#042 Personalising Productivity

Being productive can play an important role in using our potential to have an impact. The world of productivity hacks, tools, systems has become a minefield of options. But is that what we need to really improve our productivity?

In this episode I explore what it takes to develop a more personalised approach to productivity. Rather than trying to adopt the methods and tools of others, how can we use them as inspiration, but then create ways of working that actually work for us as individuals? Ways that take into account our values, our natural strengths, rhythms and the context in which we live and work. 

Transcript

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 Hello lovely humans. How are you doing today? I hope you are wonderful. It is the first day of spring as I'm recording this. And it's a beautiful day here in Melbourne and it's just got me with a spring in my step. So feeling good. Now today I wanted to drop in and have a talk about a really hot topic. I feel like it's always a hot topic. This one never goes away. And it's productivity.

 And you know, one of the reasons why it's at the top of my mind at the moment. And if you've listened to my last episode, I dropped a hint that I'd be sharing some kind of big personal news. And that big personal news is that I'm pregnant. And due  to have a baby in December, so very exciting times here. But it has wreaked havoc with my productivity for a number of reasons. And so, yeah, I've been reflecting a lot about the topic and it's also something that's been coming up a lot with my  clients. It seems everybody wants to be more productive. And why wouldn't you be, if you're a business owner or a leader, being able to get the best out of your time is really something that's that's key to being able to do a great job and, and lead and do all the things you want to do in, in your business and with your leadership. 

So it's definitely something that I think is always top of people's minds. And it's come up a few times with clients recently that something that they really struggle with is the fact that there's this whole productivity land out there of hacks and tools and this and that. And it's like, if they don't feel like they're a naturally productive or organized or whatever person, then a lot of that stuff doesn't really work for them. And I was saying to a client the other day, I was like, I'm not like that either. And what I love about kind of diving into productivity is that because I'm not like that because I'm not a naturally particularly disciplined person, I need to find ways to make things work for me. And so I've kind of over the years, been able to cobble together processes and systems and ways of working so that I can work better and, and, you know, stronger and whatever you want to call it. Harder better faster stronger maybe?  But it's not because I've followed  some singular path or traditional productivity wisdom. It's been about making what's out there, work for me. And, I think that's really, really important when it comes to productivity. And this is where this idea of personalizing productivity has come from. 

I think one of the challenges with this is that a lot of  the productivity stuff that's out there it's often created by the types of people who might be naturally that way inclined more. They might be naturally more organized or disciplined. Or good with tools and systems and those kinds of things. But, like I said,  I'm not naturally disciplined. I don't know if you've done the Gallup strengths test before or heard of the Gallup Clifton strengths test. It's a really awesome test that helps you understand your strengths better. And it's made up of 34 strengths and your  top ones are the ones that are you and that you're really great at and  down at number 34 and things, those are your essentially your weaknesses. And discipline is my number 34 strength. And when I tell people that they're often really surprised, they say, but you get stuff done and you get stuff out there. And I'm like, yeah, but I kind of have I've hacked my own system. 

And I think that's what we really need to start thinking about with productivity. Not just following what some person has said we should do at some point. 

You can't just pick up a hack, a tool, a system, a way of working and expect it to work for you because it's worked for somebody else. Because they're not you. They don't have your life. They don't have your ways of being, they don't have the stuff that's going on in your world. And  it's not helpful to think that we can just take things off the shelf and use them. 

But you can learn from these other people and then begin to bend and move those things to suit yourself. Productivity it's really personal. And so if you looking to improve in some way, you have to personalize your approach to it. It sounds really obvious when I say it right? But I've heard so many stories of people getting frustrated or blaming themselves because they can't make someone else's amazing system or whatever work for them. 

Or, they can't seem to be productive in the way they think that other people are. So, what I wanted to do today is just run through with you, some of the things that I've learned about personalizing productivity. And some things you can start to think about if you want to do that for yourself and hopefully find a little bit more joy and a little bit more ease in your ways of working. 

So the first thing to think about is to stop judging yourself on other people's outputs. Now it's so easy for us to look out at what people are producing, whether it's people we see on social media or people at work or other business people we know or other leaders and think, oh my gosh, they look like they're doing so much great stuff. And why aren't I doing that? 

But we have a really skewed version of this because often we're only seeing the end results of what people are producing. Right? We're not seeing the process that goes into it. We're not seeing the hours of  frustration, whatever it might be, that have gone into that. 

I was talking to a friend the other day. And she was saying how she'd got out an ebook. And it was like, this e-book came out of nowhere and myself and another friend were like, oh my God, you've just pulled that out of thin air. Where did that come from? And she's like, I have been working on this ebook or at least thinking about this ebook and kind of planning it through in my head for like three years. So what for us felt like, oh my gosh, this thing has popped out of nowhere, for her was actually something that felt like a huge process that took her a long time to actually get to that final output. So, we just don't see this with people.  A great example that has put it in perspective for me sometimes is a few people have said to me . 'Oh, you know, your Instagram. I love what you put out' and I'm like, I haven't posted in over a month.  What are you talking about? 

But we think that people are watching and we think that people are paying attention to how much we produce and that it matters, but often it doesn't to other people. And you know, they, they might remember the quality of something or what it means to them, but they probably don't notice how often or how much you're putting out there in a lot of cases. 

So in terms of this idea of  judging yourself on other people's outputs, the other thing I think that's really important is that you consider what's actually important to you based on your assessment of life and what you're trying to achieve and who you are and who you're trying to be. 

So, two of my values joy and ease. And so if I'm prioritizing those things over being, traditionally quote, unquote productive, then maybe that's not actually a bad thing. Maybe I'm just living in alignment with who I am. And of course that could be really just a good excuse for not being as productive as I should be. But if you think about it, we should be living in alignment with our values. And sometimes we might be actually intentionally, but maybe under the surface doing something that  might mean that we don't produce as much or  producer as frequently. But if that's because it aligns us with something else that is important to us. For example, like spending time with family. Or  health and wellbeing and making sure that we're prioritizing that it might not actually be a bad thing. But again, when we start getting into that, comparisonitis. Then it's easy to kind of forget about why we're showing up the way that we're showing up and making the decisions we're making. But if you're somebody who has particularly spent a lot of time, Getting clear on what's important to you and working in alignment with that, then it's likely that you might prioritize things differently and that's okay. 

So number two, let's really get clear on what your productivity strengths and challenges are. So sometimes I think we put productivity into this one bucket and we go, oh, I'm not productive, or I need to be more productive. But actually productivity is made up of a number of different things and you might be really great at one part of productivity and not so great at another part. 



So, let me just run through some of the things that could make up productivity for you. And this is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination, but it just might give you a sense of some of the things that could be contributing to your productivity, or maybe lack of. 

So one of them's organizations. So do you have things in place? Do you have the systems and the processes and  the storage systems, whatever it might need to be, to make sure that things are somewhat organized and in the place that they need to be. I'm pretty good at organization. It's probably one of my strengths when it comes to productivity. But then you might also have something like discipline. Now, as I mentioned, discipline is really not a strength of mine. 

Discipline is that thing of being able to sit down and do the thing when you'd rather be doing something else. That's kind of the way that I see it. And you might struggle to prioritize a piece of work that you need to do when you know, you'd rather have a conversation with a friend. Or maybe you prioritize a certain type of work over another certain type of work all the time. So if you're say a creative person and you love the creative stuff, and that comes really easily. For you, but you find it difficult to be disciplined when it comes to doing say admin work or something. 

Another one is distraction. So are you easily distracted by emails and notifications and what someone else wants you to do? 

It could be boundaries. So, you know, you. Find it difficult to say no to things or to say no to people. 

Something could be motivation. You just can't be bothered it can be quite linked to discipline in a lot of ways. There might be something else that you'd rather do. And it's hard to get yourself motivated to do certain types of tasks. 

And then there's the big one, which is mindset. So maybe there's some kind of internal blocker that is preventing you from being productive with something. A reason sitting below the surface, why your avoiding doing the thing that you want to do, or putting the time and effort into the thing that you want to do. 

So those they're just some examples, but have a think about if you were to really think about your productive strengths and your productive challenges. Of the ones I mentioned, which the things that you're really great at or really great at avoiding? And what are the things that maybe you could use some work on, or you need to compensate for  with some of your other strengths. 

So that's something else to think about. It doesn't matter necessarily if something is a weakness, you don't always have to fix the weakness, but what you can do is compensate for the weakness, with a strength. 

So for example, let's take my one of discipline. Let's just keep rolling with that example. I know that I'm more disciplined or I will be more likely to get a task done when I'm doing something with someone else. Or I have some external accountability. So, for example I might work with a virtual assistant on my social media because it means that there's somebody else that I have to be accountable to, to do something. Whereas if I was just left to my own devices, nothing would ever get done. 

So, something else that can be really important in terms of your strengths and your challenges is to really get clear on when you need to outsource something. And when I say outsource, I don't necessarily mean to a person. You could outsource to a tool or a system as well, but think about what are the things that you shouldn't be doing because they're, they're not a strength of yours and maybe the reason you're not being productive with those things is because it's just not you, it's not a strength. So like I said, like for me, I  outsource some social media stuff to to my VA so that she can help me with that, which is the weakness of mine. I don't like being on social media. Well, I don't mind being on social media, but I don't like kind of getting in there and doing all the stuff I need to do for it. So my motivation is low when it comes to that. So I need that that outsourcing to help me be productive. 

Okay. So that was getting clear on your, your strengths and challenges. Next up we have using the wisdom or the productivity wisdom of others as inputs to developing what works for you, but not as complete solutions. So. I spoke about this earlier, and I kind of touched on it that I think one of the biggest no-nos with productivity, is when we take something that someone else does or their system or their tool and try and use it exactly how they use it. When you're trying out a new system or a new tool or a new way of working that you've read about or heard about or whatever it is, I think a great approach to this is to try it out, but really use your intuition, your self knowledge to work out what's going to work for you and what's not. 

 If you sit down with a new tool, for example, You're going to know pretty intuitively straight off the bat, if it feels right for you. So let's , take some productivity tool examples. Quite a while back now, I  was like, right, I need an online system. Is it going to be a Asana, is it going to be Trello? Is it going to be click up? 

And I had a bit of a play, like a light touch play with each of them. And everybody that I knew at the time was working in Trello and Trello just didn't work for me. And I could tell straight away by having a play with it, that it wasn't going to be right. And so use that intuition around something can go. What can I take from this that's going to work for me? And it could be a whole system, or it might even be a part of a system. So another example is I had a play with the Getting Things Done Method a number of years ago. And that whole method if you've read or heard about it, or, not, is it's a bit of a beast. Like there's a lot you can do with it. But when I read the book there were few things that I took out of it. And I went great, that little nugget there is really going to work for me and that I'm going to throw out. So. Just really tune in. What's going to work for you? What's not going to work for you. And try things on and really give them your best shot. If you are going to have a play with a tool or a system or whatever. First make that judgment of what do you think is going to work for you and what's not. And then really commit to giving it a try for a little while. Because I think something else we can come up against is we can go, oh, I'm going to try this. And we give it a shot for a few days and then we let it wane and we don't follow through with it. And it might not necessarily be that the system or the tool or the thing wasn't right. But we haven't really given it enough of a shot. To see if it's going to work for us. 

So, take these systems. Have a play with them. See what's working. See what's not. And give them a good shot and kind of ask yourself, what are you going to use? What are you going to throw out? And what maybe do you need to adapt as well? 

Kind of relevant to this is being aware of shiny object syndrome and particularly using new ways of doing things and tools and systems as avoidance mechanisms.  I really suggest when you're honing in on something and trying to find a way of working or a tool or a system don't bounce around from system to system. Give them a little bit of a try, like I mentioned. So you know which one you want to go with, if you, if you're trying to find something new. And then if you're trying to choose a new one, have that kind of light touch play before you commit. But something else is don't commit to a trial of something like a tool, like an Assan or a click up or something like that, if you don't have the time to put into actually having a proper play with it. 

Because what can end up happening is that you sign up for this thing and you like, 'Oh, okay, great. I'm going to give this a try.' And then you're super smashed that week and you don't actually get to it. And then you're like, 'Oh, it's the tool.' But in actual fact, you haven't really given it the time and energy that it needs. And then you trials over and you're like, 'yeah, I don't really want to pay to play with this.' So,  if you're going to do a trial of an actual tool or a system, make sure you've got that time to use it. I know that sounds like something really trivial and small, but it's important, right? 

And then be aware of what works for you as well. So it could be that you're just a pen and paper person. And you might try all the fan dangly tools and systems, but in actual fact, what works for best for you is a notebook. So there's no point trying to push a bunch of tools that are online if at the end of the day, you keep coming back to your notebook, what would be a better option in that case is to go, 'okay, well, how can I make my notebook work better for me?' So, yeah, be. Be aware of the shiny object syndrome.

 And be aware as well when you're using tools and systems and trying a new thing to actually avoid doing thing in the first place. I don't know if you've done this before, but you go. 'Oh, I need to do this thing. Oh no, but wait, I just need the system to help me do this thing so I can X, Y, and Z'. When you could have just done the thing in the first place and you're actually using putting a whole system together to try and get away from doing the thing itself. 

All right, moving on. Another really important thing in terms of personalizing your productivity is to really understand your own productive rhythms. So, one of the critical ones with this is when do you actually work best? So there's this idea of night owls and morning larks. And are you a night person or a morning person? 

And this is actually genetically wired into us. So you can, you can actually do a genetic test, which will tell you your likelihood of being a night owl or morning lark. And of course there's everything in between as well. It's not a black and white type of thing. But in terms of your rhythms, when do you work best?  And it might not be as simplified as at night or in the morning. 

I know that I have this burst of energy around dusk, like a really good from about 4:00 PM to about 6:00 PM. And there's not a lot of productivity books out there that say Four to six is the best time to do your work. We hear a lot of 'get the first thing done in the morning.' But for me, that doesn't work. I find that creative energy and particularly producing and thinking and strategizing, that kind of creative work much better for me, in the evening. And if I would have followed the traditional kind of productivity logic, then it wouldn't be helpful to me at all. 

So be aware of when you work best and be aware of your energy. What types of energy do you need for different types of tasks? And when are you better with that type of energy? So, It could be the creative energy to do certain tasks. So if you need to sit down and write a blog or something like that, or paint a painting, you might need a certain type of creative energy. 

There might be a certain energy you need to do administrative work. That's the kind of thing that  if my brain is fried, I can do admin till the cows come home. But someone else they might need to really concentrate for admin work and it might be really different. Then there's a strategic energy, which in many ways is it could be quite different from more of a productive, creative energy. It's that energy of really needing to go deep and to think about things. So, you know, when is that kind of energy for you? 

And there might be another type of energy that is important for the type of work that you do. So really thinking about what those different energies are for you. How you work with them. Which ones come more naturally and then are there certain times of the day or certain days in the week or certain parts of the year or seasons where it might be better for you.

 If you're  somebody that  has a menstrual cycle, that's another type of rhythm that you can really tap into in terms of your, your different types of energies. And if we just think we're going to be in the same kind of productive head space all the time, then we're going to be disappointed because we just don't work like that as humans. But what you need to start doing is getting super, super aware of these rhythms and these types of energies within yourself, if you're going to begin to work on personalizing productivity for you. 

Then, of course, you need to understand that these rhythms might change. There are going to be things that happen in your life. And like I said like a menstrual cycle could be one thing, but it could also  be illness, it could be, you could have a cold and that's gonna affect your energy, or you could just be in a different head space at certain times of the year. 

I have a client who has really different energies in different seasons. So, you know, winter is a time. Where she goes inwards and summer is a time where she's, you know, wanting to be out and about and with people and that kind of thing. So really think about all these different ways that  your energy and your rhythms might work. 

All right. Linked to this one. Be really wary of  the life and work context in which you're trying to produce. So, what are the things that are going on in your family? What are the things that are going on in the world? What are the things that are going on in your workplace that might be impacting how you show up productively? 

So obviously a great example right now is COVID. There's a number of practical as well emotional and mental ways that this is affecting people's productivity. So from a really practical perspective, we have a bunch of people that are having to homeschool their kids. Which yeah, obviously that's going to affect your productivity. 

And then we have  that thing of, well in Melbourne here at least, I don't know where you are in the world, but you know, we're just in our sixth lockdown that seems to be never ending. And a couple of weeks ago, everybody I spoke to was just feeling it. And the energy and motivation to do anything with really low. 

And so that mental space and the emotional space with things like this can really affect your productivity. And then trying to be productive or to push yourself or even judge yourself in a certain way when those types of things are going on it's not helping. 

Pregnancy is another one, you know, I've really felt the rhythms of how I work change throughout pregnancy. Obviously first trimester, many of you might know is generally not very nice. And I thought my brain had just left me for about three months and I found it really hard to do anything through fatigue and just general brain fog. So you can see something like that. If I was to judge myself, and my productivity on what was going on from me at that time, when hormones are raging and all that kind of thing, it's not particularly fair. 

Some other things: there's coming back from holidays, there's something going on in your life, maybe you're looking after a relative, maybe you're in love and that's where your head is right now. And you've got a new relationship and all you want to do is spend time with this new person. 

All of these are important context for how you're showing up productively. And so being kind to yourself, I think is really important if things aren't great. Or , just being aware of what you might need to tweak and how you might need to tweak your own expectation of yourself when different things are going on. 

On the flip side, there could be something that's going on in your life that's making you Uber super productive. And so if you are feeling that extra energy because of some kind of contextual thing that's going on in life or the world, then  tap into that and roll with it. Absolutely. 

Okay, we're getting close to the end here. So the next thing is know productivity is a practice. So, what do I mean by a practice? So I just like a meditation practice, something that you don't just do once you don't just sit down and meditate once to build a meditation practice, you need to come back to it time and time and time again. And you don't just get it the first time, in most cases. Part of building something in as a routine or a habit or a lifestyle or a ritual into your life. And you know, a lot of productivity is about that. Is that you have to keep coming back to it. And if you try something for a while and it doesn't work. But you feel like there was something to it? Don't just throw it out. Try it again. You know, I've had systems where  I've known there's been something good to it. Or  a way of working that I've, I've read about and I've had a play with it. And there's really been something there, but then life gets in the way and other things happen and you get busy and you don't follow through with it. But if you know, there is something there, come back to it, try it again. I say this with my meditation students all the time, you're going to fall off the wagon at some point in time, you're going to drop your practice because life gets in the way. And the important thing is, do you get back on again? 

So if there's something that has been working for you, or you've seen something  a bit of a spark of something working then come back and keep playing and keep trying until you do bake it in as a routine. Obviously, if there's something there though. If you try something and you're like, no, not for me, don't stick at it. If it's not going to work for you. 

Then finally, I think this is probably the most important thing with all of this is that you need to always be reflecting. Always reflecting on your own productivity practice as a whole, all of the things that make this up time, energy systems tools, ways of working rhythms, routines, all of it.  Keep coming back and saying, what's working for me. 

What's not working for me. What do I need to start, stop, continue or adapt? So that it works for me better. 

And also. Reflect on where do you actually need to give yourself some grace because maybe something is going on in your life or many of the things that I've spoken about? But by the same token when are you just being slack. I know that sometimes I can know, look at things on paper and go, actually, you know, I need to chill out here a little bit and let myself  not be as productive right now. And the pregnancy that I'm going through right now has been a great example of that and  just going actually, my body needs to take some more time here. My mind is not where it is usually. So, Hey it's okay. And then sometimes. I can look at myself  and go, you know what, Kate. You're really just kind of slacking off here. 

And so. Be real with yourself. Be adaptable, be reflecting all the time and know that productivity is a practice and keep at it. Keep learning. Keep growing, keep adapting. And know that what works for everybody else is not necessarily going to  work for you. And it's going to take time and effort to find your personalized productivity. 

So hope that's been helpful. If it has, please let me know. And I love to hear about some of the things that you have discovered about yourself and productivity. How have you personalized your productivity? Come and say hello on Instagram. Shoot me an email. LinkedIn, whatever you like. I'm always keen to continue the conversation and learn from you. What have you been doing? Because like any productivity wisdom, Take what I've said today. Work out what works for you and what doesn't. 

And if you'd like a little bit of help in getting to understand how your productivity flows within a day, you can head over to the website and pick up the focus and flow productivity tracker. You can get that at LeadingBeings.com/freebies.

All right. I will see you in the next guest episode. I'm really looking forward to sharing that with you. And I hope you have the most wonderful day.