4.2 Productivity

It is human nature to resist getting things done every once in a while. Over a week, as your energy levels ebb and flow relative to everything from how much sleep you get, to how much caffeine you consume, to how much time you spend with people, there will inevitably be some periods when you’re simply not feeling it—despite doing everything right—and when you have to fight the urge to waste time to get work done. You could get a solid eight hours of sleep, hit the gym early, plan out your entire day, and eat a healthy breakfast, but despite doing all you could to cultivate your energy levels, you might not have enough energy in the tank to do good work. In this section, you will find a variety of tactics to implement to increase your productivity, even when conditions are less than ideal.

Zoom Out

When you zoom out from a task you are working on and think about how it fits into the bigger picture of your life, you can see at a higher vantage point why it’s important that you get it done.

Studying for a boring school midterm? Acing that exam will help you get your degree, graduate with better grades, and get that job you want. Writing a tedious work report? That report will help you grow your business and get you one step closer to world domination. Writing an article for your productivity blog? That article will hopefully help your readers become more productive so they can free up time for their most meaningful tasks.

Zooming out to see how a task fits into the bigger picture of your life will help you understand its purpose and see how important the task actually is. (And if it turns out a task has no purpose or does not make an impact in your life, you should probably eliminate, delegate, or shrink it instead.)

According to Tim Pychyl¹, who has been researching procrastination for more than 20 years, tasks that lead to procrastination often share the following six characteristics:

• Boring
• Frustrating
• Difficult
• Ambiguous
• Unstructured
• Lacking in personal meaning or intrinsic rewards

When you zoom out from a task you are struggling with and ask yourself which of these attributes the task has, you can then make a plan to flip these characteristics (e.g., make the task more fun, clear, or easy) to warm up to completing it.

Mind Your Self-Talk

If most people talked to their friends the way they talk to themselves, they would not have a lot of friends left. Unfortunately, when you put pressure on yourself to get stuff done when you are just not feeling it, your negative self-talk can go through the roof.

As an experiment, the next time you find yourself putting off work, pay attention to what you say to yourself in your head. If you find yourself saying a lot of things like, “I cannot do this,” “I am no good at this,” and “Why do I keep wasting time,” you are probably only making things worse.

Some studies have shown that upwards of 80% of your self-talk is negative², and when that number only goes up as you put pressure on yourself to get more done, it is important to be mindful of how kind you are being to yourself in the process.

Give Yourself Permission to Do a Bad Job

Whenever you feel stuck with an article, idea, or project, simply give yourself permission to do the worst job imaginable. You are the only person who will ever see the original version of whatever you are working on. Permitting yourself to do a bad job can help you come up with better ideas than if you had waited for a good idea to come along. You can always remove the bad ones you had at the beginning after good ideas inevitably begin to flow. Everyone’s work is different, but if you are responsible for completing a lot of challenging solo tasks, try giving yourself permission to do a terrible job.  Do not let perfection get in the way of completing a task.

Shrink Your Work

Trying to work too hard or too much when you are not feeling it will only serve to discourage you further. To combat this, shrink how long you will work on a task until you feel more comfortable with how much time you will spend on it.

As you consider shrinking your work, ask yourself the following questions: “‘Can I work on this report for two hours?’ Nope, too long. ‘Can I work on the report for one hour?’ A bit better, but still too much—the thought of it puts me off. ‘Can I work on the report for 25 minutes?’ You know what? That sounds perfect. I’ll work on the report for 25 minutes.”

This is a great way to get started on something you are not in the mood for. Plus, once you get the ball rolling, you may end up working for longer than you originally intended. Additionally, another benefit of setting a time limit on how long you will focus on a task is that it creates a sense of urgency for yourself, which can push you to work harder to get an assignment or reading done. When you set a hard limit for how long you’ll work on a task, you motivate yourself to expend more energy over a shorter period to get a task done faster. This tactic also shrinks your work, but in a totally different way than what was described in the previous section.

Get a Change of Scenery

We are creatures of habit, and as such, we behave differently depending on what environment we are in.

Often, a change of scenery is all you need to get out of a rut and start working again. For example, if you work in an office, try exposing yourself to a change of scenery by arriving at work early when fewer people are in the office, or by working from home or out of a coffee shop if you have that flexibility.

The environment you choose to study in can have a profound impact on your productivity and motivation. You want to ensure that your environment is comfortable and free from distractions; however, you don’t want to be too comfortable. We generally discourage students from studying while lying in bed or on a couch. Our minds have natural associations with those environments (think sleep), and it can be easy to doze off and lose valuable study time. Equally as important, you do not want to be too uncomfortable, constantly needing to readjust or focusing on aches and pains.  You must find a place to “get your body right so you can get your mind right.”

Disconnect from the Internet

Disconnecting from the Internet is one of the most underrated ways to become more productive.

According to research³, about half of your time on the Internet is spent procrastinating, and when you are not in the right mindset to work, that number can go through the roof. Disconnecting from the Internet—even for just an hour or two—will help you hunker down, waste less time, and become more productive when you just do not feel like it. Especially when the switch to turn the Internet off on your computer, phone, and tablet is just a couple of taps or clicks away, do so if you want to waste less time and get more done.

Reward Yourself

When all else fails, try bribing yourself to meet your productivity goals by rewarding yourself when you meet them.

A reward can be anything from a coffee to 15 minutes on social media, to a 30-minute break, but as Charles Duhigg (the author of The Power of Habit⁴) made clear, for the reward to be truly motivating, it has to be genuinely rewarding to you.

Embrace Unproductivity

Productivity is one of the most powerful ideas in the world: the more productive you become and the more you can get done in less time, the more time you free up to do things that are the most important to you. But it is totally unrealistic to expect yourself to be productive 24/7.

Often, “not feeling it” is a great sign that you should step back from your work to recharge and be unproductive for a while. Completely separating yourself from your work may not always feel like the best course of action, but when you are not in the mood to work, it is worth asking yourself whether you are simply procrastinating or whether you are genuinely in need of a break.

Breaks help you recharge, reduce your negative self-talk, and warm you up to tasks that you are resistant to completing. Taking a break from productivity every once in a while will help you become much more productive at the end of the day. When you are mindful of your energy levels as you detach yourself from work, you can pick the perfect time to end your break and start working again.

Citations

1. Bailey, Chris. (2014). Here Is Why You Procrastinate, and 10 Tactics that Will Help You Stop. A Life of Productivity. https://alifeofproductivity.com/why-you-procrastinate-10-tactics-to-help-you-stop/. CC BY 3.0.
2. Bailey, Chris. Chapter 7: Resolutions. A Life of Productivity. https://alifeofproductivity.com/resolutions/chapter7/. CC BY 3.0.
3. Lavoie, J. A., & Pychyl, T. A. (2001). Cyberslacking and the Procrastination Superhighway. Social Science Computer Review, 19(4), 431-444.
4. Duhigg, C. (2014). The power of habit: Why we do what we do and how to change. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks.