Six More Weeks of Productivity

While Groundhog Day on February 2 is usually a bellwether for the … well … weather, I’m using it in the sense of the 1993 movie starring Bill Murray. He has to repeat the same day over and over again until he learns his lesson.

I actually don’t like the movie very much, but the message of doing the same thing over and over again and not getting anywhere does resonate with me. (Maybe that’s why I don’t like the movie!)

Definition of insanity

Albert Einstein is usually the one credited with saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Whether it’s in business or in personal life, many of us do seem to get on the same treadmill and wonder why we’re not getting anywhere.

How many times have you said at the beginning of the year, This will be my year to X! And about this time (early February), you've decided that X will never happen. Or you continue to hope for X without actually taking the steps necessary to make it happen. 

Maybe because you don’t know what the steps are, or because you have a mindset block about what you need to do. Either of these is conquerable, but you need to be honest with yourself about what’s really going on. 

My X, in case you’re wondering, is losing weight.  And in business, filling my prospect pipeline.

What is your productivity “thing”?

When I talk to clients and prospects, they often have one “thing” that they believe will make them more productive. Sometimes they’re right, but not always. If you think that finding the right technology tool will solve all your problems… you are almost guaranteed to be wrong. 

Maybe 0.01% of people struggling with productivity are just missing the one tool that will make them suddenly a powerhouse of efficiency. But more often it’s a habit, a way of working, or a system that they need.

Is your “thing” spending too much time scrolling through your social media feed? Or you feel overwhelmed by your task list and don’t know where to start. Or you know you’re not getting enough sleep, or you’ve decided that you don’t have time for exercise. Or you can’t focus on your work due to constant interruptions. Or …

Maybe you’ve got more than one “thing”. What’s the major one, where solving it would have the biggest impact on your business?

Get off the hamster wheel

One of the more unusual things I’ve done in my long and utterly nonlinear career was working as a financial consultant for safety consulting. Which might not make a lot of sense at the moment (yes it was a little weird) but stay with me here.

When you’re a safety consultant, you normally have several project teams and one of them is Incident Investigation. Every time there’s a safety incident - and that doesn’t have to be an actual accident, it could be something that almost happened - the investigation team has to figure out what led to it. 

It’s really a matter of root cause analysis. Because the first answer to “why did this thing happen” is usually not the true, fundamental answer. You have to drill down to get to it.

One tool we used was the “5 Whys”. Why did this happen? Answer. Why did that happen? Answer. Why did that last thing happen? Answer. And so forth. Sometimes it takes more than 5 whys, sometimes it takes 3 or 4. But once you reach the answer, then you can do something about it, instead of doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

What’s the root cause of your thing? You’re not getting enough sleep. Why? Because you can’t get to bed early enough. Why? Because you’re checking emails until late at night. Why? (Seriously, why? What are you going to do at 11 pm? Why not wait until you get to work to look at the email?) 

Do you have a habit of staying on your phone until late? Maybe you need to create a wind-down habit that involves recharging the phone in a completely different room. Or maybe you need to pick up the books you keep meaning to read before bed instead of your phone.

Once you’ve figured out the root cause of your thing, you’re more likely to find a solution that actually solves the problem instead of addressing a symptom.

Recap

If you’re not productive, chances are you’re doing something over and over that isn’t serving you. Figure out the root cause of your block and address it so you can accomplish more during the day. You won’t have to work 12 hours every single day to get everything done.