Busting The 3 Productivity Myths

The pain point highlighted by leaders in the last few weeks has been around productivity- how do we stay productive during a time when the boundaries between home and work are blurred.

I partner with leaders to transform their mindsets and behaviors so that they lead and live wholeheartedly and powerfully.  My conversations with leaders often have to do with productivity, and what has come up at the forefront in light of COVID-19 has been a shift in the focus of productivity: from managing to do list and priorities, to knowing yourself, being realistic, and approaching productivity with acceptance.

In this article I highlight the 3 productivity myths that I found need to be dispelled if we want to approach productivity in a balanced, realistic, and healthy way.

Myth 1:  Productivity = Busyness

 Productivity is defined as a measure of efficiency of a person completing a task. We often assume that productivity means getting more things done each day, increasing our output, but we couldn’t be more wrong. Productivity is about getting important things done consistently.  

Rory Vaden in his TedX talk describes a 3-dimensional model of the Urgent and Important matrix.  He adds the dimension of Significance, or how long does something matter.  Ask yourself a filtering question to avoid falling into the ‘urgency train’, a question that reminds you of your priorities and prevents you from being distracted. In addition, Rory Vaden asks “How can I use my time today in ways that create more time tomorrow?”.  Do things today that make more time for tomorrow, look for ways to automate, delegate, or even eliminate activities that are not a good use of your time.

 Recognize busyness as a lack of focus.  Of course, we are satisfied when we check off items on our to-do list; it makes us feel challenged and productive.   When we feel there is so much on our plates, it makes us feel needed and important.  I believe this is an illusion that actually robs us of our focus and prevents us from making progress on what is most important and significant.

Sociologist Christine Carter, Ph.D., an expert at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, wrote: ““Busyness is not a marker of intelligence, importance, or success. Taken to an extreme, it is much more likely a marker of conformity or powerlessness or fear.” Instead of viewing busyness as a sign of significance, top performers interpret busyness as an indication of wasted energy.

Being busy does not equate being productive.  When you are meeting the true definition of productivity, you will likely be ahead of schedule, not chasing deadlines or being behind on everything you need to get done. Productivity is being able to make the most of your time, creating lasting habits of achievement and fulfillment. Work smarter, not harder.  And, it will mean something different to each of us. 

Increasing your productivity requires you to think about what’s driving you to do so.  What is the purpose, the desire, the hunger that’s driving your actions?  Keeping your ultimate purpose in mind, and being clear on your values, will help steer you and keep your motivation sustained.

One last point that I would like to bring to your attention is how the way you talk to yourself every day affects your productivity (as well as your self-esteem, but that is for another conversation!).  One of the best metaphors that I have heard for the mind is that it’s like a stomach for your thoughts.  You put the right things in and you condition yourself to become stronger, leaner and more agile.  You put the wrong things in- competing thoughts, questions, beliefs, noise – and it essentially shuts down.  The brain gets tired and unable to function properly, quite the opposite of productivity.  When you overthink something, or talk to yourself negatively, or accept a lot of noise coming from the outside, you tend to feel anxious, nervous, defeated, not your clear, stable, problem-solving, productive, best self.

Myth 2: Productivity = Time Management

The second myth is that productivity is about time management.  But what, really, is managing time?  That is an oxymoron.  Productivity is about self-management, attention-management, it is ultimately about personal mastery.  Two intentions support this: knowing your peak performance time, and owning and protecting your time and focus.

KNOW YOUR CHRONOTYPE

Knowing your chronotype is the first step in achieving peak performance, it will change your thinking from seeing your days as homogenous blocks of 8-hours to blocks of differing productive times.  A chronotype is a unique pattern of naturally-occurring, low and high productivity states that rise and fall throughout the day.  All hours are not peak hours.  Our chronotype provides a window where we can harness multiple times the power and value over all other hours in the day.  This allows us to harness our productivity by working smarter, not harder.

I’ve used the online quiz www.thepowerofwhenquiz.com to find out my chronotype.  I make sure that my schedule is aligned with that, that the intense work that needs to be done is scheduled during my peak times.  I also use that knowledge to plan my meals, snacks, and breaks.

Knowing your chronotype also allows us to monitor our energy and plan our fuel intake for the day.  For me what works is eating more protein in the morning, which helps sustain my energy levels throughout the day.  I also try to incorporate an outdoor break early afternoon.

OWN YOUR TIME

Being clear about what’s important for you, and setting boundaries around your time is important in owning your time.  Our most satisfying work comes when we are working on projects that we ourselves initiate, not when we are responding to other people’s requests.  Tom Rath, author of Are You Fully Charged? Recommends blocking out time to work away from email, programming your phone to only ring for select colleagues, and resisting email first thing in the morning until you’ve achieved at least one important task.

In a time like now where we are mostly working from home, putting in place physical boundaries between what is work and what is home is increasingly of necessity.  If you are able to work from a home office, closing the door at the end of the day symbolizes leaving the office space.  Having clear start and end times to the day also allows for that boundary.  Finding a way to say “I’m done for the day”, whether it’s closing your office door, closing and putting away your computer, making a list of priorities to address tomorrow, is vital in being able to shut off work.

Myth 3: Productivity = Ideal Worker

Many organizations believe that the ideal worker is the one who works constantly, often sacrificing their personal lives, visibly working hard and working long hours.  That has increasingly been disproven.  Being productive means recognizing that you cannot work for extended periods of time and maintain that high level of performance.  We have a limited capacity for focused attention.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day.  Top performers recognize and honor their  physical limitations by getting plenty of exercise and sleep, and alternating between 90-minute bursts of concentrated work and short restorative breaks, and taking time to disconnect from email for some portion of that time.

In addition, making a habit of stepping back regularly allows you to gain insight and problem-solving.  We are more likely to find innovative ideas when we temporarily remove ourselves from the daily grind.  Patrick Murphy, CEO at John Hancock Retirement Plan Services, has built a habit around meditation, mindfulness through daily walks, and advocates slowing down to speed up.

We often think that we must account for every minute of every day, that if we have some downtime we must use it to create, to build, to improve.  I don’t think that holding ourselves to that high, unrealistic level of expectation is serving us in the long run.  Quite the contrary, it actually hinders our ability to grow, to be fulfilled and aligned.  Recently an article in Upworthy highlighted the harmful pressure we are under to be productive, to do something with the COVID-19 time we have been gifted.  Productivity is also about permission: permission to say no, permission to have times of less-productivity, permission to accept that we are not at peak productivity 24/7, and permission to accept what is going on around us.

You can double your productivity without working harder.  You can be more intentional in how you use your time, be aligned with your purpose and values, what boundaries and permissions you create, expect, accept and plan.

Give these some thought and put them to the test, see what works for you.  

If you want to find out more, contact me for a free exploratory session.