In a world where you are constantly shown and sold the life of a productive person, it can be discouraging to feel like you do not measure up.
If we all have the same 24 hours in a day, why can’t I get anything done? is a question that you may ask yourself.
If we want to find a solution to the problem of not getting things done, we must first address the issue of why we can’t get anything done.
The Culture of Productivity
Productivity in this day and age has been advertised as determining factor in one’s success. On social media, people have made being productive an aesthetic and it has become something that people can aspire to.
Productivity Definition: Productivity generally refers to the ability of an individual, team, or organization to work efficiently within that time in order to maximize output.From Psychology Today.
The point of productivity, as the definition states, is to maximize output. There is no mention of the quality of work being put out, but the more you do the better.
When it comes to someone who can’t seem to accomplish anything, they may be confused because other people make it look so easy.
You don’t have a greater mission
Having a greater mission or purpose is crucial to sustaining a more productive lifestyle. Sustaining a productive lifestyle is not easy and there are so many things that we encounter every day that serve as distractions.
When you do have a reason in mind for why you do anything in the first place, the things that you say you need to do become not worth doing. Anything will be able to divert your attention.
There is a saying that goes, “Show me where you spend your money, and I’ll tell you your priorities”. If we modify the word money with the word time, the phrase is still telling.
When we truly look at where we spend our time, we can easily find what is important to us. If something is not important to you, you will not dedicate the proper amount of time required, if you dedicate any time at all.
If your reality does not match your expectations of yourself, this may be a great place to start.
You haven’t prioritized your tasks
The first step to getting things done is to get organized. When you are disorganized, you leave the decisions you make up to how you feel.
If you have spent any time letting how you feel run your life, you know that your feelings are unreliable and that they may not ever come.
Prioritizing your tasks to me is figuring out which tasks would hurt you the most if they do not get done. This is where you write out all of the things that you need to do and rank them in order of importance.
The things toward the bottom of the list are things that you can afford to leave for the next day. The things toward the top are nonnegotiable and need to be done that day.
When you choose to procrastinate, you have internal and external consequences.
These are easily avoided when you have a tangible list of tasks that you have prioritized.
You have no plan
A plan is the determining factor of success in many areas. Thinking through methods that will get you from point A to point B is essential to actually see progress.
When you want to move, you generally have a clue about your destination beforehand or the things that you want to accomplish or experience if you do not have a destination in mind.
There are benefits to being flexible, but if having no plan causes you to constantly jump around from project to project, you will never finish what you started and you will see no progress.
It is beneficial to pick a path and stick to it because you have a target for your efforts. Again, you can be flexible, but you will see the most progress from your choosing to be consistent.
You are relying on willpower
I consider willpower to be the brute-force method of accomplishing your goals. If you rely on willpower alone, you are susceptible to forgetting deadlines, uneven effort, exhaustion, and unsustainable tactics.
You can only force yourself to do so many things. It is a shame to do that anyways because there are so many methods available to help you set and reach your goals.
Willpower is incredibly inconsistent and highly volatile. If you overexert yourself for one week, you are highly unlikely to continue the project because you made it so difficult the first time.
You find the most success when you have a balance of output and enjoyment. If you have too much of either, you will not get the results that you want.
The time and energy it takes to think of everything on the spot and with the added pressure of the task needing to be done today make the whole experience unenjoyable.
I would not recommend using willpower as your main fuel for getting things done.
You have too many options
Another killer of motivation and reason for procrastination is having too many things on your to-do list.
If you are a chronic procrastinator and consider yourself to be less productive than you want to be, then having so many things on your to-do list can cause more harm than good.
Your list may not be realistic knowing in terms of what you are used to accomplishing. If you have effectively prioritized the things that you need to do, your list should not have more than 2-5 different entities on it.
For example, your tasks could be cleaning your apartment, mailing a package at the post office, and going grocery shopping. The tasks of cleaning your apartment, and cleaning your kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom are subtasks, they are not on the same level as going grocery shopping. So, you would still only have 3 main tasks on your list.
I would say that 3 different tasks per day are the sweet spot. You get a picture of what it is that you need to accomplish within the say and it gives you room to spread your tasks out.
If you have more than 5 things that you need to get done by the end of the day or else you risk missing deadlines, you probably have procrastinated on some tasks.
Accomplishing your 3 most important tasks every day should ensure that you are being productive and accomplishing things in a timely manner. By limiting the number of things that you can add to your list, you get very clear on what it is that you have to do.
Your expectations are too high
It is easy to accomplish nothing when your expectations of yourself are too high. If you don’t have a proven track record, you have never shown yourself that you are able to accomplish these things.
There is always room to surprise yourself, but if you are in the beginning stages of improving how you spend your time, you should be fair to yourself when setting standards.
You do not want to set the bar too high so that you miss it ad then discourage yourself from trying further.
The first benchmark that you set is indicative of how your journey will go. If you fail to meet the plan that you set on the first day, the likelihood of you continuing drops exponentially.
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