Productivity with Purpose

When Governor Cuomo of New York announced the Stay-at-home Order for all non-essential workers, New Yorkers immediately worried about the ramifications of the coronavirus on The City That Never Sleeps. However, many were also inspired—naively or as a means of coping—to improve productivity. Like them, I contemplated the hours I’d get back in my day by not commuting. Before quarantine, extra time to learn new skills was sparse, but quarantine made it seem possible.

Four months later, I am astounded at how quickly that inspiration morphed into overwhelming pressure and anxiety about being productive. Why would anyone think that a global pandemic is the right time to be productive? A possible answer is that a busy and overworked lifestyle, rather than a leisurely one, has become an aspirational status symbol according to recent research.

Productivity: Expectation vs. Reality

Now that many Americans work from home, the lines between work and life are blurrier than ever. With some of the highest unemployment rates the nation has ever seen, we are feeling intense pressure to be productive and prove our value at work. Many are putting in extra hours to maintain job security—an already common practice in the American workplace even before the pandemic.

Meanwhile, others are still adjusting to the new and evolving demands spurred on by COVID. Parents have learned about the joys and struggles of homeschooling while taking Zoom meetings with their teams and managers. Now that school’s out, parents will need to navigate keeping their kids entertained for hours while they attempt to work. Tasks like grocery shopping take much longer (or cost more if you are able to use a delivery service). Businesses only allow a few people inside at a time, creating long waits to enter. 

Then, there are all the marketing messages that underscore the pressure to be productive and busy. Just check your inbox. You’ll likely find several companies urging you—and millions of other Americans—to fill presumed downtime with their online language learning, digital cooking, or fitness classes.

What were once simple tasks have become exponentially complicated, consuming more of our time than we could have predicted. The time I thought I’d “get back” during quarantine vanished before I even grasped it.

Effective, not Productive

This fixation with productivity and busyness didn’t suddenly emerge with the first case of COVID-19, however. This culture traces back to our country’s early pilgrim roots, many of whom believed work was a gift from God, and hard work was a way to honor God. The pressure to be productive was further embedded into American identity when founding father, Ben Franklin, said, “Time is money.” 

Whatever the origins of our busyness culture, one thing is to be clear: There is nothing inherently wrong with being a busy person who desires a productive lifestyle. What we should contemplate about all this busyness however is, “To what end?“

Our mission at Yomez is to help you be the most effective version of yourself, and help you greet the day with confidence so you can accomplish whatever you set out to do. 

Notice I said effective. Not productive. 

As previously mentioned, there is nothing inherently wrong with being busy or with pursuing productivity. However, you must tie purpose to your productivity. When you connect purpose to productivity, you become effective. It is at this intersection where, although the pressure doesn’t disappear, your actions take on new, more relevant meaning.

Effective. Productive. Efficient. Tomato. Tomah-toe?

Productive, efficient, and effective are adjectives that are frequently used interchangeably despite having very different meanings, particularly within the context of productivity. Understanding the difference can help you make the most of your time.

What does it mean to be effective or to get the right things done? It means that your actions and the resources it takes to complete those actions (time, energy, money), align with your goals. It means being intentional and ensuring that the investments you make with your time will give you the return you seek.

What we can learn from a road trip

Imagine you and your friend take a trip to Montreal and decide to rent a car to scope out the neighboring city of Ottawa, about 210km (130 miles) west. You both look into what car will get you there quickly, with decent mileage per gallon. You want to be efficient with your time and money on how you get to Ottawa—so a slow car with poor fuel economy won’t cut it. Finally, you find the right ride, pack up, and head out onto the open road. 

Your estimated trip duration is two hours and 10 minutes. There’s little traffic, so you’re making excellent time, and there’s plenty of gas in the tank. One hundred minutes and 210km later, you realize that you’ve accidentally traveled east to Notre-Dame-du-Sacre-Coeur. 

You covered 210km under the estimated time of arrival and have plenty of gas to spare. The trip was productive and efficient, but only in the context of moving from one place to another and the resources used. When we consider the goal of getting to Ottawa, the road trip was not effective, as the time spent and the distance traveled did not bring you closer to your destination. 

When it comes to productivity, we cannot judge an action’s efficiency or effectiveness without a goal or objective to contextualize it.

Where are you going?

When you contemplate or reflect on how productive you were at the end of the day or a long week, ask yourself, “Productive in what context and against what criteria?” 

Crossing things off from a to-do list indicates productivity, but are your actions effective in bringing you closer to accomplishing your goals? Do you have goals? Use these questions as a prompt to clarify how you’re using your time. When we fill our days with busyness or activities with little or no meaning to us, we perpetuate the cycle of being busy and feeling anxious about it.

Colleagues-turned-friends and I connect over zoom once a month to nurture the bonds of friendship during quarantine. During one call, the group took turns to talk about what they’ve learned about themselves during quarantine. One friend shared, “I learned that before the pandemic, I was spending a lot of time doing things I don’t actually care about, and spending time with people who aren’t that important to me. I don’t plan on going back to that way of life after this is all done.” 

When you have a grasp on what’s important to you, you gain focus and direction. You invite purpose into your productivity and, in turn, into your life.

Pursing Purposeful Productivity

As I mentioned before, our mission is to help people become the most effective version of themselves. If this is something you seek, keep reading. Below are tactics we compiled to help you achieve direction and purposeful productivity.

1. Create a personal mission statement.

A personal mission statement defines who you are as an individual and identifies your purpose across the various roles you play in life—child, employee, friend, partner, etc. It outlines how you pursue your purpose, and why it matters to you. 

The book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, suggests beginning with the end. Think about your funeral; doing so can help bring clarity to the type of person you want to be and what you value by asking questions like:

• What will be said about me?
• How will I be remembered?
• Who is at your funeral? Who isn’t?

Your personal mission statement is a great place to start when you want to understand what’s most important to you and setting goals.

2. Set goals.

Like in the analogy of the road trip, goals are destinations in life’s journey. Without goals, how do we know where we are going? Deciding where we want to go is easier said than done, however. 

• Dream a little. If you find this challenging (which it is), start by outlining dreams or visions of what you’d like to do and accomplish. Once you have a few things written out, pick the most exciting or motivating one. Then begin to make it more specific. Try to remove ambiguity from this goal to visualize it better. Make sure that it’s realistic, achievable, and about you. 
• Plan of action. When you have a better understanding of your goal, you can start creating a plan of action. Consider the timeframe in which you’d like to achieve your goal. Then create sub-goals that will help you reach your larger goal. Think about small actions you can take each day or week to accomplish your subgoals. Write it all down.

This method is a simplified version of how you can start setting goals but is useful in creating direction. If you want to learn more about goal setting, join our self-guided workshop.

3. “Marie-Kondo” your life.

Take inventory of your time and activities/tasks. What are you spending your time on, and why? Be honest with yourself. If it doesn’t bring you joy, fill a critical need, or bring you closer to your goals, it’s probably time to remove it from your life. Or, at the very least, drastically minimize the time you spend on that activity.

4. Pause and…

Everyone must take time to press pause, even if they’re living purposeful productivity. Remember to pause and:

• Make time for fun. It can’t all be hard work. Make time to do the things you enjoy that perhaps don’t align with a goal. Fun, creativity, and leisure are essential components for driving effectiveness. Don’t neglect it. 
• Reflect. I’m not sure that my friend would have had the realization that she spent too much time on things she didn’t care about had she not been forced to slow down. Make sure it doesn’t take another global emergency before you stop to reflect on what you find meaningful and what you want to get out of life.

Quiet the Noise

There’s a lot of pressure on us today. The next time you get sucked into busyness culture, come back to your goals. You’ll find that the noise or the pressure to perform will gradually minimize as you discover and prioritize what’s most important to you.