Do you wish you could be more productive? Do you wish you could look back at your day and feel like you’ve accomplished enough to feel successful? Are you hard on yourself when you get to the end of the day and you’ve barely made a dent in your to-do list?
It may be you’ve been working under some misconceptions about what productivity looks like and how to get there.
Here are some common misconceptions and myths about productivity.
- The busier I am, the more I’m getting done. Not necessarily. It may be that much of your effort is wasted because of an inefficient plan. Working smarter is more effective than working harder.
- I can operate full steam ahead all day long. Actually, you can’t. Humans are not machines. They cannot function 24/7 and they don’t operate at full efficiency all day long.
- You’ll have time to sleep when you’re dead. If we don’t get enough sleep now, we might be dead a lot sooner than we’d hoped. (See above.)
- I work better under a deadline. You may work faster when a deadline looms, but it won’t be your best work. A rushed job leads to more mistakes and fewer creative solutions.
- I don’t have time to take a break. Pushing through a task when you are weary may seem like the quickest way to finish, but experts say taking short effective breaks will enable you to work faster and smarter.
- I’m more efficient when I multitask. That may be true if by multitask you mean listening to a podcast while you exercise. However, if you are trying to do multiple cognitive tasks simultaneously, you are actually being inefficient. Every time you force your brain to switch tasks it costs you time and focus.
- I’ll feel like it/be more motivated/do a better job on that task tomorrow. Odds are, if you don’t feel like it today, you won’t feel like it tomorrow either. Stop procrastinating and face it today.
- Always do the easy stuff first. That’s a good way to fill your day doing busywork and never accomplish anything truly important. There will always be a list of busywork projects waiting for our attention. Most of them are neither important nor urgent.
- A clean office is an efficient office. Don’t confuse tidy with well-organized. What’s important is how fast you can put your hand on the information you need when you need it.
- A day isn’t productive if I only accomplish one thing. Productive people know that doing what’s most important is better than doing a whole list of easier but less important tasks.
- It’s quicker to do it myself. Or is that just your excuse to maintain total control? Yes, it takes time to train others, but the long-term dividends are often worth it. (Even if they don’t do it to quite the same as you.)
- Practice makes perfect. Unfortunately, not all practice is equally effective. It is possible to spend hours strengthening muscles or skills that won’t help you succeed.
- I can always focus when I really need to. Actually, science says you can’t. Modern brains have become addicted to the happiness hit provided by game apps, social media, and other distractions. Like most skills, you must practice maintaining focus on the task at hand, or the siren call of distractions will sabotage your concentration.
Which of these myths do you struggle to overcome? What other myths do you battle in your daily struggle to get stuff done?
