Defining your Productivity : A Practice
“Focus on being productive instead of busy”
What a great and simple quote by Tim Ferriss. I am guilty of allowing busy-ness define my productivity, even though I know deep inside; it just isn’t true. Busy doesn’t necessarily mean productive, yet a lot of us cannot separate the two. For me, if I’m not juggling a thousand things at once, or sharing multiple finished products at all times, it means that I have failed, and my entire journey as a creative individual was a fluke. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we rob ourselves of joy instead of actually being and feeling productive.
If you are anything like me when it comes to this, I wanted to share a practice that I’ve been doing lately to help me get back into a more balanced, kind and fruitful mindset. I invite you to work on this with me!
Defining Our Work in Periods
Lately, I’ve been paying close attention to what I’m doing within a certain period of time. I’ve been doing these self “check-ins” where I lay out what I’m focused on (whether big or small), and I place it into the context of my week, month, quarter, or even a specific season. This can be thought out internally or written; whatever helps you the most. Here are some examples of some of the things I may have said in past:
“This week, I plan on posting a couple items on social media, and doing prep work for future interviews”
“This month, I won’t be able to do as much Craft Talk work because of my schedule, but I do have a few Dogtown Studio Session scheduled, so I’ll still get to do creative work.
“This summer, I feel like I should slow down because I’m feeling kinda burned out. I’ve been very creative the past few months, and it’s good for my brain to shutoff once in a while”
“This __________, I only want to focus on __________”
Before continuing, I’d like to emphasize: This is NOT about simply listing out your schedule. This practice is actually about creating boundaries and thresholds to define your productivity.
The purpose of listing out your focus within a period is to create anchor points to clarify what you should consider as “productive”. Without this anchoring, you will find yourself in an endless revolving door of disappointment because you weren’t “productive enough”. If you haven’t set those boundaries yet, you will always be worried about what you could be doing (which could mean EVERYTHING), rather than honoring what you’re actually capable of within this specific period. The goal of this practice is to re-train our brains to start accepting those weeks that you would previously deem as a failure, as a true win. To fully believe that even though you could only complete one creative task this week, that you ARE productive and creative. Coming from someone that struggles with this, it is definitely easier said than done. Without fail, I’m sure we will find ourselves reverting to old patterns and hearing those “not being productive enough” voices creep up. Hopefully with time, we can actually start embracing these boundaries as healthy tools rather than weaponizing them against ourselves.
Ultimately, being consistent with this type of practice means that we can get one step closer to fully accepting the productive and creative person that has always lived in us.
Good Luck Friends,
