and be super productive ALL.THE.TIME. Somewhere along the line got our wires crossed with what being productive actually means.
The word productivity is loaded with all sorts of emotions:
There’s guilt if you’re not constantly doing, doing, doing,
And there’s a feeling of pressure and angst to perform.
The list can go on.
And when you’re not being productive, you’re perceived to be lazy, or you say you’re “procrastinating”
Both those words above have super negative connections to them.
I believe that somewhere along the line, we’ve somehow contorted the meaning of the word productivity to mean something different than the definition the dictionary assigned to it.
When we look at the dictionary(as per a quick google search), it says:
Productivity:
“noun - the state or quality of producing something; the effectiveness of productive effort, especially in industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input.”
So productivity is about the quality and effectiveness of one's efforts.
Yet, somehow, we’ve all jumped to the very last part of that sentence, turned ourselves into a factory line, and focused on the “rate of output per unit of input.”
And speaking of the factory line: I think another part of the reason why we have such a messed up relationship with productivity is because of society’s conditioning that success takes blood, sweat, and tears.
We see this play out when you’re mostly ever productive when you’re under a lot of pressure vs. getting quality output done with lots of time and space.
So as I see it, two things have to happen to help us be more productive (and less tired!)
Reframing Productivity
First, you have to reframe what it means to be productive. moving from producing quantity to quality work instead.
For this to happen, you must be more intentional with your time and efforts.
Redefining Success
You have to reframe the mindset that success takes blood, sweat, and tears.
Listen to the gurus on this one:
As Woody Allen, director, writer, actor, and comedian, says:
“80% of success is showing up!”
And Tony Robbins, author, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and life coach, says something similar:
“Success is 80% psychological and 20% mechanics.”
Productivity is all about showing up and showing up consistently - working with yourself and managing your energy to be productive.
This brings up my next point:
Incorporating Procrastination as a productivity tool!
Shifting our perceived ideas around procrastination - another loaded word that we’ve somehow thrown into the same camp as lazy…
But, when we look at the definition of procrastination, it’s “the action of delaying or postponing something.”
Note that it doesn’t mean laziness.
Procrastination is simply part of the process.
It shows that you’re not ready to take action because:
You’re overwhelmed
Or you have not yet gotten clarity about the next step.
Often, when you’re overwhelmed, it’s time to break down your goal or outsource something.
But if you’re not taking action because you don’t have clarity on your next steps, then percolating on an idea and getting ready to take action is needed.
In her book, Grit, psychologist, and New YorkTtimes bestseller, Angela Lee Duckworth, speaks of a time when she walked into a great professor who had many accolades - he was as successful as you could get in his field, to report on something she was working on… and he interrupted her mid-sentence saying: you have not had a good idea in 2 years… She was shocked; she’d been churning out papers, data, etc.… how could he say that!? He told her to stop reading so much and go THINK!”
As an entrepreneur, your mind is constantly thinking… so even when you’re not at your desk physically producing output - your mind is busy coming up with other creative ideas.
The danger is that when you make yourself so busy with the “busy work” that it doesn’t actually result in good quality output or increased profits, you will diminish the time that you have to come up with great ideas.
And let me remind you that the million-dollar idea normally happens when you’re not busy with work or forcing something to happen.
You need space to allow yourself to be more productive!
How can we work together?
If you liked what you read here, and you’re curious to learn more about business coaching, you might also like this other article I wrote: How can a business coach help me?
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