Productivity hack: Don’t get triggered
If you want to be monumentally unproductive, get mad.
Have an argument with your partner before an important meeting. Make a rational point to your parents that challenges their deeply entrenched beliefs. Read the news, or engage in a debate about ethics, morality, politics, or religion online. (i.e. things that literally have no “right” and “wrong”, and are entirely based on opinions). Put a lot of work into something then see a troll pop up and make your blood boil.
For most of us, it’s bad enough staying focused and doing what needs to be done on a normal day just working away on our laptops. Are you really doing the things that could save your company? Are you working on the right things? Or are you working on what’s comfortable, avoiding awkward sales calls and picking away at email and social media instead?
Now throw in an argument or a major disagreement. Now you have all of the above PLUS you have something front and center in your mind which is making you physically angry. You can’t talk productively with your co-workers. You can’t come up with new ideas. You feel more drained than usual. You’ve got to go and fix or resolve this “thing” before you can calm down and get any work done.
In 99% of cases, it will be someone else who triggers you. The worst cases will be in real-life, but things you read online can trigger you too. You already know that you need to avoid being around toxic people, but have you fully minimized their influence in your life yet? No-one’s saying cut anyone out of your life. Just tell them you’re busy a few times. They’ll get the message, and it won’t hurt their ego as much as a “I don’t want to hang out anymore”. If they say “You’re never around” just tell them you’ll sort it out soon. Amazing how well this works.
As for news: Let’s take it as red that you don’t watch the news on TV, or buy newspapers. (If you do, lol!). Here’s a method I use: If I see anyone mentioning news/politics in a negative light on Facebook, I instantly unfollow them. You still remain Facebook friends and they’ll never know, but they’ll never bother you with negativity again. There are people who give you energy, and people who take it away. Which do you choose?
I read Dan Kennedy’s guide to productivity recently and was pleasantly surprised to see most of the practices he recommends I’m doing already. He keeps distractions to a minimum, is known to be hard to get hold of (and he’s fine with that), batches tasks other people deem urgent, and generally creates a lot of space for himself to create. Political (and religious) conversations are designed to charge you up emotionally. I almost never bite. Here’s two phrases you can use to get-out-of conversational jail, for instance when asked about Brexit (UK) wtf is happening (America) “I don’t really follow news and politics”. If I get pressed the second phrase is “I think it will all be alright in the end.” A spin-off from another phrase I love “We’ll see.” Those phrases are great because they put an end to a line of questioning about basically anything. You haven’t told the other person they’re wrong, you don’t even need to propose an alternative, but you kick the can down the road to an undetermined time. And being that it’s normally an argument over opinions (so neither side can be right) the conversation will never evolve to a follow-up conversation. It’s like a variation on that classic rule from “How to win friends and influence people”: “Allow the other person to save face”. Once people take a strong, opinionated stance, it’s incredibly hard for them to back down, even if you defuse it with truth and logic, so…don’t. Presume they’re only doing it to get a reaction from you, and allow them to have their moment.
Finally, internet trolls. Firstly, let’s define the difference between trolling and pointing out a legit observation. Someone who points out “Rapportive got acquired by LinkedIn recently and have shut down most of the good stuff” to me gets a gold star and a reply. “Thanks for letting me know, I’ll remove it from my slide deck.” A clearly observable truth. Someone who takes an opinion based on something you wrote (normally the worst possible opinion) and spits it in a comment to try and bait you into a comment war should be ignored. James Altucher never, ever responds to trolls. His theory is for each time you reply, that gives another 24 hours of hate (minimum) before they get bored and moved on. As a side point, he noted some people on the internet are actually mentally ill. I’ve oddly taken that last bit to heart: If I read a troll post I tend to think “Ah, they’re just mentally ill”. It’s obviously wrong to be mad at someone who is mentally ill, so I go about my day after that. It will all be alright in the end.
