Since being productive does not mean doing as much as we can on a daily basis.
I have written a lot of blog posts on productivity and enhancing your productivity in this blog. Whether it’s being productive through habits or through routines, it makes sense for everyone to want to make the most of their day.
However, if there was one thing that I had learned over the years, is that no matter what, my worth is never determined by how productive I am.
It has then led me to countless realisations about being productive that I am going to share in this blog post today.
This blog post is also inspired by a book that I really love, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson (Disclaimer: link is not affiliate, I just really love the book!). There were a few chapters that are really relevant to productivity. While the book is about life in general, we are going to be looking at some of the chapters from a productivity perspective.
1) Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
When it comes to being productive, there may be times when we get all caught up about A LOT of things.
But, when we really think about, some of those things aren’t really a big deal.
I loved how the book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff mentions how as human beings, we tend to focus on little problems and concerns, and make it a bigger problem than we made it out to be.
When applying this to a productivity perspective, there may be times when we’re given an extra task. Whether this is something happens that delays our schedule, or maybe even something just simply doesn’t go the way that we planned. We may find ourselves convinced that we are justified to feel frustrated and annoyed.
Instead of letting it go, we may find ourselves telling other people how we had a “bad day” because things didn’t go our way.
However, let’s think about this. Why don’t we simply allow the stuff to happen and let it go? Why don’t we instead have more compassion for ourselves and remember that not all things are meant to go exactly as planned.
By simply letting things happen and adjust, we not only do we maintain our sense of self, but we also still stay productive. Imagine how much time we would waste if we just let one little thing happen slide into the rest of our work day…. a lot of time right?
There are so many “small stuff” we face when it comes to productivity. They happen daily as well. Some days we may find ourselves waiting on a slow computer, or slow internet. Maybe we’re on a video call and the person is running late. Those are all examples of “small stuff” with our productivity.
If we spend so much of our energy “sweating the small stuff”, we may end up wasting a lot of time in the long run. That time could’ve been used to work on something much more important.
2) Make Peace with Imperfection
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff had also mentioned something that opened my eyes. It said:
“Rather than being content and grateful for what we have, we are focused on what’s wrong with something and our need to fix it”.
I know that for me, in a lot of areas of my life, I always had the need to make things “perfect”. Especially when it came to my productivity.
When we apply this to a productivity perspective, whenever we are working on something, whether that’d be an assignment or a project, we may find ourselves caught up in having it done in a certain way.
However, when we’re focused on what is wrong and wanting to keep fixing it, we may lose sight of the purpose of what we’re doing.
For example, when writing my e-book (yes, this is my first mini announcement of this upcoming e-book!), the whole purpose of me doing it was to do something that I love doing… write!
BUT, when I got caught up in the logistics of writing an e-book, wanting everything to be perfect… guess what, it had nothing to do with the writing!
Instead of simply just writing my e-book, I was delaying it because I wanted everything to get sorted. The truth is, it doesn’t always work like that.
It doesn’t matter what we are working on. When we are focusing on trying to make things as perfect as possible, we lose the real purpose. We delay the process. We go slower.
Just note that accepting imperfection does not mean to stop trying our best. It’s all about remembering that the imperfections and challenges are part of the process.
Learning how to do things differently is part of the process. Having something turn out to be different is part of the process. When we accept that, we eliminate the need stop every time something goes wrong.
3) Let Go of the Idea that Calm People Can’t Be Overachievers
One myth about productivity (that I actually find quite funny) is that when we are “calm” and “peaceful“, we are not going to achieve our goals. It seems that when we are constantly not “busy” or “doing something“, we’re not going to achieve our goals, and instead quite lazy.
It’s the same with what one of the chapters of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff had mentioned – some do fear that by being calm and peaceful, we will stop achieving our goals.
BUT the truth is that when we are fearful, that’s when we will stop achieving our goals.
In a productivity context, when we are constantly feeling overwhelmed and frustrated about everything that we have to do, THAT is when we will stop achieving our goals… sounds weird right?
There’s logic to this though. When we are fearful, frustrated, or annoyed with anything (not just productivity!), it drains our energy, motivation, and creativity. Hence, when we are trying to be productive, and we are feeling annoyed and frustrated with everything, it drains our creativity and ability to do our best work.
And not only do we stop ourselves from reaching our full potential in whatever we do, we take away the enjoyment of the process.
As you can see, just because someone is calm and relaxed, it doesn’t mean that they are going to become more lazy and not achieve their desired outcomes. When you think about it, when someone is calm and relaxed, they have a clearer headspace when they’re doing their work. That is going to produce the better results!
4) Remind yourself that when you die, your “in basket” won’t be empty
Let me first clarify what it means by “in basket”.
In Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, our “in basket” refers to our to-do list. Everything that is meant to be done and everything that we “have” to do.
When I read how so many of us live our lives as if our purpose is to get everything done in our “basket”, it was a bit of a wakeup call for me. I thought about the many times that I didn’t feel “fulfilled” if I didn’t complete my to-do list in that day.
I mean, how many of us stay up late, and avoid doing things that we love just so we can complete our to-do list (I’ve been guilty of this many times!). How many times have we told ourselves that we will only be happy if our to-do list is completed?
But guess what happens once we finish our to-do list? The next day, we have a new one!
And here is the truth about having a “basket” or a to-do list (I was shocked by this too, I had to read this chapter of the book more than once to get this) – Our “in basket” is not meant to be empty, AKA our to-do list is never meant to be empty.
It makes sense, there are always new projects to be done, new assignments to be completed, phone calls, emails, and tons of requests from other people. There will always be more things to do.
Hence, when it comes to having productive days, it is important to remind ourselves that our life isn’t always about a “to-do list”. It isn’t always about getting things done every day. It’s meant to be lived. When we’re aiming to be productive, we also should keep in mind that our worth is not determined by how productive we are.
5) Ask yourself the question, “will it matter a week/month/year from now?“
You may or may not have heard about this before. You may have seen a quote of this on how “if it’s not going to matter in X years, then you shouldn’t spend more than X minutes worrying about it”.
I guess this is closely similar in a way when we’re applying this to a productive perspective.
I have tried this before, and it actually does help me decide what I should do during the day! It’s a good question to ask when deciding what’s going to make us the most productive today.
When you have many things that you need to do, put yourself in a “time warp” and ask yourself if it matters either a week, month, or a year from now. Whether it’s a week, month, or a year is completely based on your circumstances.
For example, if you have a big project for work coming up, you may ask yourself “Will working on this matter a month from now?” if the answer is yes, because it’s a big project that is going to determine whether you’ll be staying in your job, then you can guess if it’s important.
Whereas if you have a goal to write an e-book, you may ask yourself “Will working on this matter a year from now?”, you may answer probably not, because you don’t have a set deadline for it. You’re able to take your time with it and therefore it is not urgent. If there was a set deadline to it, the answer to that question may be different.
The other way you can use this
There’s also another way to use this “time warp” technique as mentioned in the book, you can also use this when dealing with different challenges and setbacks when doing whatever you’re doing. When we were on #2, we discussed a bit on how we are going to face imperfections and how a lot of it are all small stuff.
Whether that’d be a time setback, or a mini mistake, asking ourselves if it matters a year from now would help us decide if it’s actually a small thing. If it’s a small thing, then we know already that it’s not worth stressing over and wasting time. We could use that time we spend stressed out about a little thing, towards working on what’s more important!
6) Allow yourself to be bored
This might be an odd one to see in a productivity blog post. However, it’s actually quite important this point!
When we’re aiming to have very productive days, the things we have to get done is full of responsibilities, deadlines, and tasks that must get done. It may get to the point where we don’t have to time to simply do nothing.
That’s why it’s important to have unproductive days once in a while… if not regularly. When we just spend all our days just working without taking rest, it could lead to burn out. When we burn out, it then eventually stops us from doing work anyway.
That’s why taking regular intentional rest is crucial when balancing a lot of work with much needed rest. When we take intentional regular rest, it becomes non-negotiable to NOT do any work. In fact, when you do take a non-negotiable rest day, you may find yourself wanting to work. Then, once your rest is completed, you have new found drive and motivation to continue with what you’re doing!
Another plus to having regular intentional rest is that you also discover new passions, hobbies, and even skills that you would not have been able to do if you just spent all your days working. Yes, we can learn skills from our jobs, but when it comes to being exposed to a different environment to learn more, that is what is lacking.
It may feel weird taking regular intentional rest at the start. With practice, you will get the hang of it, and it becomes a habit and routine to rest. Sometimes the cure for new inspiration and drive actually comes from doing nothing at all, and even I know it’s the most ironic thing ever.
If you’re not sure where to start yet, check out my previous blog post on applying the five love languages to yourself and even check out my self-care Pinterest board if you’re running out of ideas! (it’s always constantly being updated!!)
7) Lower your tolerance to stress
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff had talked about how our society has gotten it all backwards. It seems like the ones who have the most stress and under a lot of pressure are the ones to look up to.
I’ve never noticed it before, but whenever someone says to me that they have super busy, or that they have so many things to do they don’t have time to relax, I immediately admire them and want to be like them.
This point is not to say that you should never experience stress, nor put those people down. Instead the point is to say that being productive isn’t about having A LOT of things to do.
Being productive isn’t about the quantity of tasks that we have to get done. Most importantly, being productive isn’t about the amount of stress that we have to face.
When we lower our tolerance to stress by maybe limiting the amount of tasks that we need to do, delegate some tasks, or even put some tasks on hold, we’re able to put our full focus and attention on tasks that are more important to do.
If we have A LOT of things that we want to get done, BUT we’re feeling stressed. it is absolutely okay to limit a few of them a day.
8) Set aside quiet time every day
This is actually a common sense one. When you want to work on something important, it’s probably the most ideal to have an environment where it’s quiet with no distractions. There’s a reason why I like waking up at 5AM. It’s before my whole family wakes up!
Especially during lockdown, when my whole family is going to be home. Living in a one story house isn’t ideal considering you have my dad’s meetings going on, my mom’s TV shows in the background, and my sister playing Olivia Rodrigo. It’s honestly a bit tricky to get things done with no distractions.
Hence, waking up early is my preference because I get my most important tasks completed with no distractions.
If you can’t wake up early… who says quiet time has to be early? It could be when no one is home, or when everyone is sleeping at night (if you’re a night owl!).
Even if you don’t like dead quiet and prefer some noise, there are different places you can go to that can give you “friendly noise“. “Friendly noise” in my definition means noise that is good if you don’t like dead quiet, but at the same time not too distracting.
This can also be applied to non-productive things as well. When you simply want to stop working for the day, quiet time is a good idea! Quiet time gives opportunity for a much clearer headspace that would work well when we have to do more work!
I mean, who doesn’t love peace and quiet?
9) Think of your problems as potential teachers
What is the most stressful thing about being productive? The many setbacks and obstacles we have to face.
But let’s face it, the many setbacks and obstacles are beyond our control. There’s only one thing that we could really do.
Regardless on whether this setback was beyond or within our control, we can control how we look at all these setbacks.
Because at the end of the day, we can never avoid setbacks. We’ll always have them. When we have lots of them, there’s nothing that we can really do, but deal with them. But we can deal with them properly, and not make them so stressful to our lives. That’s okay.
The way that we react and deal with various kinds of situations is within our control. We have to choice to turn obstacles into lessons. We can turn losses into lessons. We can choose to turn a loss into a learning experience.
At the end of the day, choosing to look at these things this way is not about being in denial about our challenges. Choosing to look at these things this way is to give us a clearer headspace, stop spending time stressing about small stuff, and use that time to work on things that are most important to us.
Your Worth is NOT Determined By How PRODUCTIVE you ARE (pinky promise)
Pinky promise, your worth is not going to be determined by how productive you are.
We all run in different systems and temperaments. How we work most efficiently and effectively is different for every person.
When we don’t stress the small stuff about productivity, ironically we actually end up working better!
That’s because when we eliminate the stress of the small stuff, keep things simple, and focus on the more important things, our brain has a clearer and better capacity to work at it’s best. I know this because I have felt this!
Ultimately, no matter what we do for a living, and what we do on a daily basis, how productive we are is not going to determine our worth. Just keep doing and improving you!
-Lauren 😊
Book(s) this post was inspired by:
(not sponsored in any way, nor are they affiliate links – I just really love the book!)
Disclaimer: If you think that any of what I had written was good, the credit actually belongs to the one whose book was the inspiration for this post. If there’s anything on here that you think is quite stupid, that’s 100% blame on me 🙂
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, this is Lauren! I’m a law grad from Melbourne, Australia. On laurenbarri.com and my YouTube channel, I create content on personal development and productivity. I am super passionate about these topics because of how they helped me in all areas of my life, and I want to share it with others!
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