Ask IH: What helps you out of a productivity rut?
I'm sure everyone has been through it. One week, you're blasting through your to-do lists, starting on "optional" projects, feeling confident about your skills and ready to take on the world. Then suddenly, you're spending your days clicking through tabs, staring at your ever-growing to-do list, unable to get yourself started on any big projects. Every day you feel less and less productive, creating a vicious cycle:
Stress about your sudden lack of motivation>> Stress leads to lack of productivity>> Lack of productivity creates stress about your performance>> Stress about your performance>> stress about your lack of motivation. Rinse and repeat.
A few weeks go by and you realize, "I'm in a rut".
⚡️What have you found helps to climb out of the rut?
🛠What tools help you stay productive, or beat a period of anti-productivity?
What has helped you out of a productivity rut?
Its a constant struggle for me. The answer is simple, its just very hard to do. Make a list, prioritize what is most important and work down the list.
Other things I do.
(for me that is making invoices in Japanese)
(For me this is turning support email replies into knowledge base articles and keeping contractors on task)
What helps me? This group. If I am staring at a wall and feel like I'm stalling reading a few IH posts helps. It can be very motivating to hear how others are doing. Their success at times drives me further.
And, (and I mean this with as much empathy as I can) sometimes listening to other IH complaints/struggles reminds me of the progress I am making. Learning from other's failures is just as therapeutic (assuming I am smart enough to avoid their mistakes myself). And it reminds me to be grateful for everything I am blessed to have, and have learned.
On a more personal level, I subscribed to 15Five (15Five.com) and implemented Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) with my team. This has helped as it puts all our effort front and center for the entire team to see. It holds us all accountable to each other, and its been interesting to see how others have reached out when someone was 'in a rut'. Real teamwork there. While we are still new with 15Fives and can't call ourselves experts, we are already seeing the value from it.
HTH.
Balance and habits is how I work my way out of ruts. As long as the work is not too creative, I can schedule out my day with plenty of breaks for walks, exercise, youtube, etc. to keep my mind fresh.
It's definitely creative work that drives me into a rut! When I have tons of posts to write back to back, it becomes much harder. I've been working on restructuring myself to avoid overload with those tasks.
I definitely agree on habits and balance. Often times I have a whole day scheduled out on my notes as to force myself to stay structured.
Thanks for your input!
Have you tried any creativity exercises? There is a book called Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko. Sometimes it can be fun to pull it out and try one of the exercises in the book. It has all kinds of creative activities designed to change how you think about work tasks.
I haven't, but that sounds exactly what I need to be doing!
I am definitely going to check that book out, thanks so much for the rec.
Don't sit there and spin your wheels forcing yourself to work. If you're just not feeling it, go do something else. I had felt that if I wasn't productive I had to sit there and force myself until I was. This caused me to literally sit at my desk 15hr/day for months. Once I started saying "Go do something else, come back later." I started being more productive overall, because if I couldn't get WORK done, I could get other stuff done.
Make sure you're not burning yourself out. My above situation was also because I was burning out. I took 3 months off of anything that wasn't paid work. If I had 3 hours of paid work for the day, I didn't just sit there and spin my gears on work outside of the 3 hours. I did that work and went and did something else. Mainly watched movies and play Xbox.
Those are the only two things I did and now my productivity is soo much better.
Here's a screenshot of timingapp.com app I use to measure my productivity as a result of my changes.
https://i.imgur.com/joiYAMB.png
Hey Josh!
#1 is EXACTLY what I've been doing. I get in the headspace that I need to be at my computer working for 8+ hours or else "I'm not doing enough". It's a silly misconception that I fall into easily.
#2 is also something I've found myself encountering recently. Burnout is real and it can happen a lot quicker than people think.
I love that you measure your productivity. As a marketer, I'm pretty data driven. So maybe I need to apply that data-first mindset to myself.
Thanks so much for sharing.
The timing app has done wonders to improve my productivity too. If I look at my topbar and see a red <50% productivity number it kicks my butt into gear to get some stuff done, and when I see it at green and >75% I find myself chasing to see it grow.
I LOVE that! Definitely going to use this.
Tools are not the answer. Priorities are the answer.
I try to sandbox tasks and punctuate them with break in between. Multitasking doesn't work - one session, one task., or at least one theme. Burnout is a thing and it sucks - not too many sessions.
On a good day I'll put in 3-4 hours on one of my projects doing something that matters, grab some lunch on a walk down to the (Sydney) harbour to reset myself and regroup, rethink my strategy for the day, go home and do a few more hours, often on the boring stuff because I've had my creative fix / win for the day.
On a not so good day I'll sit at a desk for 8 hours and grind out the same old thing I've been doing for 20 years. I charge hourly on those days. They are not my days.
The difference in how I feel at the end of those different days is immense.
Own the day. Make it count. On the days you don't own, let it go.
I seem to do my best work in coffee shops, so the biggest "productivity hack" I've had lately has been to always go right to a coffee shop after waking up and put in 3 solid hours of work. That gets the day off to a good start, and even if I don't get anything else at all done that day I'll still get in my 3 hours.
Hey David!
It's funny, that's EXACTLY what I did this morning. I found myself constantly having such a slow start, not getting much done until 2 pm and then rushing and crunching at the end of the day. I think it's really easy to get synced into a trap of a schedule like that.
I'm going to keep this up!
Thanks for responding :)
Exactly - the act of leaving the apartment forces me to get up, get ready, grab my computer, and set it up in a new location. It seems that my brain has associated this with "okay now it's time to work". That subtle social pressure of "I probably shouldn't sit here watching Youtube videos or people will notice" also keeps me focused.
I figure if I spend $3 on coffee 5 days a week, that's not really that much to ensure my morning productivity even if I do this every day.
Definitely! I think the first thing in the morning approach is where I've missed the mark. I used to come to the coffee shop in the afternoon after lunch, but regardless of where you are, that's not always the most motivating time.
I've definitely found that if I can get myself going right off the bat, it's easier to keep flowing through task lists throughout the day. It really is a ripple effect!
The best thing I find when in a period of non-productivity is to just get myself to started on something important that I've been dreading for just 5 minutes. Nothing more, nothing less. I find that once I start, I'll end up doing a lot more than 5 minutes and often find more reasons to be more excited about the work.
Totally agree! It's the getting started that's the hard part. I like the idea of just saying "I gotta do it for 5 minutes" just to get yourself moving.
Thanks!!
My favourite tool for motivating myself to keep going is shipfast.xyz by @dinuka!
Thanks Ethan :)
Thanks for making a great product :)
Rather than a todo list app showing all the list with priorities, I use todoist where I can set todo list for each day. This helps a lot by seeing a short list for the day and a clear view of what to do in the next X days.
Its quite helpful as I use it in mobile and as browser extension which helps me adding tasks wherever I am.
www.todoist.com
I am in this right now, Kristen! I think it is something everyone struggles with.
As for your questions:
More than anything it is someone else that helps me climb out of the rut. Somone at work noticing something I put effort into, an email or message from an old friend asking what I am working on, etc. Those things motivate me to continue to "impress" if you will.
Todoist is my life saver. I use that and the Productivity Journal every day and it helps a ton.
I think an important part of this is recognizing this is just a human cycle and we are all flawed. Don't get down on yourself because you are human. Let the rut run it's course for 5 or 10 seconds then just hit back, hard.
Keep building! ✌🏻
This is exactly what I needed.
Definitely, just a human cycle and it happens to everyone. It's so easy for me to get overwhelmed or feel inadequate during those periods. Much needed reminder to just give myself a break!
#1 got me thinking: Maybe I need to be this person for other people! If I know other people go through this, I should actively think about ways to ensure I am recognizing great work around me and encourage that culture within my own network.
#2: Excited to check this tool out!
Thanks so much for responding, Nicholas! 🎉
Sure thing! I agree with you that it is important to be the person who strives to motivate.