3 Little-Known Factors That Could Affect Your Productivity

Have you ever rolled through a stop sign while driving… as you barely tap the brakes?

There’s often not much incentive to cease the “rolling stop,” unless you’re caught by the police or in an accident as a result of “not stopping.”

Unfortunately, this “rolling stop” often carries over into other areas of our lives. Before we know it, our lives are hurtling forward at a crazy pace that scarcely leaves room for a breath.

Worse still is the idea that this is the way it has to be. That this overwhelm is “normal” and there’s no way to change it.

This just isn’t true!

It’s not easy to manage the overwhelm of life, yet it is possible.

I know between my own medical issues and those of my parents, in addition to running a business, as well as the responsibilities of being an adult, I experience overwhelm to varying degrees.

At the same time, I know it would be so much worse if I hadn’t discovered three issues that people fail to tackle:
1. Follow-through
2. Re-prioritizing
3. Self-care

As long as these factors are ignored, your productivity will be impacted.

Here are strategies I use to combat these productivity perils.

Follow-through. When you’re attending meetings all day or seeing clients without a break, there’s no time to complete follow-up tasks. In fact, it’s highly likely that you took all of the information you gathered in these appointments and put them into a physical or virtual pile. Then you went to your next activity.

This is how “things fall through the cracks.”

Instead, you need to plan a STOP. You can schedule time after each meeting for follow-through or arrange a longer slot at the end of your day.

Either way, it is imperative to design your schedule so that you have adequate time to complete administrative tasks.

Re-prioritizing. At the beginning of your workday you see the three most important tasks for the day. As you start working, you get an email alerting you to an emergency situation. Without thinking, you immediately switch to that job. Later in the day, another person brings another assignment of highest priority. You shift to that while all other activities fall by the wayside.

At the end of the day, the original three tasks are incomplete and you’ve missed a critical deadline. If you’d taken 30-seconds to evaluate the two intruding situations, you might have discovered that you could have renegotiated the deadline for one and that the other could have been delegated. Or you may have determined that the new task is more critical and that expectations about one of the original ones should be adjusted.

A brief PAUSE at each juncture could have made a huge difference in your day.

Self-care. You understand the importance of exercising and getting adequate sleep. You have great intentions of making changes. But you’re watching something exciting on TV and don’t get to bed until after midnight. Or your exercise clothes are in the car so you can go to the gym after work, but then you work late.

In either situation, a brief stop to consider your choices may be beneficial. Maybe you decide to set a loud alarm on the other side of the room so that you have to get off the couch after you watch one show. Or maybe you say to yourself, “While I’d really like to stay up, I know that if I have a good night sleep, I’ll be well-rested for my appointment tomorrow.” It’s possible to schedule a workout with a friend or with a coach to ensure you get to the gym.

Self-care increases your productivity. Time to place some self-care STOP signs in your schedule.

Bottom-line: you need to PAUSE at the STOP signs during your day to maximize your productivity.

Which of these factors are easiest for you to practice regularly: follow-through, re-prioritizing, or self-care?

Share the factor along with one strategy that works for you. We can all benefit from your insight.