Productivity – Page 8 – mardihumphreys.com

Battery Low

I have a wireless headset that audibly notifies me of certain conditions. When it connects she says, “Your headset is connected.” When it’s about to turn itself off because it needs charged she sternly announces, “Battery low.” I wish my brain would issue the same warning when I spend too long on a project without a break.

One of the factors in the Great Resignation is employee burnout. Are you fanning those flames? While growing up, maybe your parents and teachers trained you to finish your chores and homework before you were allowed to play. Now you’re internally compelled to finish a project before you can rest. The problem with that mindset is there’s always another project waiting.

I heard a word recently that’s stuck in my head: fallow. It’s an agricultural term referring to a field that annually grows crops and is intentionally set aside for at least one growing cycle. Going fallow allows the soil to recover. It gets rid of germs, stores nutrients, and retains water. I keep coming back to this concept in relation to my brain. When I think about letting my mind go fallow, I think of taking a vacation, a weekend off, or at least a lunch period. To me, getting rid of germs, storing nutrients, and retaining water sounds like washing my hands then eating a salad and chasing it with a bottle of water. But I’m beginning to think we all should let our minds go fallow multiple times during the workday. Research shows that breaks make us more effective, but are we taking them? If so, then are we doing them right?

What a break is not:

Switching from one task to another
Reading and replying to email
Returning calls
Running office errands
Cleaning

What a break is:

Standing up and stretching
Walking away from your workspace and equipment; around the block, if possible. Do something to temporarily get your blood flowing a little faster
Read a chapter in a novel
Text a friend
Play Wordle

Benefits

Some benefits of taking breaks are intuitive. For example, they recharge your energy, refocus your attention, and battle job burnout. There are also some not-so-intuitive benefits like increased productivity, physical and mental restoration, and increased employee engagement.

Methods

It’s counterproductive to only take a break when you’ve reached exhaustion. If brief rest periods make you feel guilty, then think of them as productivity breaks. Train yourself to perceive a pause as an efficient element of your energy management routine. Here are a few verified methods to help you develop a good habit.

Pomodoro Technique – 25 minutes of work, then a five-minute break, with a 15-minute break at least once every two hours.

Microbreaks – Five-minute breaks randomly taken at your discretion.

The Draugiem Group Way – in 2014 this company ran an experiment with their employees regarding the optimum time for breaks. Their findings indicate that working for 52 minutes then taking a 17-minute break is what the most productive members of their staff did.

How do you incorporate breaks into your workday? Please share your strategy in the comments.

Join the Resistance

When you give something your attention, you’re letting it rule your life for however long you think about it. This can be good, like visualizing what you want your slide deck to look like for next week’s presentation, or bad, like reliving last week’s argument with your supervisor. When it comes to deciding the best use of your time, energy, attention, and money, what you say no to is just as important as what you say yes to.

Attention Management

Attempts to increase productivity trace at least as far back as 1890 when William James wrote The Principles of Psychology. One of his statements is profound in its prophecy. He said, “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” Managing your attention is key to maintaining your priorities. Sounds easy, right? Then what’s stopping you from achieving your goals?

I can resist anything except temptation.
Oscar Wilde

The brainpower necessary to make wise choices is exhausting. Should you eat the doughnut or the apple? Should you watch TikTok or go for a run? Should you proofread your report or text your friend? When you concentrate on trying not to do something, it captures your attention. You’re more likely to give in to the temptation and do the very thing that you’re trying to resist. Instead, distract yourself. Also, limit your proximity to the temptation. For example, if you want to resist the doughnut and eat the apple instead, then hide the doughnut and put the apple at your workstation. Go for a walk around the block before eating anything.

Recognize the Real Enemy

Setting boundaries is easy. Holding them is difficult. Attention is like a muscle. You have to build it. You strengthen and lengthen your attention span every time you identify who, what, when, where, why, and how you got distracted from your goal. Then, change one or more of those variables to produce your desired result. For example, I’m a process improver. I analyze undesired results and reverse engineer them to identify where the outcome began to veer off course. Then, I imagine different choices to envision how they each may produce more desirable results. In terms of self-control, this could look like:

Undesired Result – Your deliverable was late
Veered off course – You missed one deadline
Analyze –
- Were other projects with similar deadlines competing for your attention?
- Was the deadline not communicated?
- Was the deadline communicated but you forgot to calendar it?
- Were you waiting for someone to get back to you with key information?
- Were you interrupted by an emergency?
- Were you distracted by social media?

The answers will dictate the next iteration of the deliverable process. For example, if you missed the deadline because you couldn’t resist the temptation to scroll through social media for hours everyday, then locking your phone in a drawer until break times will be added to the process because it will help you control your technology, behavior, thoughts, and environment. All these are factors that can distract you from reaching your goal.

How do you manage your attention? Please share in the comments.

I’ll Think About Procrastination Tomorrow

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make when they go by.”
Douglas Adams

I felt bad about moving the T in my S.M.A.R.T. goal back. AGAIN. Then I discovered Hofstadter’s law. In 1979 cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter said any plan you make will always take longer to complete than you expect it to; even if you over estimate how long the plan will take to complete. So, it’s not just me; it’s all of us. In fact, intentionally pushing back deadlines, or procrastination, can be a useful tool.

Purposeful Delay

The key to making procrastination a superpower is to do it intentionally. In 1927 Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnick proved that if you are interrupted during a task and you leave it unfinished, then you actively remember it until the task is completed. When you purposely leave a task unfinished in order to remember to do it, that is active procrastination. It’s different from passive procrastination, which is leaving a task unfinished because you don’t want to do it. For example, if you binge watch euphoria to avoid returning a client’s voicemail, then you are passively procrastinating. However, if by the end of an episode you discovered how to address the client’s concern and return their call, then you are actively procrastinating.

Problem Solving

If you pressure yourself to get everything done by the end of the work day, (shoutout to Team Inbox Zero!) then it takes self-control to let an issue go undecided. But when procrastinating to problem solve, you have to allow enough time for creativity to happen. The trick is knowing how long the creativity will take. You can’t tell your manager that you missed a deadline because you were thinking about all the possible solutions. For example, set a time limit, like half an hour, and do something totally unrelated to the challenge you’re trying to resolve. Walk the dog, play solitaire on your phone (or with a real deck of cards), shoot some hoops. Switch to a physical activity that engages more of your senses and less of your brain. Revisit the project after your set time is up. Whatever new avenues you now see to explore, limit your choices to those.

Priority List

Intentional procrastination is useful for prioritizing. In some cases if you put a task off long enough, then you realize you don’t need to waste your time doing it. For example, at the end of your work day you make a list of what you did not get done today and intend to get done tomorrow. If there is a task that ends up on that list every day for a week, then at the end of your work week think about why you didn’t accomplish it. Is the task necessary? Is it a lengthy process that needs to be broken down into multiple tasks? Is it a task you can delegate to a direct report?

How do you make time for procrastination and still meet deadlines? Please share in the comments.

Time for a Brand Refresh

Soft skills are hard. It takes years of practice to hone interpersonal skills, build character, and cultivate a professional attitude. They can take longer to learn than advanced JavaScript and are more critical to job performance. Soft skills are based on making wise choices. They are so important that four years ago I started writing about them weekly. In a world that daily iterates thanks largely to technology and COVID, soft skills are game-changers for the future of work. Employees who can successfully navigate fluid situations are extremely valuable. Over the next month we’ll explore four broad categories of soft skills: wisdom, communication, leadership, and self-awareness. First, let’s clarify terms:

Hard Skills: These are technical skills you learn through education, practice, and repetition. You can prove these skills with a degree or certificate; for example, mastering a second language, getting your PhD in physical therapy, or earning your Project Management Professional certification. These skills are temporary and change as technology evolves.

Soft Skills: These skills aren’t dependent on acquiring education. They are personal attributes you accumulate through life experience. They help you interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. They are broad and difficult to quantify. They are permanent and required for every job.

Wisdom is a Soft Skill

Wisdom is knowledge gained through experience over time. Organizational psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant says, “Wisdom is being fast to learn from others’ errors to slow the rate of yours.” You attain wisdom by collecting as many facts and as much truth as you can to make the best decision you can in the time that you have to make it. Here are three ways you use wisdom at work:

Emotional Intelligence – You have learned how to competently manage your emotions when you are under stress. You recognize when emotions are governing someone’s behavior and can empathize with them. You are able to identify someone’s motivation and use it to influence them both verbally and non-verbally. For example, you have a personal rule to wait 24 hours before replying to an email that makes you angry.

Time Management – You can plan strategically (you have to-do lists for today, tomorrow, next week, etc.). You can remain focused long enough to get into flow. You have boundaries around work-life integration. You put in the time necessary to grow trusted relationships. For example, you booked a recurring calendar appointment for the last hour of your workday on Fridays to update your monthly expense report.

Performance Under Pressure – You developed the patience to prioritize instead of criticize. You recognize that a looming deadline tempts you to cut corners, but you also remember garbage in, garbage out. Experience has taught you that ideas and solutions come faster after you’ve taken a break. For example, your biggest client threatens to leave. Instead of looking for a team member to blame, you personally call the client for feedback.

The fast pace of business makes managing our impulses, waiting for processes to run their courses, and looking at the big picture and where our selfie fits in it hard. So may we please re-label soft skills with an adjective that better describes them? What do you think of human skills or professional skills? Please share your ideas in the comments.

Off-balance

COVID-19 and its variants have allowed us to blur our boundaries between work and not work for the last 21 months. For whole industries The Great Resignation is fueled by the results. As 2022 approaches, society contemplates the future of work and how to make it sustainable for both employers and workforce. In the meantime, what if you tried integrating your job with your life instead of striving for work-life balance?

Isn’t Work a Part of Your Life?

Why are the two entities compartmentalized and put on a scale? When you assimilate what you do for a living into the rest of your life, it’s easier to bring your whole self to both. For example, if you work for a small business, maybe you have to handle accounting as well as on-boarding new hires. When you apply those pivoting skills to work and not-work responsibilities, you create flexible solutions for both. You may have to pioneer these types of innovations at your company. People are creatures of habit. How likely is it that your manager will offer to meet with you to brainstorm ways you can do your job outside of the office? Since you know how best to accomplish your projects, you have to demonstrate how your plan works best. For example, make sure your manager knows you are creating win-win situations for all the parties involved. Wasn’t the client impressed with your dedication to their account when you joined the videoconference from your car during your child’s basketball practice? You also have to monitor your boundaries. Remember that a task you do for your employer is work whether you are doing it in the office at 9:00AM or at your kitchen counter at 9:00PM. Communication (with management, teammates, clients), prioritizing (urgent vs. important), and organization (empowering others to help both at home and work) are key elements for successful work-life integration.

Declare Your Boundaries

To gain some control, try block scheduling. It may help you with the logistics of integration. These blocks can be however long you want. Maybe start with thirty minute blocks and increase up to an hour if you can manage it before taking a break and moving on to the next one. Obvious blocks can be your current work projects broken down into tasks and family medical appointments, but remember to schedule not-so-obvious blocks for exercise, self-care, and leisure. This also helps you see what activities you value and how much time you really need for them.

Change is Hard

Our relationship to work is changing. Employees have more leverage than ever right now. Workforce is waiting to see how governments will respond to the call for reformation of childcare, living wages, and paid time off policies. Employees are shaking up the business community with their insistence on flexibility like shorter work days/weeks, and hybrid work models. While we navigate this transition, do what you need to do to take care of yourself, especially your mental health. You can both do your best for your employer and yourself.

How did you integrate what you do for a living into your life in 2021? Please share in the comments.

Distracted December

The only thing I love more than making to-do lists is crossing items off them. But I feel something inside tugging on me to stop and pay attention to the holidays before they all pass by. If you feel the same, then here are some suggestions for reconciling work productivity and holiday celebrations.

Plan

What are the top three things you absolutely need to accomplish by January 1, 2022? Schedule them on your calendar and block that time. When you’re doing one of these tasks, concentrate on it until either it’s done, or you’ve gotten as far as you can in one sitting. Do not allow interruptions and distractions. Do not check your mobile or multi-task. Multi-tasking is like treading water. You work hard but don’t get very far. In this plan remember to schedule time for:

Checking with the people from whom you need information. Ask them when they are taking time off. This will prevent you from either interrupting their holidays or putting important projects on hold
Margin. If you think a task will take thirty minutes, schedule at least forty-five to complete it. If you’re done in forty minutes, take two of them and stare off into the distance to give your eyes a break before tackling the next project
Yourself. It’s the secret sauce of productivity. Even if it’s to spend the day in your PJs sipping coffee and reading a novel, take time to rest, recharge, and reboot
Buying gifts
Celebrating. Ask your co-workers what holidays they’re observing and invite them to share their traditions at the all-team party. BTW, leave your phone in another room so you aren’t tempted to check it
Attending a holiday networking event. The holiday season is a good opportunity to both make new acquaintances and deepen relationships with business associates you recently met
Adjusting the plan. In mid-December look at the bottom of your priority list and see what you can put off until after January 1st

Break

Take care of yourself. Get up from your desk and stretch after an hour’s work. Drink a glass of water instead of a caffeinated drink. Get enough sleep. Reward yourself with a break to do whatever you want to for fifteen minutes (power nap, check Facebook, watch a cute cat video) after finishing a task.

Analyze

At the beginning of January, analyze your data. Answering these questions will help you improve the end of 2022:

Did you accomplish everything you wanted to? If not, what stopped you?
What did you do well?
What could you improve?
What do you wish you’d done differently? How will you make that adjustment next time?

You’re juggling parties, shopping, traveling, children’s events, etc., and you’d rather be watching Elf than working on the end-of-the-year report. Set your boundaries, communicate them, and enforce them. The earlier in the process you do this, the more understanding your team and manager will be.

Do you have a plan for finishing 2021 strong? Please share in the comments.

Purposeful Procrastination

Here in the Digital Age where business moves at the speed of data traveling through fiber, if I’m not productive every minute I’m at work, I fear that I’m being lazy. Since emails are tasks someone wants us to do and they arrive 24/7/365, it seems I’m not the only one with boundary issues. In terms of time management, we put off completing a task because we have other tasks that are either more urgent or more important. Or, we put it off because we don’t want to do it. But what if we use procrastination as a tool to preserve our boundaries?

If/Then

If we restrain ourselves from replying all to a group email asking for volunteers to organize the office holiday party, then are we lazy or are we allowing someone else to step into leadership?
If we proofread the slide deck for tomorrow’s weekly team meeting because the team member assigned to do so hasn’t done it yet, then are we being helpful or are we doing their job for them?
If we accomplish a last-minute errand for a co-worker, do we then set ourselves up for accomplishing more last-minute tasks for this co-worker in the future?

This is Not the Admin You’re Looking For

For example, sixty-three minutes before my team was scheduled for a video conference with a client, the account manager emailed me saying that the client needed to reschedule. He tasked me with:

Notifying the other team members that the meeting was postponed
Checking their availability for the new meeting time the client proposed
Rescheduling the meeting on our video conferencing platform
Updating the meeting calendar invitation

When this task arrived in my inbox, I was preparing for a different video conference huddle that was only fifteen minutes away. I had time to send a quick group email, but I chose to ignore the account manager’s request and prepare for my imminent meeting.

Sixty-eight minutes later, the emails from my teammates flew, reply-all style. The account manager ended up completing all the tasks he attempted to assign to me.

Confession: I intentionally procrastinated.

Sorry (Not Sorry)

It was hard to restrain myself. I felt bad for not preventing my teammates’ confusion and for using them to force the account manager to do his own administration. But apparently, I did not feel bad enough to go ahead and do the account manager’s administration. I prioritized my boundary above everyone else’s convenience.

Proceed With Caution

Having said (and done) that, please remember that we should exercise good judgement when evaluating such situations. Using restraint to enforce boundaries can look like procrastination and can be detrimental to our brand. We need to examine who may be impacted and how negatively before we intentionally delay action. In the above example, three people were inconvenienced for a relatively short period of time and my brand was positively impacted because I’m not the team’s administrator. I used the passage of time to help me hold that boundary. Hours after the incident, I replied to the account manager’s original email. I suggested that it’s probably not a best practice to rely on me to complete last-minute tasks as evidenced by this incident. I have not received another last-minute task from him since.

Have you ever intentionally put off work? Why? Please share in the comments.

Going off the Rails

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln

How do you know when the axe is sharp enough? Overthinking is a pattern of behavior where your thoughts swirl in an endless negative loop. These thoughts produce fear that clouds your judgement. Instead of preparing you for positive next steps, you get stuck. How thin is the line between preparation and overthinking?

Why It’s Bad

Your brain is trying to reduce the anxiety caused by your situation’s uncertainty, but overthinking typically just produces more questions to worry about.
It may deter you from making rash decisions, but as a habit, overthinking is a gateway to excessive worry which can lead to stress, anxiety, depression, OCD, and/or PTSD.
Pondering all the possible outcomes to a decision is fine, but when it prevents you from choosing one of them, that’s a problem.
Do not confuse overthinking with self-reflection. Self-reflection results in learning, insight, and gaining perspective. Overthinking results in dwelling on everything you don’t have control over and feeling bad about it.
Overthinking projects that are on a deadline gives you less time to complete the project. For example: taking so much time deciding what you’re going to wear to your client presentation that you run out of time to adequately rehearse the presentation.
If you are busy overthinking a situation, then you are too distracted to notice new opportunities.

What It Feels Like

You lose sleep because of the repeated negative thoughts of how you feel about the problem instead of how you’re going to solve it.
You have trouble making easy decisions (e.g., where to go for lunch).
You second guess your decisions (e.g., I should have known in the interview that Joe Sixpack was a bad hire).

How To Stop

Distract Yourself: Your brain will come up with possible solutions when you leave it alone for a while. Take a break and listen to a few minutes of your favorite podcast.
Journal: Stop and write down what triggered the overthink. After a week, read what you wrote. Do you see any patterns? Make a plan to deactivate the trigger the next time it happens.
The Practical Test: When you are spiraling, ask yourself, “What evidence are these thoughts based on? Is it legitimate? Is there someone I trust that I can ask?” If your thoughts are illogical, unreasonable or impractical, they are overthink.
Change Your Environment: Enlist your endorphins in the battle. Get outside and go for a run or walk the dog or ride your bike.
Worry Time: Schedule a recurring weekly appointment on your calendar for worrying and limit it to fifteen minutes. This accomplishes three things: you control when you allow the worried thoughts, you limit the time you allow yourself to worry, and by the time the appointment comes, you may no longer have anything to worry about. Begin your worry time with this question, “Can I do anything to change this situation in the next twenty-four hours?” If yes, then stop thinking and take action. If no, then put the thought on the agenda for the next scheduled worry appointment.

If you can’t stop ruminating on your own, it can damage your mental health. A trained therapist can give you exercises and accountability to pull yourself out of the overthinking doom loop. Learning how to flip your negative, repetitive thoughts into positive ones is a skill worth developing.

What do you do to pull yourself out of overthinking? Please share in the comments.

Sleep On It

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” is the hustler’s motto. There are at least a couple of movies and a couple of songs with that statement as the title. It implies that strong people don’t need sleep. In reality, getting adequate sleep not only makes us stronger, but also smarter, and not getting enough sleep can eventually kill you.

How Much is Enough?

A recent study by the CDC found that 41 million Americans in the workforce are sleep deprived. How many hours an adult needs varies by person; it can be anywhere between six and ten. When you don’t get enough, you accumulate a sleep debt that sooner or later your body will force you to pay. If you feel moody, are making more mistakes than usual, or falling asleep in meetings, then you aren’t getting enough. That lack of sleep can lead to poor decision-making, depression, and/or burnout. If you deny your brain the time it needs to recharge, then it will punish you with poor functioning, like trouble focusing on tasks, misunderstanding communication with your team, and difficulty controlling stress. These indicators can manifest in as few as three consecutive nights of sleeping six hours or less.

Why is it Important?

You need to be physically healthy to do your best work, and getting enough sleep is key to your physical health. Your body repairs its tissues, manufactures hormones to fight infections and viruses, and lowers your blood pressure while you sleep. Also during sleep, your brain constructs and reinforces neural pathways that help you remember things you’ve learned, which strengthens your ability to solve complex challenges at work.

Best Practices

Get on a schedule. Go to bed and wake up at the same times every day. Then, before bedtime:

Three hours: Finish eating, and drinking caffeine and/or alcohol
90 minutes: Finish vigorous exercise
60 minutes: Turn off the TV, cell phone, and laptop. Read a real book, listen to soothing music, or meditate instead
At bedtime: Eliminate light and noise and adjust the room temperature; cooler is more conducive to sleeping

Damage Control

After a sleepless night:

Try to begin your day with exercise, outside if possible. You could go for a run or ride your bike, but a brisk walk through nature while breathing in fresh morning air and listening to your favorite songs followed by gentle stretching will also put you in a good mindset to face the day.
Your body may try to rest at an inopportune time later in the day. If that happens, it’s more productive to take a 15-30 minute break to let your brain rest than to keep plowing through your to-do list.
Caffeine may get you through the morning, but the crash could have you zoning out during your afternoon Zooms. If you can’t grab a 15 minute nap, then take 10 minutes to either meditate or eat a healthy snack and chase it with a glass of water while watching an uplifting video; maybe this one. If you don’t have 10 minutes, then take one or two minutes to either stretch or take a few deep breaths.

Many of us have trouble sleeping since the advent of COVID-19. What are some things you do to get a good night’s sleep? Please share in the comments.

It’s About Time

When did the United States know it was time to bring workers from the fields to the factories? Who decided working eight hours a day for five days in a row was the best schedule for optimum productivity? The 40-hour workweek became a law in the United States in 1940. If we haven’t thought about how long it should be since then, may we please use COVID-19 as the trigger for redefining how long it is now?

Not News

How long both the workweek and the workday should be is not a new conversation. One of my favorite thinkers is organizational psychologist Adam Grant. He has lobbied for the death of the five-day workweek for at least a couple of years. There is plenty of evidence to support his position from respected sources like The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and The Huffington Post.

Mother Knows Best

The catch is, if employees spend less time on the job, isn’t it logical that the job should pay less? Mothers have struggled with this prevalent employer attitude for years. In Mika Brzezinski’s book, Know Your Value: Women, Money, and Getting What You’re Worth, Carol Smith, former publisher of Elle magazine told Mika, “I love hiring women (for) four days a week because they actually will produce at least five days’ worth of work for four days’ worth of pay.” As an employer that’s a benefit to her, but as a woman, it is a detriment. Her story in the book goes on to note that the moms of young children who work for her are willing to do anything to have a four-day workweek including accepting 60% of their salary.

Proof of Concept

Of course, employees do not want to make less money, but why should employers shorten the week without also shortening the paycheck? Here are two examples. This article talks about a four-day-workweek-no-pay-reduction experiment the company Buffer offered its employees. To shorten their workweek, they cut back on meetings and social events, sped up the pace of their day, and improved their focus (e.g., employees reported spending 35% less time surfing the web). The experiment was so successful, it’s still running. Buffer made $21 million in revenue in 2020. Also, American businesses should vet the plan Iceland commissioned from Alda (Association for Sustainable Democracy), an Icelandic non-profit, and Autonomy, a British think tank, to condense the workweek. These two organizations partnered to run two large-scale trials of a four-day workweek from 2015-2019. They published their results in June 2021. In addition to productivity remaining the same or improving in their test-subject companies, the study also concluded that employee welfare markedly increased (e.g., less burnout). Even if employers prioritize revenue over employee well-being, these studies prove a four-day workweek is profitable.

Life always holds an element of uncertainty. Did we really need a pandemic to remind us of what our priorities should be and how far we’ve strayed from them? Let’s rethink the current workweek model and consider what compensation for productivity could look like in 2022.

Would you rather be paid for your time or your productivity? Please share in the comments.