WRITTEN BY MANAGING DIRECTOR, MEG RAIANO
Being Productive Everyday
I’ve been struggling recently with being productive. It’s easy to get bogged down with all that’s going on in the world and now that we’ve all been working from home for what seems like an eternity, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and unproductive.
I recently re-read a book I originally read well over ten years ago when I was back in college, “The Creative Habit” by Twyla Tharp. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1596286134600{background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text]It got me to thinking about how I can try and move myself into a more productive state on a daily basis.
I often wake up feeling very lump-like. I wake up relatively early, between 6-6:30 every morning, to let my puppies out. After they’ve had their morning stretches [among other things] outside, we head upstairs to brew a pot of coffee. I then pop on last night’s episodes of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Fallon to catch up on what I missed when I was sleeping [yes… I do go to sleep well before 11pm each night, I love sleep, sue me]. Usually while I catch up on my late night comedy news I also give myself a good stretch and try to prepare myself for the day ahead. The optimal word in that sentence being TRY.
There are some days it’s just not going to happen. And by ‘it’ I mean anything. There are days where I cannot focus even the tiniest bit. I do what I can but I know for my own wellbeing and the wellbeing of my clients and employees, I need to do something small to make myself feel productive and like I didn’t waste a day.
I’ll make a list of things I need to do, whether a written one or just going through the items in my head. After I’ve made that list I’ll choose one item on it, usually the smallest task with no real effort needed to accomplish it and I’ll do that first. This helps set me off in the right direction for the rest of my day.
Being productive doesn’t have to mean the completion of a huge project. The ability to feel productive is going to start your motor running. That initial piece of productivity, no matter how small, has the potential to propel you into creating something more magical throughout the day.
The moral of this story? It’s not the actual thing you completed that helps your productivity, its the feeling of productivity or accomplishment that will propel you forward. So start small, and you’ll see eventually that your productivity will increase over time.
“No snowflake in an avalanche feels responsible.” – Voltaire, and that’s true for productivity. Even the smallest of tasks will help you snowball into full force.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]