How to overcome shame for not doing enough
Productivity / / January 06, 2021
It can be difficult for people who are engaged in mental work to assess their productivity. There's always the next message to respond to, the next idea to work through, the next meeting to attend. No wonder we find it so difficult to stop working on evenings and weekends. We no longer understand at what point we have done enough in a day. The feeling that we are constantly unproductive translates into stress, overload, and ultimately burnout. Here are some tips to help you deal with this feeling.
1. Change your attitude to productivity
For the owner of a farm or plant, increasing productivity means increasing production without wasting time and resources. But this approach is meaningless to apply to personal effectiveness in the information age.
We focus on the amount of work done in a day: read all messages, attend all meetings, cross 50 items off the to-do list. We switch almost every 20 secondsScreenomics: A Framework to Capture and Analyze Personal Life Experiences and the Ways that Technology Shapes Them
between applications and rarely spend more than 20 minutes doing one thing. Such switching negatively affectsMultitasking: Switching costs the ability to concentrate and follow through. But this is how most of us work, because we are used to extolling permanent employment. After all, if you are busy all the time (no matter what), it seems that you are needed and valuable.Therefore, to get rid of the feeling of shame, you first need to understand that being productive is not just doing business all day. It means doing the right thing.
Useless employment | Productivity |
Collate mail regularly to keep your inbox empty | Check email at certain times of the day and don't reply to everything instantly |
Participate in all meetings | Set aside time slots for advanced work |
Remove low priority tasks from to-do list | Complete one difficult and important task |
Try to do as much as possible in a day | Perform important tasks regularly and disconnect from work at the end of the work day |
Remind yourself that being productive means doing important tasks regularly. Plan consciously and spend your time. As soon as you feel that you are being sucked in by the stream of constant employment, ask yourself if this is a business that you need to take on now.
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2. Learn to see your progress
When we have a huge goal in front of us, we do not notice progress. Day after day, it seems to us that we are not getting close to the finish line. Naturally, this gives up and a feeling of shame arises.
This does not mean that you need to completely abandon ambitious goals. Just break them down into small steps. This will eliminate the feeling that you are not moving forward. And doing small tasks will charge you with enthusiasm.
As writesThe Power of Small Wins. Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School, of all the factors that stimulate mood, motivation and insight during the work day, watching your progress in important work is the most important. We feel content and motivated when we look back over the past day and see that we are making headway in what matters to us.
3. Create a support system
Another source of shame is a difficult goal with no system to support you on your way. We set such goals, and then we think we have failed because we lacked the willpower. We expected motivation to appear and help us get down to business. But the paradox is that it is born in the process of work. Therefore, it is so important from the very beginning to create for yourself a system of tools that will help you move forward even when you don't want to at all. Here's what you need.
Time tracker
Time is our most valuable resource. The more effectively we use it, the more productive we feel at the end of the day. But more often than not, we do not even know exactly where it goes, because we do not follow. For this you just need time tracker. The program keeps track of what sites you visit, how many minutes you waste and what the whole work day is spent on. You can also keep records manually, but this option is less accurate.
Electronic planner
It makes it easier to sort tasks according to their priority, set deadlines, and keep track of what you're focusing on. Some, like Todoist, provide statistics on completed tasks and the ability to track your productivity for the day, week or month. Planners now the mass, so choose according to your taste.
Method like GTD
Getting things done (GTD) is a methodology for productive work. She helps to organize the fulfillment of obligations without unnecessary stress. In short, according to it, you need to record all incoming information, distribute tasks according to lists and plan the day in accordance with them.
4. Learn to disconnect at the end of the day
If we do not separate our work life from everything else, even in our free time we are haunted by the thought of tasks: it seems that something else needs to be done. In such a state, it is impossible to rest and recover.
Psychologists have identifiedThe Recovery Experience Questionnaire: Development and validation of a measure for assessing recuperation and unwinding from work four elements that help disconnect from work:
- Suspension - physically move away from the work environment and tools.
- Relaxation - be alone with your thoughts to digest the past day.
- Inspiration - devote time to hobbies and hobbies.
- The control - create a shutdown ritual and follow it every night. For example, such an action could be a walk or shower.
Focus on these points so that your mind and body are relaxed and you are not haunted by the feeling of unfulfilled tasks.
5. Determine what “doing enough” means to you
Because of our desire to succeed, we often push ourselves to overwork instead of setting small, achievable goals. In most cases, this brings unnecessary fatigue and frustration.
Look for that threshold, upon reaching which you will be happy with your success, but at the same time want to move on. A good tool for this is method of goals and key results (Objectives and Key Results, or OKR), which is used by Google and other corporations. It is a goal setting system that links what you strive for with metrics of success. Thanks to it, you can set your own success rate for each business, freeing from the "all or nothing" mindset.
Here are examples of using the method for work and personal purposes.
Objectives | Key results |
Increase blog user engagement |
|
Improve user support system |
|
Spend more time with family and friends |
|
Learn to surf |
|
Remind yourself that the tasks will never end. Learn to stop when you've done enough to go home happy and ready to continue tomorrow.
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