How to be a Time Travelling Productivity Wizard and Get Things Done.
Do you ever wish you could manipulate time? What if I told you that with the right mindset: you could do just that.
I’m sure we’re all familiar with that sinking feeling — when you’ve looked at your clock and realised that 5 minutes of scrolling through social media on your phone has turned into an hour? And that report you had to write — well, it just isn’t getting done this evening; again.
Time flies when you’re having fun. No, really, that’s a scientific fact. The more absorbed you are in something, the faster time seems to go — and that seems very counter-productive sometimes.
That’s because we, as humans, cannot perceive time accurately. We’re all subjective beings, and that means that any form of focused attention, such as engaging work, fun procrastination, or just not paying attention to time can make it go past in a flash, speeding your internal clock up and causing a nasty dip in productivity for the evening.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with chilling out on social media, but perhaps not when you know you might regret it later, when you could have been doing something that benefits you for tomorrow.
An experiment; one that would shape the world of psychology as we know it today, was conducted in the 1960s by Walter Mischel. Mischel was an American psychologist specializing in social psychology; the study of humans, how our minds work, and how our interactions affect each other. This great experiment studied the effects of delaying immediate gratification and impulse, and the long-term benefits of such actions. The gist of it was this: children of the same socioeconomic standing were brought into a bare room and offered one marshmallow to eat right now, or double the reward (two marshmallows) if they waited an unknown length of time for the researcher to return to the room. At any stage, the kids could call the researcher back into the room with a bell to tell them that they were giving up, and only wanted the one marshmallow.
The results were recorded, and these same children were monitored as they grew up. Astonishingly, the social & financial standing of those kids who delayed their reward of two marshmallows was found to be on average, of a higher calibre. According to Mischel’s report, it was amazing how some of these kids managed to control their impulses to ring the bell until their researcher came back into the room, delaying instant gratification for a greater, more fulfilling reward — some of them sat on their hands, some of them sang to distract themselves, and one little boy mimed eating a whole cake in order to resist the temptation of the single marshmallow!
This same theory can be applied today — it’s important to be able to get into the right headspace to stop acting on impulse when we need to, and keep our sights set on longer term visions. And we can aid this by keeping an eye on the objective time passing, by time boxing tasks — or even by drinking coffee!
And that’s why clocks may well be humankind’s oldest productivity-enhancing technology — they allow our brains to experience something we never could without machines: objective time.
Today, I’m going to take up a little of your precious time talking about how you can experience greater productivity and motivation both in and outside of the workplace, with a few mind hacks and tips and tricks.
Be Kind To Yourself
My starting point, and one that I myself have had to learn through trial by fire, is that to be productive, you have to be kind to yourself. You’re not going to be able to be kind or compassionate to others if you’re not kind to yourself. You’re not going to be able to work with others effectively if you’re constantly negative about your own input. And this negativity usually begins with a perceived failure. We “fail” and suddenly, we remember all our faults, our internal monologue becomes a harsh judge, and we abandon ourselves and look to whomever or whatever can give us comfort.
Kristin Neff, one of the leading self-compassion researchers and a TED speaker, has identified 3 main components of self-compassion: self-kindness, humanity, and mindfulness.
Self-kindness refers to acting in kind and understanding ways towards ourselves. For example, instead of being critical (“I’m so disorganized! I’ll never be successful!”), it would be better to catch those negative thoughts, and re-frame the situation: “I worked hard and I’ll make it next time. It’s not the end of the world.”. It’s also really important to take relaxation seriously, unplug from the endless clamour of the internet, and cultivate a rich non-work life.
We also need to realise that everyone makes mistakes! We’re not alone; everyone has flaws, despite what Facebook tells us! Accepting that we are not alone in our suffering comforts us with feelings of inclusivity rather than alienation.
Finally, mindfulness offers a “meta-perspective” on our hardships, helping us to not exaggerate our distress and become engulfed by it. If you view your thoughts objectively, rather than being drowned in reactive emotion, then it allows a much cooler, calmer response. For example, if you think of your problem as being a situation in a fiction book, it helps you to step back from it and assess the situation from a more objective position. This is linked with the self-control mechanisms I mentioned earlier that the children in the marshmallow experiment used.
So ask yourself three questions when you’re feeling overwhelmed:
“What do I need?”
“How do I care for myself already? Can I do that soon to re-charge?”
“What would I say to a dear friend in a situation like this and how would I say it?”
When we struggle, we tend to practice self-compassion not to feel better, but because we feel bad. It’s important to realise that a preventative, and not a reactive solution is required when it comes to self-care — it’s a system rather than a goal, which I’ll touch on later.
Find a Balance — Family, Friends, Health, Work
People are always going on about work life balance, and how jealous they are of people who “have it all” — good health, a good job, a supportive family, and loads of friends.
One way to think about work-life balance issues is with a concept known as The Four Burners Theory or the Four Lightbulbs Theory. Here’s how it works:
Imagine that your life is represented by a box with four lightbulbs in it. Each bulb symbolizes one major quadrant of your life.
- The first bulb represents your family.
- The second bulb is your friends and social life.
- The third bulb is your health and physical wellbeing.
- The fourth bulb is your career and work life.
As a human, your total energy or time output is finite and limited — imagine it is the gas for the stove, or the electricity for the lightbulbs. Because your output is limited, and you have to sleep, at any one time you will not be able to have all four lightbulbs/burners on fully. There is a dimmer switch for each, and you need to make a choice: there always needs to be a negotiation between all of these categories. Whilst it is perfectly reasonable and sane to allocate energy to all four of these, you may need to accept that it means not reaching your ultimate full potential in any one of these things.
This way of thinking may be uncomfortable or weird at first, but if you’re a worrier like me, it can help you to feel less guilty about not doing other things (exercise, spending time on cooking healthy meals, skipping time with friends to do work) by making a conscious decision about where you put your energy. There’s no shame in not becoming something you want to become, if you don’t devote any time to it. For example, don’t feel guilty about not being an Olympic swimmer if you’ve made an across-the-board decision about your energy, instead of committing it all into the health field.
But this is the real issue: life is filled with tradeoffs. If you want to excel in your work and in your family life, then your social lightbulb and your health lightbulb may unfortunately have to suffer a little. If you want to be healthy and succeed as a parent, then you might be forced to dial back your career ambitions.
What is the best way to handle these work-life balance problems? I don’t claim to have it figured out, but here are three ways of thinking about The Four Lightbulbs Theory.
Disclaimer: This section is quoted from a subscription email from jamesclear.com, and taken from ideas in the “Hello Internet” podcast by CGP Grey & Brady Haren.
Option 1: Outsource Lightbulbs
We outsource small aspects of our lives all the time. We buy fast food so we don’t have to cook. We go to the dry cleaners to save time on laundry.
Outsourcing small portions of your life allows you to save time and spend it elsewhere. Work is the best example — entrepreneurs and business owners can outsource the work burner. They do it by hiring employees.
The advantage of outsourcing is that you can keep the lightbulb lit without spending your time on it. Unfortunately, removing yourself from the equation is also a disadvantage.
Outsourcing keeps the bulb lit, but is it lighting your life in a meaningful way?
Option 2: Embrace Constraints: One of the most frustrating parts of The Four Lightbulbs Theory is that, ironically, it shines a light on your untapped potential. It can be easy to think, “If only I had more time, I could make more money or get in shape or spend more time at home.”
One way to manage this problem is to shift your focus from wishing you had more time to maximizing the time you have. In other words, you embrace your limitations. The question to ask yourself is, “Assuming a particular set of constraints, how can I be as effective as possible?”
For example:
- Assuming I can only work from 9 AM to 5 PM, how can I do the most work possible?
- Assuming I can only exercise for 2 hours each week, how can I maximize the muscle I build and the cardiovascular training I do?
This line of questioning pulls your focus toward something positive, worrying about never having enough time.
A third way to manage your four lightbulbs is by breaking your life into time-boxed stages. Vary the output of the burners and make trade offs at different stages of your life as necessary.What if, instead of searching for perfect work-life balance at all times, you divided your life into seasons that focused on a particular area?
The importance of your lightbulbs may change throughout life. When you are in your 20s or 30s and you don’t have children, it can be easier to chase career ambitions. The health and work lightbulbs are shining at full brightness. A few years later, you might start a family and suddenly the health bulb dims down while your family bulb gets turned up a few notches. Another decade passes and you might revive relationships with old friends or pursue that business idea you had been putting off. Priorities change, and it’s important to recognise this and be aware of how you spend your time. Yearning for something will only bring depression if you’re not willing to make changes or put in time to reach that goal.
You don’t have to give up on your dreams forever, but life rarely allows you to keep all four burners going at once. Maybe you need to let go of something for this season. You can do it all in a lifetime, but not all at the same time. “Commit to your passion with everything you have — for a season.”
And then quit.
Know When To Call It Quits
But how do you know when to quit?
One of the hardest things in life is to know when to keep going and when to move on, and that’s something that I’ve struggled spectacularly with.
On the one hand, perseverance and grit are key to achieving success in any field.
On the other hand, telling someone to never give up is terrible advice. Successful people give up all the time. If something is not working, smart people don’t repeat it endlessly. They revise. They reassess. They pivot. They quit. As the saying goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Life requires both strategies. But how do you know when to give up and when to stick with it? I’m going to tell you from my own experience, because quitting my first job when I did has turned out to be one of the best decisions that I’ve made for my own happiness and sanity.
So the first question you have to ask yourself is — do you have a nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right? If so, it’s maybe time to start exploring why that is, and what steps you can take to correct it. Quitting isn’t always the best option, but you definitely have to consider it when you’re weighing up a situation, and it may be that you’re just not happy or fulfilled.
It’s definitely time to quit if your goals no longer align with the tasks that you’re doing, or it’s just no fun any more. Stick at it if you see a light at the end of the tunnel, but if you don’t see a future that will potentially bring benefit and happiness in the end; it’s time to re-evaluate.
Another thing to consider would be your health. Your body is the greatest mirror of your subconscious mind when it comes to happiness. If your body is aching, your friends and family are telling you to slow down, your sleep is interrupted with nasty dreams about your tasks, then it’s time to take a step back and evaluate where you are.
Disclaimer, this is by no means a formula for when to quit; this is from my experience only, and you should consult friends and family before quitting a commitment you’re involved with — just because something is challenging doesn’t mean you should quit!
Measure Your Progress
In order to reach this state of peak performance, however, you not only need to work on challenges at the right degree of difficulty, but also measure your progress. You need to be able to see yourself make progress in the moment, and whether that’s through performance reviews, completing assigned work tickets, fixing a bug, or having a rewarding meeting, we need to be able to see our small wins if we are to maintain motivation in the long term.
Wanting to improve your life is easy. Sticking with it is a different story. If you want to stay motivated for good, then start with a challenge that is just manageable, measure your progress, and repeat the process, showing yourself that it’s making a difference day by day.
Sustainable Behaviour vs. Sprint Goals
We all have things that we want to improve in our lives don’t we? — getting into the better shape, building a successful writing career, maintaining a successful relationship with our significant other.
And for most of us, the path to those things starts by setting a specific and actionable goal. What I’m starting to realize, however, is that when it comes to actually getting things done and making progress, there is a much better way to do things.
It all comes down to the difference between goals and systems.
Let me explain.
- If you’re a runner, your goal is to run a marathon. Your system is your training schedule for the month.
- If you’re an entrepreneur, your goal is to build a million dollar business. Your system is your sales and marketing process.
Now for the really interesting question:
If you completely ignored your goals and focused only on your system, would you still get results?
I think you would.
When you’re working toward a goal, you are essentially saying, “I’m not good enough yet, but I will be when I reach my goal.” This is a finite thing, and wires your brain to require effort only until this imaginary goal is reached. It’s essentially training your brain to be happy once a certain level is reached. But the human brain doesn’t work like that, and once a goal is reached, we are liable to slack off and return to our old ways. For example, a friend of mine spent 3 months training for a marathon leg. She trained religiously three times a week, but then once the marathon was over, she stopped running completely, and regretted it when she began training again the next year. She was back to square one, when she had achieved so much the previous year.
So commit to a process and a lifestyle, not a goal.
We place unnecessary stress on ourselves to lose weight or to succeed in business, and the problem with a goal-based mindset is that you’re teaching yourself to always put happiness and success off until the next milestone is achieved.
When you focus on the practice instead of the performance, you can enjoy the present moment and improve at the same time.
You might think your goal will keep you motivated over the long-term, but that’s not always true. Once you achieve a goal; what’s left to keep pushing you forward? Every time your brain has a success, you just change the goalposts of what success looks like. If happiness is on the other side of success, well, your brain never gets there. We’ve pushed happiness and fulfilment over the cognitive horizon as a society — and our brains actually flourish when you flip that on its head and come at things from a longer term and more positive perspective.
And that’s why systems are more valuable than goals. Goals are about the short-term result. Systems are about the long-term process, on a short term, manageable scale. In the end, process always wins, because pursuing happiness inch by inch rather than leaping at imagined targets can lead to a life that’s really worth living.
And in the end, the only thing that’s stopping you, is you.
Sources:
- “The Marshmallow Test” by Walter Mischel https://www.amazon.co.uk/Marshmallow-Test-Understanding-Self-control-Master/dp/0552168866
- https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/how-your-brain-can-control-time
- What is Mindfulness? http://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/SC.SE_.Well-being.pdf
- “Hello Internet” Podcast by CGP Grey and Brady Haren https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/hi-3-four-light-bulbs
