Productivity Breakthrough: The Secret to Unlocking the Feeling of Achievement, and the Know-How to Use Your Time Wisely

WELCOME!

If you signed up for the Productivity Breakthrough, then you will have been receiving a series of emails that walk you through a set of reflective exercises.

However I know that we don’t always look at emails every day, or they get out of sequence, or we get behind and then don’t know where to pick up again. Totally normal! So I created this page with everything in one place for you to come back to when it makes the most sense to you to do that.

Hopefully you didn’t land here randomly (although that’s OK too), and you know that what we’re trying to do is to explore the meaning we give productivity, specifically the relationship between what we do and how we feel so that we can find a feeling of achievement, as well as the reality of achievement. We’re looking for a deep knowing that we are making a contribution—that we are literally ‘showing up’, and that we can experience the sense of fulfilment that comes from a good day’s work.

Enjoy the activities!

DAY ONE: MEANING

Hello, and welcome to this series designed to give you a Productivity Breakthrough.

The very first assignment is a welcome, an invitation to participate, and a very simple question.

How does if feel when you know you are in that feeling of flow and using time wisely, when time almost melts away in fact. How does that feel?

Right underneath is a series of questions just like this that I’d encourage you to reflect on.

You might want to think about one of them over your morning coffee, on a walk, or spend a few minutes making some notes. Do whatever works for you but please do use it as an opportunity to empty your mind of anything else and see what comes to you fresh in the moment.

That’s it for the first activity. Now, I’d love you to take some time for yourself and reflect on the question I’ve asked above.

P.S., These might feel too simple, deceptively so, a nothing of an activity, but I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I promise, if you participate, there is always the chance to see something new.

DAY TWO: CHALLENGE

Moving on… here is the second of the activities in the Productivity Breakthrough.

How did you get on with the first one, which was designed to help you access how you feel. Was it hard? Easy? Boring ;-)).

The second assignment goes like this,

To notice what you’re defining as productivity, and to notice what you’re making that mean.

Here’s an example of how this might play out…

To notice what you’re defining as productivity…

I might notice that I’m connecting ‘productivity’ with getting things on my to-do list done.

So that’s part one of the activity. Easy, right?

Part two is then to challenge what I’m making that mean, this part,

…and to notice what you’re making that mean.

in this example, it looks as if I am judging my achievement by how many of the things on my to-do list I get through.

Well, at one level that might sound obvious—of course that’s a measure of something—of that there is no doubt—but it might quite have the meaning we associate it with.

Which is where we get snagged.

How much we get done is a neutral measure of… of nothing more than how much we get done. It tells us something, yes, but we set the target and how close we get to it is more a feature of what target we set than it is of how productive we are.

If we are associating it with a feeling, or with any measure of success or failure, then we are likely setting ourselves up for disappointment.

The main reason we feel dissatisfaction around productivity—the feeling that there’s a perfection we are never quite achieving, is because there is a gap between what we are doing and what we think we should be doing, or where we think we should be.

If we are setting ourselves a a standard that is always a little bit higher than the pace we’re working at, then is it any wonder that we never feel completely satisfied? It’s like that greyhound on the race track—the target will always be ahead, and maybe there’s fun in the chase, but failure to catch the rabbit is a feature of the system, not a failing in the dog.

In this activity I want you to look at where you might be (innocently) setting up gaps like this between what you think you should be able to ‘catch’, and the objective reality of how fast you’re chasing. There’s nothing to do here, just start to notice where you might have targets that have been created from some conditioning around what others do, or understandable desire for high standards.

This reflection isn’t to take you away from setting high standards, not at all, but simply to see the impact they can have on your well-being., and to start to refine what you measure and what you make it mean.

More later…

DAY THREE: DEVOTION

Welcome to the third part of the Productivity Breakthrough.

Just above, I suggested a reflection around what you are defining as ‘productivity’ and how much you can see the arbitrary nature of the standards we set for ourselves. The more we can see that the more agency we have to play with the targets we set and to lose any sense of judgement of what reaching them or not means about our own capability.

In this piece I want to take a slightly different direction and then we are going to come back and join up some dots over the next few days.

I want to introduce the concept of,

Devotion.

I love this word because, for me, it takes me out of the ‘doing’ mode, and moves me to a more ‘loving’, ‘thoughtful’, slowed down mode.

If i am devoted to something, I am doing it for its own sake, I am mastering my craft, or in service of someone else, or doing the work to the best I can, being with another person for them and only for them. I am not seeking a reward or recognition, I just am.

So, devotion…

Devotion may not be your word, but I hope you can tune in to the sense of what I’ve described and pick a work that works for you. Something that turns off your judging, reaching brain, and settles you in to a calmer, more loving place.

Something that takes you out of your personal self and moves you to something bigger, something where your focus is outside your personal self.

Now you’ve found your word, I want you to take a look at what’s on your agenda today and decide to devote yourself to the day.

Devotion doesn’t dictate how a day should go.

Devotion doesn’t care about interruptions or about mental challenges, difficult problems or technical hitches. Devotion simply does, without expectation and without preference.

Cherish your day.

DAY FOUR: PLAYFULNESS

Hello, and welcome to the fourth activity in the Productivity Breakthrough series.

In the previous one, we considered devotion, looking at whether that was even the right word, and starting to get used to the feeling of loving the work and committing for its own sake.

How did you get on?

….

Right now I want to move you in the direction of playfulness.

As well as a good feeling around productivity we also want to do stuff, to actually achieve, not just create a good feeling. And today’s activity will (hopefully!) open up some new direction for you here.

Taking leaps often involves doing things that we didn’t know were possible for ourselves. If you look back on your own biggest achievements, or things you are proud of, I wonder how much you see ‘you’ as responsible? Versus how much there was at least some serendipity or unexpectedness in the outcome?

My experience is that there’s a lot of the latter and even when I think “I” had something to do with it, when I really strip away the layers of what happened, there is usually less of me involved than I might think.

If we can’t predict those big outcomes, it seems to me that the best we can do is set up the context for them, and have fun while we’re waiting for serendipity to play her part. And one way to do that is to introduce,

Playfulness…

Rather than go into long explanations, I’d love you to try this for yourself.

Take something that seems lower stakes for you, and go play. Whether it’s sport, cooking, writing, creating a project with your team, whatever. Allow yourself to come with a sense of play and see what happens.

This is not a ‘tactic’ to create results but, if it’s true that we have less control over results than we think, then it seems to me we may as well enjoy ourselves while we’re waiting.

I know this isn’t everyone’s perspective, and it may not be yours, but if you’re prepared to try it out I’d love that, and I’d love to know how you get on.

Have fun!

DAY FIVE: THE POINT

Well done so far if you’ve worked through all the activities, and welcome to the fifth and final part of the Productivity Breakthrough.

In this piece I want to take you back over some of the past activities and join the dots of you on how they connect and how to create literal achievement and also the feeling of achievement.

The ‘problem’ we’ve been looking at here is what often shows up as perfectionism, the sense that we are never good enough not matter how much we do. That feeling itself can sometimes stifle performance, and sometimes it can drive us ever further and faster—which does not usually end well in the longer-term. And yes, sure, we can put a false ceiling and create ‘balance’ but that too can be limiting—we don’t want to do ‘less’ necessarily, we want to do what wants to be done, and to feel good about doing it.

I’d like you, first, to reflect on what you’ve seen so far through these activities. You can take as long as you like, go for a walk, or put it on the ‘back burner’ and come back another day.

Did you do the devotion exercise? (did you? really?). If you can answer honestly yes, then reflect on what you saw and notice the feeling of being fully devoted to something, and ask yourself,

How would it feel to show up like that, no matter what?

If you didn’t truly dedicate yourself to the activity, then go back and try it out again ^^^. These are not ‘teachings’ for you to take on as best practice, they are simply experiments for you to try out and notice what you notice.

OK, once you have a sense of where a good feeling comes from then maybe you can start to see that ‘the feeling of achievement’ and ‘achievement’ come from different places?

We want both, right?

So if a good feeling comes from how we show up and how present we are to the task or person in front of us, then where does actual achievement come from?

In the previous activity I talked a little about serendipity, and the sense that we have less control over things than we think we do. And… that the more we are ‘in the game’, the more likely it is that serendipity will show up for us.

If that’s true, at least to some extent, then it makes sense to be a little more relaxed around the targets we set for ourselves. Yes, they may be the thing that works, but it’s just as likely that the random meeting, or the unexpected idea, is the key to opening up a new, much bigger opportunity.

Our role is more like the one we describe as ‘showing up’.

To help you get a sense of that, I suggested showing up with playfulness. That may not be the way that is best for you, but bringing a lightness, a looser hold on the controls, anything that takes you away from ‘you’ being in charge is likely to help opportunities show themselves. if you can’t see them, you can’t take advantage of them, right?

I know this was a relatively simple set of activities, but it comes from much experience and expertise about where productivity comes from (and where it doesn’t) and I’d love to know if you’ve seen something and, if you haven’t but you still think there’s something to see, please do get in touch and let me know.

With love,

Cathy