How do you think about your productivity? Do you think about it as a state to reach, a goal to achieve. “If only I had the perfect set of apps or the right routine – I’d be productive”.
And, once productive, there’s no going back. Right?
It’s not so simple and just a moment of reflection on our real life experiences illustrates that chasing productivity as a permanent state is a fool’s errand. And as we discuss in the latest episode of My Pocket Psych, there’s no one perfect app that’s going to solve all your problems. There’s no one perfect system that’s bullet-proof against what life has to throw at us.
Real life is dynamic, fluid and ever changing. And so, our capacity to get stuff done, to focus, to reflect and to solve problems is also far from static. Acknowledging that we can’t operate at 100% every day is both painful and a great way to take some self-imposed pressure off our shoulders.
That said, it’s equally unhelpful for us to view productivity as a binary state: I’m either productive or I’m not. The consequences of thinking like this can mean we’re focused on maintaining the productivity we have (pedal faster!! don’t make mistakes!!) or feeling awful that we’re not productive (why can’t I do more?).
Productivity is better thought of as what we manage to accomplish, given the circumstances we’re in. Context, as they say, is king.
The world gets in the way of plans
My Monday morning might see me firing on all cylinders, checking off tasks on my to-do list like a pro. I bounce out of my office feeling like productivity is the simplest challenge in the world. One bad night’s sleep and my Tuesday morning is like wandering through a bomb site, looking for the simplest of tasks I can do while exhausted and cranky. Being productive feels like something very out of reach.
My Wednesday could be a textbook example of focus and execution, but should more than a couple of my clients change their plans, then Thursday looks like a car crash of epic proportions. I can feel lost and overwhelmed, at the mercy of other people’s decisions and desolate that my well-crafted plans lie in tatters.
Should I pat myself on the back for a job well done on Monday and Wednesday, but beat myself up for not being productive enough on Tuesday and Thursday? That’s hardly helpful or compassionate.
Productivity in the moment
Remember that my working definition of productivity is simply “doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way”. There’s nothing there about always feeling productive. There’s nothing in there about volume of outputs or indeed a continually fast pace of work.
If we focus on the present moment – the here and now where we can actually take action – we can choose from a multitude of options as to what to do next, where we put our attention, time and our energy. This in turn is going to be a function of the focus and energy we have left, the environment in which we find ourselves, and just how realistic we’ve been when it comes to setting goals and targets in the first place.
Productivity is definitely not a binary, on-off state. Thinking of it this way leads to self-criticism and feeling like a failure. Productivity is a function of the moment we’re in, the resources we have to hand and the world we’re living in.
Moving towards what matters
Simplistic self-assessment can be tempting, but it’s rarely accurate, especially when it’s a binary choice. “Was I productive enough today?” is a loaded question that can easily lead to self-criticism and feeling sad. “Based on what today threw at me, how much have I moved towards what matters to me?” is a much more nuanced and helpful question.
So on those Mondays when it feels like we’re a peak performance machine of productivity, we can say we’ve moved towards our goals a great deal. On those Tuesdays when everything felt like a painful effort, we can say we moved towards our goals, though not as much.
Focusing on our direction of travel is a more helpful perspective to take, one that allows us to learn from our experiences, bank our wins and identify course corrections to our journey to ensure that we continue to make progress.
(Photo by Barney Yau on Unsplash)
