The great productivity lie.

If I got a dollar every time I hear someone say “I’m not productive enough” I’d probably be retired and living in a castle in the south of France within 5 years.

This is one of the biggest things that women come to me for coaching on. 

I have to be more productive. 

And yes, most of us could benefit greatly from getting better at time management, being more strategic with our actions and more focused when we do work.

But that's only part of the story. 

The other part is that often we’re striving for a perfectionist day dream about what productivity looks like.

We have this idea (largely taught to use by traditional business structures) that productivity means ALWAYS producing. We think that we’re supposed to sit our ass down at our desk and work for 8 hours or we aren't doing enough. 

It's even worse when we run our own business. Because then we often tell ourselves that we should be working ALL. THE. TIME. or our business won't be successful. 

That if we aren't the poster child for being productive, that we are failures.

We are taught to believe that our worth as people, can be measured by how productive we are. 

I’m here to tell you that view productivity needs to change. 

We need to stop believing that productivity is the same thing as how many hours we work. 

Time isn't what creates productivity. 

Strategy and focus is. 

Strategy allows us to not only be working on things that actually matter, but we can be strategic about when and how we do our work. 

The biggest mistake I see business owners make is not having a strategy, so they end up spending hours of their time on things that end up not actually making a difference. Using the “throw spaghetti at the wall and hope something sticks!” method, isn’t strategic.  

You need a strategy if you’re going to be productive.

Focus is also not something we do, it's something we create. 

It's a combination of being clear about what we actually need to focus on, rather than having mile long to do lists.

It requires support structures like good time management, and being well rested. Because tired brains don’t focus! (And if you have ADHD like me, some the structures will include how you work around your brains obstacles)

It requires the mindset that we have to learn and cultivate in order to allow us to deliberately put our attention onto something. 

Productivity is an environment we create for ourselves, not a giant dirty stick that we need to beat ourselves up with. 

So as you start thinking about this coming week, try asking yourself…

How can I support my productivity this week rather than beat myself up with it?