Why we don’t get done what we want to

Are you getting enough done?

Do you struggle to get through your to-do list?

What is the Real Key to Productivity? Why don’t we get done what we say we want to?

Like most people, I have various demands on my time (work vs family mostly), and any remaining can be allocated to hobbies and entertainment (“me-time”, if you are lucky).

What we do with the time we have available, outside of what your boss demands, is largely up to us.

Therefore the first crucial factor is prioritisation – where you allocate your time determines your results. What often happens is we end up with 20 top priorities. That’s clearly never going to work and leads to overwhelm. Saying ‘No’ to the things you can refuse at this point becomes vital.

It’s also going to be easier to do the things you really want to do, or at least have sufficient motivation for.

As Chris Brogan says in his tweet:

https://twitter.com/chrisbrogan/status/473155711837691904

If you allocate the time and have motivation to succeed then you are more likely to achieve your goals.

Agree to all of that? Good.

Here is what I think is the secret, all of the above aside …

Energy.

Motivation/enthusiasm/drive can give you energy, but not enough for the long haul. Just like stress can be motivating over the short term but after a while your productivity suffers, as does your health. You can not push yourself over the limit every day. Your results, relationships and quality will only decline. It’s self-defeating.

Where does your time and energy go?

Your first task is to work out where you are spending your resources. Are you prioritising the right things? Are you wasting time or energy? Could you allocate these resources more effectively while still getting what you need to done?

I use Rescuetime to monitor what I do on my desktop computer (and I really need to have it running on my laptop – maybe there is a phone app too? Ah, only Android, ah well). The image above is showing a quick-win that I can make that will have a profound difference to my energy and time. I am spending over 30 hours per month just on email. Actually just on gmail so that doesn’t include time in other email apps!

This is a huge time and energy suck, and I need to be more conscious about  email habits over all, but definitely reduce the time I spend in it. Communication for me is an energy drain because I am an introvert – if I can batch and schedule my communication, then take recovery breaks, my overall energy, attention and productivity will improve.

How do you feel?

All of this goes some way to explaining why some tasks seem effortless and others seem like a chore, even when you really want to work on them. Like my fiction writing.

How do you feel about the tasks and projects in front of you? A feeling of weight, of dread, or of excitement? Would you drop everything right now if you could, or are you putting it off?

Can you identify why?

 

I have as of today, 13 days to get Robert a draft of a story. Since making that pledge I have done research and planning, the parts that allow me to day dream and fit in bits and pieces before going to bed. This has added up to a small story worth of words with not much to show for it as a deliverable, but hopefully it will inform my story and make it better.

Now I have a crunch to actually write.

Part of the procrastination is analysis paralysis. Part is fear (fear of not being good enough and the dream dying). The remainder is being mentally tired from working. This is mitigated somewhat by self-medicating – coffee to get started and booze to switch off – but there is only so much coffee and alcohol I can drink before I have created another problem in trying to solve one 🙂

 

If I am going to do this I need to make sure I have the energy to do it, and that means I can’t keep working the way I have been.

We will see if I manage …