What do I mean by Holistic productivity?
My relationship with the concept of “productivity” is ambivalent. It usually conjures up images of tedious work that sacrifices quality of life. While trying to be productive, things like proper rest, family time, and leisure are often neglected.
But I find that this image doesn’t serve us anymore.
I believe that in times of hyper-connectivity with an overload of information and speed, we need a better and more holistic approach to productivity.
Let’s try to reinvent productivity by forgetting what we know and thinking about it.
Why do we need a new meaning?
Personally, I like the idea of “efficiency” and “right effort”. I’m constantly trying to improve myself and my environment. I enjoy creating for a living, earning money, spreading my ideas, and doing it all with the benefits of the modern world.
Nevertheless, I am not a person who works round the clock. The work I do is not merely a collection of tasks to be completed, but rather an opportunity for growth, fulfillment, and learning.
It is my intention to share a bit of my perspective about balanced work life. I wish to inspire you to change the way you view your work and leisure life. This includes family time, hobbies and rest..
I’l try my best. Let’s get moving.
Defining Holistic Productivity (and Time Planning)
Let me begin with a few word I used to define holistic productivity to myself. These words give me some direction:
“For me, productivity means getting things done, within the confines of my working hours, so that in my free time I can rest or engage in activities that are not for earning a living. Quietly, with devotion, and while knowing everything is just fine.”
There is a misconception that productivity demands a system of a certain technique. While I do have some systems to support and manage my activities in all areas of my life, the system itself is not what I measure my productivity by.
The concept of holistic productivity is beneficial to businesses, freelancers, creators, and entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, in essence it applies to everyone since it means building a routine based on constant practice to do the most meaningful work.
What is important isn’t necessarily the most urgent. It’s what emerges from my values and vision. If we don’t know what our values and vision are, this is definitely something that needs to be explored and defined.
Clarity and honesty about our wants and needs take time. Time away from the white noise of modern life. Time to ask ourselves deep questions about our lives.
When it comes to productivity, what is the first thing that comes to mind?
The number of tasks I marked off today is a common measure of productivity. However, if this serves as the only measure of productivity, we might be running in a rat race.
We need to put more emphasis on doing things that are meaningful to us. Otherwise, over time we will fall into the classic image of the person who works around the clock and spends time on the weekend to compensate for the hard work.
If a father changes diapers and makes sandwiches for his children, is he less productive than his wife who runs an association and spends the day doing meetings and emails? Both are productive in their own way.
Holistic productivity means we consistently devote our time and resources to the things that matter to us, rather than treating productivity as just a trend.
There is something liberating about it. In contrast to how much we accomplish, productivity is measured by how we focus our attention and time.
As a result of our popular productivity measures, we have been rewarded more for busy administrative work and given too little praise for meaningful work.
A measure of successful productivity would not be completing all tasks (that never happens, forget it). Instead, it would reflect how much time you spent with the people you care about the most. One thing you did that was significant and helped you progress in the areas you care about the most.
We can apply this perspective to productivity at home, at work, for leisure time, dietary changes or physical activity. At the end of the day instead of feeling “wow I did a lot of things” or “I was really busy,” you can say “I had a full and rich day.”
The basis of holistic productivity is a tendency and preference for action
I learned some very insightful lessons in this regard while working on my primary online course. Writing is a major part of my work. It was crucial for me to write lectures, marketing posts, mailings, and to write to myself.
I could not have taken a more rewarding action.
Despite this knowledge and understanding, I wasted a lot of time on Facebook wanderings and less critical administrative tasks.
Why? Because writing is more challenging.
But I remembered that consistently taking small, determined actions is the key.
It took observing the uncontrollable urge to escape into distracting activities and breathing into moments of discomfort to succeed.
I had enough time so I was flexible and persistent.
From this perspective, a few words about time management
We talk a lot about time as if it was something that could be managed. On this axis of constant change, we may be able to plan not the time, but only our actions.
So… time planning.
For a moment, let’s reverse this. How should we not manage time?
- Set a schedule and then ignore it. Do what feels right in the moment (checking emails? Facebook?)
- Spend our days responding to other people’s urgent issues and doing mainly superficial work, because we lack the focus and motivation to tackle deep and meaningful tasks.
- Leave no time for rest, thinking, or breathing.
- Not following through on the commitments and promises we’ve made.
- Not creating a routine that makes our lives easier.
- Feeling frustrated when we can’t stick to a schedule 100% of the time
We need to find the exact point where our time and energy intersect with our values, clarity, and vision. In this way, we will be able to focus on the things that are truly important to us and achieve them.
While it might seem obvious, many people spend their days doing things they don’t enjoy.
Among all the things keeping me busy, you will find a date with my wife, quiet minimalist runs, and Portuguese lessons. I believe you shouldn’t set your schedule in stone. Even 70-80% success is fantastic.
Schedules are meant to be a work framework, a plan that expresses how we want to spend our time. The schedule is not our boss. The schedule is there to ensure we are on the right track.
The tyranny of the urgent
For a moment, let’s consider the concept of “Tyranny of the Urgent” Charles Hamel, the author of this book published in the 1960s, makes the point in a simple way. He says that there is always a tension between urgent and important tasks, and most people, most of the time, let urgent tasks take the lead.
The definition of urgent tasks is those that need immediate attention, such as answering the phone, meeting goals, etc. In contrast, important tasks contribute to our long-term goals and fulfillment.
In many cases, a task that seems urgent to us is not actually urgent. We need to develop a strong filtering ability in order not to be tempted and constantly change the focus of our attention.
In itself, urgent tasks are fine. Life is dynamic and demanding, and we constantly move between commitments. We run into problems when urgency prevents us from completing important tasks.
As a result, urgency can turn into a tyrant that dictates our daily schedule and prevents us from being truly productive and achieving our goals.
Task prioritization
Prioritizing the tasks we need to accomplish is one of our greatest challenges in life. With growing responsibilities and various distractions, it’s no wonder that it is difficult to decide which tasks are most important.
Prioritizing makes our lives much easier. When we prioritize tasks, we lower our stress levels (because the most important things get done first), help us focus, calm our fear of missing out, and maintain a high level of productivity.
We quickly realize that there are tasks that seem urgent to us but aren’t. In addition, there are others that will probably never happen if we don’t take them into account.
We now find ourselves able to advance our projects despite the forces competing for our attention and time, rather than stumbling around in a chaos dictated by clients and colleagues.
How to prioritize? Read more about it in another article.
After prioritizing
Now that we prioritized everything is more clear. It is easy to focus on the really significant things now that we know what they are.
We are going to discuss time planning next.
As holistic productivity practitioners we have no inner ambition to become a superhuman who manages to complete 120% of his tasks on any given day. We want to be human beings with healthy aspirations who are able to carry out 70%-80% of our commitments after considering unplanned events.
And, of course, we feel good about ourselves.
What is the most effective way to do that?
Read my article about Time Blocking
The final and most important element of holistic productivity is breathing space. We strive to cultivate time management that respects our physical, mental, and spiritual needs.
We need breathing spaces between professional and creative efforts to maintain balance in our minds and bodies.
Do you ever feel like you don’t have time?
Often, it results from a suffocating schedule, which forces us to move quickly from task to task and always feel behind.
Why does breathing space matter?
- It can be a window of time we have cleared, a financial obligation we have reduced, or a project we have put on hold. It is not always necessary to look at the clock in order to create space. We can observe what distracts us, what weighs us down, stresses us – and see how it can be released or lightened in order to maintain a healthy flow of life energy.
- Having breathing space in our schedule allows us to feel in control. It gives us time and mental breaks to take a deeper look at things, to overcome troubles, and to direct the day harmoniously.
- It prepares us for the unexpected. We make the unexpected predictable. That’s smart, isn’t it? Since we have experienced the unexpected so often, we have learned that it is part of everyday life and spared some room for it in advance.
- It allows us essential rest and nourishment. Breathing space allows us to dedicate enough time to managing our energy. We are not built to work long hours in front of screens or to do hard, strenuous labor.
- It allows us to schedule things other than work. We design our schedules to include more than just work. Things that are fun and pleasant. Oh yes, outside of working hours. Stop bringing work home via WhatsApp or Gmail.
Let’s summarize
A holistic approach to productivity aims to counter the aimless pursuit of things that do not bring us fulfillment and joy. It invites us to deeply observe and design our external and internal working environments..
It is not a Sisyphean work that lies at the core of our human potential. Instead, it is our ability to produce abundance with the right effort, by cultivating and nurturing the resources that allow all this to happen.
Try it out and you’ll never look back.
