Instead of being depressed because you can’t perform at superhuman levels all the time, readjust your expectations to fit your energy levels, and stop running your “battery” dry.This sixth and final step appears at the center of the PWF for a simple but powerful reason: It’s the hub holding everything together. If you can’t manage your capacity, your workflow will eventually stall or fall apart. Step Six is the most critical aspect of the entire process, because it underlies, supports, and influences all the other steps. Without it, nothing else is possible.
Many things can affect your ability to manage your capacity, but the most important factor is you: your health, your determination, and your energy level. So in this chapter, I’ll focus on the physical and mental factors directly affecting your capacity to remain productive throughout the day.
This final stage in the PWF makes everything else worth the effort. Throughout this book, you’ve learned to scale back and reduce, reduce, reduce. You’ve found ways to reduce your to-do list, your calendar commitments, distractions, information overload, and inefficiencies. Each reduction will increase your results and save you time. Learning to do less but to accomplish more will bring many benefits to you, your family, and your organization. And isn’t that what all that energy and activity is about?
Energy is capacity: the potential to do work, to enjoy life, and to achieve your goals. Energy affects everything—it’s the very axis on which your productivity spins.
Fortunately, you have the potential to dramatically affect your personal energy levels, and hence your productivity, simply by paying close attention to your health. When you feel well, you can accomplish more. But many people eat too much, drink too much, work too much, don’t exercise enough, and don’t sleep enough. It’s not surprising they’re less than fully productive when tired or ill: It’s hard to remain productive if you feel like putting your head down on your desk and taking a nap.
So never lose sight of this fact: If you don’t practice good self-care, you won’t be able to muster the energy required to practice the PWF on a daily basis. Therefore, take care of yourself in every way you can. Learn to reduce your energy expenditure, take breaks as you need them, get enough rest, eat properly, exercise regularly, and manage your mental health.
Imagine how much you could accomplish if at the end of your day, you still had extra energy. Would boosting your productivity boost your profits? How would the time you spend with your friends and family change? Instead of collapsing on the couch the instant you got home, what would it be like if you had the ability to focus on your loved ones? What if there was a way to accelerate your efficiency at work so you could devote more time to making memories with the people you love?
Are you allowing exhaustion to cripple you? Are you burning more energy than you can spare? In the American workplace, we’ve finally managed to overcome the idea of burning the candle at both ends … but only by replacing it with the idea of burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. While lauded by managers as a way of squeezing a few more minutes of work out of their employees, all this is really doing is making their employees tired. Too many people are trying to achieve success by working longer, when really they’re just spending more hours doing the same amount of work. Their productivity isn’t going up—work quality is going down as energy levels plummet.
I’ve seen the devastating effects of plunging energy levels. I’ve watched and listened to clients and friends pour out their hearts in private about the anxiety, the guilt, the fatigue, the shame, and yes, even the serious depression they’ve privately felt for spinning aimlessly on the “hamster wheel of life.”
Perhaps you’re chasing after achievement rainbows in the hopes of finding pots of gold, destroying yourself in the process. If so, your lack of energy, extreme exhaustion, and inefficient, unproductive practices may be robbing your soul of the greatest joys life has to offer.
You lose productivity rather than increase it when you overextend yourself. You’re not a machine; you can’t work more hours and produce more just because you decide not to turn off your power switch. In fact, productivity drops off drastically after eight hours on the job. When you think about it, it’s clear that in many cases doing less work, rather than more, is the better, more fruitful choice.
Let’s say you’re working on a rush project and decide to put in eleven-hour days for the next three weeks to finish it. How much do you really think you’re going to get done in those extra three hours per day? Let’s say your productivity drops by 25 percent after eight hours of non-stop work. Then, because you’re not going to get enough rest, it will fall another 25 percent for every hour after the first eight. Basically, your productivity is cut in half after the first eight hours of work. For three extra hours a day for five days, you’ll put in an extra fifteen hours, but it’s only the equivalent of seven and a half hours. So in those fifty-five hours, you’ll have actually netted forty-seven and a half hours of work (assuming everything goes smoothly). You’ve spent fifteen extra hours to get seven and a half hours—not a great return on investment.
Instead of being depressed because you can’t perform at superhuman levels all the time, readjust your expectations to fit your energy levels, and stop running your “battery” dry.
Oh, and by the way, the extra time you spend at work increases your chance of a heart attack by 67 percent.24 Is it really worthwhile to work those extra hours when the biggest return you’re likely to get for them is a heart attack?
Imagine preparing to run a marathon. You know the marathon will require a lot of training and will expend a lot of your energy. After months of training and preparation, months of pushing yourself right to the wall, the marathon day arrives. Do you hit the gym before you head to the course? Of course not! You need to be rested. Your body has limits, and if you’re already pushing those limits by running a marathon, you would never try to add more stress.
Handle your life and your schedule in the same manner. Know your limits and stick to them. This workflow process is all about helping you to achieve success while living within those limits. You’ll attain greater results while working less, have extra time to enjoy life, and end each day feeling better.
You can achieve without overdoing it, and you can start by learning to do the most you can with the energy you already have. Each of us has a finite amount of energy to spend during the day. You could say it’s your battery. Not all batteries are equal; so some people can expend more energy in a workday than others. Some people are more efficient at expending physical energy, and some are more adept at mentally challenging tasks. Regardless, at the end of the day, the battery is drained until it’s recharged. You can’t use more energy than you have.
Your goal is to equalize your energy expenditure with the level of available energy in your batteries. If you’re drained, your performance will show it. Your options are to either reduce your energy expenditure, or increase your battery power.
Don’t try to turn into superman or superwoman; be yourself. Learn to recognize your body’s signs of tiredness and listen to them. Set realistic goals of what you can accomplish each day, and then reduce your daily tasks until they can fit within your limits. If you have too much to do, use the triage method described in Chapter 1 to prioritize and cut things out of your to-do lists. Don’t push yourself into working beyond your limits. No matter what other people think of your schedule, the reality is that you can push yourself only so far. Too much time at work eats into the energy reserves your body uses to keep you healthy.
If you spend a lot of time fixing your own mistakes, you may be working more hours than you can bodily handle. Do you need to cut back on your work schedule, or do you need to repair your energy habits—or both?
No matter how spectacular you are, you can only grind along at maximum focus for so long before you get tired and mistakes start creeping into your work … and then your productivity drops like a rock. While there can be such a thing as too many breaks, you do need to pull back occasionally to recharge your creativity and energy. You do your best work when you’re well-rested. Bodies simply need time for relaxation and recuperation; there’s no practical way around it. So set aside periods of time for restoring your body and taking care of yourself.
First of all, step away from your work occasionally during the day; this is why most state labor laws mandate brief breaks in the morning and afternoon. At the very least, your breaks will clear your mental buffers and help maintain your energy.
Meal breaks are also important. Eat something small every few hours. If you go longer than six hours without eating, your blood sugar levels will drop, and you may become fuzzy-headed. So don’t skip lunch or just scarf down a sandwich at your desk. Try to get away for a few minutes. A change in scenery and pace will help you stay sharp.
Don’t skip your macro-breaks, either. Take your weekends, holidays, and vacations as often as possible, so you can rest. When work rolls around again, you’ll have a fresh charge. Time away from work is an important part of personal productivity, because it’s during this time our batteries get fully recharged, rather than half-charged. Just expecting to recuperate while you’re thinking about work in front of the television set won’t work. To completely recharge your batteries, get your mind off work and do something more enjoyable.
This is easier said than done for some people, who get worried about taking a vacation. They worry they won’t be missed; or they dread the volume of work facing them upon their return; or they think a vacation reflects negatively on their commitment to the organization. But once you return and realize the world didn’t fall apart and you didn’t get fired, you might wonder what took you so long. Open your calendar and plan to get away soon! The true source of productivity isn’t nonstop output; it’s a refreshed and energized mind, a vacation’s specialty. Wasn’t recess your favorite part of elementary school?
Our family loves vacations, and we take them often. In 2006, my husband and I took a vacation to Hawaii, sans children, in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island. It was a busy time for our business, and I was wondering what would fall through the cracks. I promised my husband I would check in at the office only once a day, early in the morning, as I preach to my audiences. It turned out it wasn’t hard to follow my own advice.
When you have no choice but to overwork yourself, try to do so in short bursts separated by longer periods of normal work—or rest. Otherwise, you’ll soon hit the wall, and your productivity will diminish sharply.
Hawaii was four hours earlier than my internal clock, so I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to go … at 3:00 A.M. It took several days for my body to adjust and remain alert past 8:30 P.M. So while my hubby was still sleeping soundly, I would log on, talk with my office manager, check my e-mail and voicemail, and get ready for relaxation or adventure by the time he woke up.
It’s amazing how unimportant things seemed in Hawaii—things I might have jumped on right away while in the office. I just told people I was in Hawaii and would handle it when I got back. Everyone understood and told me to enjoy myself.
We were alone for eight wonderful days, and it really stretched my mind, recharged my energy, and rested my soul. It was definitely worth the pile of work I was buried beneath upon my return. I didn’t lose any business, the kids didn’t break any bones, and nothing of any consequence happened. I worried for nothing. So take a deep breath, fight your fear, and go for a vacation! You’ll maintain your energy, your health, and your sanity.
Reducing your energy expenditure doesn’t always mean accomplishing less. In many cases, you can find ways to do the same tasks more efficiently. For example, if you combine a client meeting with lunch, you’re taking care of two necessary tasks at once. If you need files from the storage room, take a short walk on your way back. Answer all your e-mails a few times a day, rather than checking them every few minutes. There are numerous ways to spend less energy on tasks while accomplishing the same amount of work.
I’ve designed each step of the PWF process to help you reduce your overall energy expenditure. Part of managing your capacity is to remember your limits while finding ways to streamline what you already do each day. You don’t have to sacrifice the important things. Just focus on the few things you really need to do; find the fat in your schedule and trim it out.
Are you getting enough sleep? If not, you’re basically slamming a wrecking ball through your energy levels.
First, your circadian rhythms are extremely sensitive to the amount of sleep you get each day. As you may know, the word “circadian” is Latin for “about a day.” Variously referred to as the “body clock,” “master clock,” or “biological clock,” your circadian rhythms are regulated by the hypothalamus, an area of your brain that controls energy, activity, and how you physically feel. Each day you have to “reset” your body clock, and thus the need for sleep.
Among other things, sleep (or a lack thereof) can have a tremendous effect on mood. A recent analysis of 500 million Twitter messages, published in Science magazine, reveal that people all over the world are more likely to express positive emotion in the morning and evenings, with notable dips in between.25 The researchers believe this daily emotional cycle is influenced by sleep and the above-mentioned circadian rhythms.
In addition, Ben Franklin’s advice about “early to bed, early to rise” has proven to be spot on. The earlier you go to bed, the more you’ll supercharge your adrenal glands. Your adrenal glands play a huge role in your energy level by manufacturing adrenaline, cortisol, and DHEA (steroid hormones). Cortisol promotes wakefulness; DHEA helps you relax. Sleep deprivation results in the manufacture of too much cortisol, whereas getting plenty of sleep increases the production of DHEA (designed to keep cortisol levels in check). Staying up late one night and sleeping in the following morning doesn’t restore your adrenals as well as going to bed well before midnight does.
Furthermore, the human sleep cycle runs in increments of about ninety minutes. If you get only five and a half hours of sleep, you’ve lopped off your sleep cycle right in the middle, so it’s no wonder you feel lethargic. Sleep cycles usually complete at one and a half hours, three hours, four and a half hours, six hours, and seven and a half hours. This is why you sometimes feel refreshed if you awaken before your alarm goes off; but if you fall back asleep, you may feel super groggy when the alarm finally does go off.
More good reasons to get a good night’s sleep: according to a recent Harvard study, you need a full night’s sleep to achieve the maximum benefit from Stage 2 Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep, which helps you learn motor skills.26 The last two hours of sleep are critical for this. Plus, getting just one and a half hours less sleep for just one night may reduce your alertness the next day by up to 32 percent, which can have tragic consequences. For example, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics reveal that drowsy driving results in at least 100,000 car crashes, 40,000 injuries, and 1,550 deaths annually.27
Thankfully, most of the negative effects of sleep deprivation are less dramatic, if no less debilitating. Here’s an interesting one: Sleep deprivation doubles your risk for obesity, since it increases the production of ghrelin, a natural appetite stimulant, and reduces the production of leptin, an appetite suppressant.28 Bottom line: Not getting enough sleep can actually make you fat!
And finally, your body’s ability to fend off infection and sickness is directly linked to sleep. As we all know, nothing slows us down worse than getting sick. Our bodies make the most immune-strengthening cellular repairs during the last, longest period of REM sleep; this period begins after seven hours of slumber, so you’re robbing your body of the best chance to stop illness if you don’t sleep more than seven hours.
If you suffer from insomnia, try drinking a soothing herbal tea an hour before bed, or consume some dairy products. Avoid caffeine and sugar after about 2 P.M.
During sleep, your brain and muscles restore themselves. It’s as necessary as eating, exercising, and going to the bathroom. People who are tired can’t effectively deal with life’s little everyday stressors, and stress can cause insomnia, creating a vicious cycle of low energy. So don’t sabotage your productivity by trying to steal a few minutes from Morpheus (the god of dreams, in Greek mythology).
Here are some tips to make it easier to get the sleep you need.
Control the thermostat. The temperature of your room matters. The ideal sleeping temperature is no less than 68° and no more than 72° Fahrenheit. Anything outside this range could affect your sleep.
Shut out the snoring. Although we joke about it, snoring is often a real source of insomnia. My husband snores, so I wear earplugs (my favorite are Hearos). They drown out his snoring and other background noise but still allow me to hear my alarm clock.
Take a power nap. Some of you have discovered the rejuvenating effects of power naps. As a recent study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience concluded, most people can boost their afternoon performance on tasks by taking a daytime nap of sixty minutes or less.29 If you go over sixty minutes, you’ll risk grogginess and so-called sleep inertia when you wake up. But the American Academy of Sleep Medicine reminds us of a very important caveat: The value of a lunchtime or afternoon nap applies only to those who have no symptoms of insomnia. So if you think an afternoon nap will catch you up on lost sleep from your snoring spouse, it’s not true. That’s just sleepy time fuel dumped on the insomnia fire.
Keep your bedroom sleep-related. A sure-fire energy bandit is turning your bed into a second office, meaning your bed is anything but a space for tranquility and enjoyment. You require a positive mental association between sleep and your bed, so that when you get in bed, your brain should tell your body to shut down and go to sleep. But some of us have turned the bed into a work cubicle with cushions. Your TV is blasting over there. Your munchies are sitting right here. Your laptop is humming down here, with a cord snaking across the comforter. Your paperwork is balancing on a pillow over here. Your cordless phone, BlackBerry, and your cell phone are an arm’s length away. Associating your bed with a workspace encourages wakefulness, and soon the brain begins to disassociate your bed with sleep. When you’re finally ready to go to sleep, it takes you longer, because your brain is essentially confused.
You have to resolve to turn your bedroom into a sleeping sanctuary, where your mind automatically goes to sleep. Conduct any non-sleep activity—eating, watching television, reading, working on your computer—out of bed, preferably in a completely different room. I realize for us business travelers, it’s not always possible; but even moving your gadgets and work materials off the bed and onto the hotel work desk is a step in the right direction.
The old saying “you are what you eat” certainly applies to our energy levels. Among other things, the heavier you are, the less energy you’re likely to have. Every day, we read about America’s growing obesity problem; health and food researchers have become increasingly concerned by our rate of overeating. And, of course, the type of food we use to fuel our bodies is interrelated with our drops in energy. Clearly, we need to cook up some new dietary strategies.
Start by taking a hard, honest look at what you eat. Not what you think you eat, but what you actually eat. If you keep a food diary for even a week, you’ll be amazed at how much energy-stealing junk you’ll discover lurking in your diet.
Just as important as what you eat is how much you eat—and that’s usually too much. Many people are unable to accurately estimate proper portions, especially busy people on the go or those who travel. In fact, most of us don’t even seem to realize we’re supposed to keep an eye on serving sizes. A serving is not the amount you’re expected to eat in one sitting. It’s the weight and portion that correlates with your recommended daily allowance. Food and nutrition scientists find that in our “super-size” culture, we’re woefully misinformed about how to estimate proper portions.
So starting today, integrate these portion control tips. Reduce, reduce, reduce!
Put only two things at a time on your plate. A recent study at Cornell University revealed that people who served themselves just two items at a time ate 21 percent less food.30 Try this tactic when serving yourself food at home or in a buffet line. Getting up more often will make you realize how much you’re actually eating.
Cut 500 calories per day out of your diet. This will amount to about one pound per week (depending on your activity level and how efficiently you metabolize calories). Basically, you just need to slow down your rate of eating. The science on this is interesting. It turns out it takes approximately twenty minutes for your brain to receive the “I’m stuffed” signal. So if you’re eating at a restaurant, try going somewhere else for dessert. Chances are, by the time you get there, you won’t want that Mt. Everest-sized brownie fudge sundae.
Watch what you drink. Stay hydrated, but limit your intake of coffee and colas. Caffeine has a diuretic effect that can dehydrate you even more.
Eat a salad before your meal. Researchers at Penn State found that subjects racked up an average of 12 percent fewer calories when they ate a salad as their meal’s first course.31 So serve up a salad, go with the low-fat dressing, and hold the cheese.
Change your dinnerware to reflect correct portions. Try using a ten-inch salad plate for your meal instead of a regular dinner plate. This trick is an eye-opening change. The visual effect, and also forcing yourself to make more trips to the stove for more servings, will help cut down on overeating.
Automatically ask for a box. The next time you order at a restaurant, before the server even leaves your table, ask him to box half your meal before he brings it out. Or order one meal for two people, and ask the wait staff to split it for you in the kitchen.
One more thing: Always eat your morning meal. There’s a reason why we call it “breakfast”: You’re breaking your overnight fast. In fact, don’t skip any meals, because it mucks up the steady flow of glucose. The more you can keep your eating times and routines consistent, the better.
If you do these things, you’re on the path to a better, more energetic you.
It’s ironic, but the less active you are, the less energy you have. Fortunately, exercise can boost your energy even in small doses. Did you know a brisk ten-minute walk not only increases energy, but the effects last up to two hours? If you do it consistently, your energy levels and mood will lift like a balloon.
I believe in making exercise painless and fun, so I suggest you engage in what I call “Subversive Exercise.” This lets you turn the everyday, mundane acts of life into heart-happy mini-workouts. For example:
• Park at the far end of the parking lot and walk to the door.
• Walk during your lunch break.
• Walk over to see a colleague rather than sending an e-mail.
• Pace around your office while using a speakerphone.
• Forget the elevator; take the stairs.
• Avoid the moving sidewalk at the airport.
• Take the kids out for a family walk after dinner.
• When the kids are playing sports, walk around the perimeter of the field while watching them.
• Watch TV from your treadmill.
• Go to a copy machine or restroom on a different floor.
• Walk around the house while talking on a cordless phone.
• Do squats or leg lunges while reading an article in a magazine or newspaper.
You can use these little tricks to encourage yourself into energy-boosting exercise throughout your day. It doesn’t really matter where you work or what you do; being cemented to your chair all day is an energy bandit of the worst kind. So get up, get out, and get your heart pumping and your blood circulating!
Whether you practice Subversive Exercise or stay true to your workout routine, create rewards for yourself. For example, allow yourself to listen to your iPod only when working out. If you want to watch the television, walk on your treadmill in front of it. Get an audio book of a novel you’re dying to read, but let yourself listen to it only when exercising. Or tape your favorite show and let yourself watch it only while working out. You get the idea. If you dangle your favorite motivational carrots in front of your face, you’ll find yourself sprinting toward the finish line. The biggest prize of all is the blast of energy and productivity you experience.
Join forces with an “exercise buddy” to help you stay on track, especially if you have trouble maintaining your exercise routine.
Rather than let a dour worldview drag you down and ruin your ability to hold it all together, make a conscious decision to adopt a more positive attitude. Do everything you can to make yourself happy and maintain an upbeat outlook. How can you do this? Here are a few ideas you may want to implement.
Are you an Eeyore? Remember the gloomy ol’ donkey from Winnie the Pooh? “Woe is me. Nobody cares if I get swept away in the flood. Not even going to bother trying to swim.” Do you know people like this? They throw their hands in the air and act as if there’s nothing they can do about their lives.
Consider joining a professional group, so you can surround yourself with others who know exactly what you have to deal with—and who may have some tips on how to handle those challenges successfully.
These people chalk up their circumstances to fate, a run of bad luck, or bad karma, when really it’s about making poor choices.
You can also make an effort to befriend and surround yourself with positive, upbeat people, both at work and in other aspects of your life. It’s a fact that the attitudes of the people you hang out with have a significant effect on your own attitude. You won’t be able to avoid all the Eeyores out there, but you can certainly limit your contact with them in favor of bouncy, optimistic Tiggers!
Make empowering choices to manage your capacity. Life is too short to be miserable.
Why are you working so hard? If you’re like most of us, family is one of the biggest reasons: You want to provide a good life for the people you love. This is quite the irony, since working long hours keeps you away from your family—the very people for whom you’re working so hard to provide. It’s too easy to forget an important fact: the best thing you can spend on the people you love is time.
Besides giving them the attention they need, spending time with those you love is also a balm for your soul, which allows you to recharge your energy, so you can continue managing your capacity.
Letting work intrude on family time is necessary on occasion; but it should be the exception, never the rule. It’s important to unplug sometimes for your health and for your loved ones, who want you to be around. So if you don’t want to look back on your home life with regrets, then it’s time to make a bigger hole labeled FAMILY TIME in your schedule, and to build all kinds of barriers around it to keep it sacred. Try to focus exclusively on your family during family time (this will be difficult at first), and work toward ways to give more of yourself to them. Here are some ideas:
• Rearrange your work schedule to be home when they are.
• Take Internet training instead of leaving for days at a time.
• Telecommute a day or two a week.
• Hire household help to take care of basic tasks.
• Have sit-down meals together.
• Occasionally combine business travel with vacations, bringing your family along when you travel for work.
• Limit your kids’ extracurricular activities.
Not all of these ideas are possible or even practical for everyone. But they offer a place to start, at least, if you’re really serious about spending more time with your family.
Scientists have proven that helping others induces physiological changes in the body. Back in the 1980s, New York City’s Institute for the Advancement of Health studied a phenomenon called the “helper’s high,” an energetic response to helping others that’s apparently generated by the release of natural pain relievers called endorphins.32 The helper’s high not only makes you feel better in a purely physical sense, but it also heightens your energy levels and self-esteem. So spend time volunteering: helping at your church, serving at a food bank, painting someone’s house, mowing a lawn, or tutoring a student—anything that matches your passion.
Have you ever had a day where so many things went wrong, it started to strike you as downright funny? Your bagel burned. Grrrrr. Your six-year-old couldn’t find her other shoe, making her ten minutes late for school and you late for work. Grrrrr. You dropped your purse, and the contents spilled out in your car. Grrrrr. The latch popped open on your briefcase, and your paperwork fell in a puddle. Grrrrr. At lunch with a colleague, you shook the ketchup bottle, and a big blob of ketchup landed on your pants. Hilarious! This is the stuff comedies are made of! Your entire morning is fodder for a sitcom! You just can’t make this stuff up.
Consider mentoring someone new in your field. Not only will you get a natural high from helping someone, the teaching process tends to go both ways. You may just learn a thing or two from your mentee.
I once presented a seminar at an environmental engineering firm. A participant told me a story about an engineer supervising the construction of a wind-monitoring tower for a study involving wind turbines. Something went very wrong, and the 130-foot tower began to crumple the second it was completely upright. While the engineer yelled expletives, one of his coworkers stood right beside him, laughing his head off. The frustrated engineer stared at his coworker in amazement. The coworker said, “Sometimes, all you can do is laugh!” The engineer immediately saw his point and started laughing himself. He knew the next step was simply to start all over again. So he could either wear himself out by continuing to yell expletives or make the best of it by enjoying a much-needed laugh.
Whether you laugh or complain, you won’t change the situation. Complaining will make you feel irritable and depressed, drain your energy, and make others stay away from you. Living by the old saying, “Laughter is the best medicine!” is a real energy booster.
If you ever feel the urge to burst out laughing because everything’s going so badly, share the joke with those around you, so they know you’re not laughing at them.
What do you surround yourself with to boost your mood? Some people hang out with happy people, reasoning that the good vibes will rub off (and they usually do). Some post cartoons on the office and cubicle walls, or souvenirs from fun vacations. I have an “I love me” wall with degrees, certificates, awards, and so on to remind me of accomplishments. I keep a wall calendar to remind me my job is to keep it filled with speaking engagements. I have photos of my family, husband, and children, to remind me a lot of people love me. My dog and two cats run around my office, to remind me to play. Watching my two Siamese fighting fish (a.k.a. Betta fish) swim around relaxes me. The glass partition separating them keeps them from destroying each other, reminding me to maintain an assertive edge! What keepsakes, toys, plants, or reminders do you keep around to boost your productivity? If you don’t have any, get some, stat!
The only way the PWF process will work is if you take direct action to make it work. Any change requires you to focus your efforts on actively producing the changes you want to achieve. Unfortunately, too many of us seem more interested in thinking good thoughts than in actually taking action.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave the last few years, you’ve certainly heard of “The Secret.” This popular philosophy purports to relate the true secret of success in all aspects of life. It’s all about optimistic thinking and a faith in abundance; that is, a belief the Universe will provide for you, assuming you believe in whatever it is you really want.
The Secret is often interpreted to mean that all you have to do is wish really hard for good things to happen, and they will. To be fair, though, I believe that many of the people who’ve adopted the philosophy have misinterpreted it. I think The Secret is really a reminder of the value of positive thinking and self-belief. There’s nothing wrong with either; in fact, they’re necessary ingredients to any success.
But let’s face it: You can’t hope things into existence just by thinking good thoughts about them. True productivity requires action. You have to jump into your work with both feet, facing the challenges between you and your goals and dealing with them in a proactive way. As the saying goes, motion always beats meditation—assuming you’ve done your homework and thought about the potential outcomes.
So use your intelligence, energy, and problem-solving skills to grab hold of any tools available, and use them to get the job done. And always, always, keep your eyes open to the possibilities!
If you combine positive visualization with positive action, the productivity that results will bring you the things you want. You will solve the problem, not magical thinking. But if you just sit there and dream without applying your physical energy to what you want to accomplish, you’re wasting your time and talent, and nothing productive will ever happen.
When you do put your energy into action, give it your all. Some may think this statement contradicts my mantra to reduce, reduce, reduce, but I don’t think so. What I’m telling you here is not to work harder or longer, but to focus your energy like a laser. Don’t make a half-effort at getting something important done. Stay focused to ensure it does get done, and don’t give up too soon.
A while back, I was watching my son James at baseball practice, and the coach was teaching the nine-year-olds to “run past the base”—to pretend the base was actually ten feet past the base. When I ran track in high school, the coach taught us to “run past the finish.” At the Indy 500, you can bet the cars don’t slow down as they near the checkered flag—they speed up and go as fast as possible.
While working on a critical task, give it 110 percent of your energy and focus, so you don’t undershoot the mark. That way, you won’t have to waste time doing it over.
In other words, you can’t just stop when you hit your goal, because you would have to slow down as you near it. Instead, pretend your goal is farther away than the endpoint, whatever that looks like for you. You can’t ease up as you near the base, the tape, or the finish line. Pretend there’s a dragon breathing fire down your back. Don’t get lazy or slow down just when your greatest efforts are required and count the most. As Olympic contenders who have lost the gold by a few hundredths of a second know, you can’t win if you let up. So stay in the lead and run past the base, giving it your all!
Establishing and maintaining an effective workflow routine isn’t enough. You have to power it with your personal energy, constantly and reliably, or everything falls apart.
Managing your capacity is central to the entire PWF process. To be productive, you must have the capacity to do so. So focus on the physical factors affecting your energy: sleep, diet, exercise, and your own happiness. Take care of yourself, so your workflow engine stays up and running with a minimum of fuss. You can’t prevent every potential “power outage,” but you can prevent most of them if you’ll try.
First, take steps to reduce your energy expenditure. Your personal “battery” has only so much capacity, so learn to work within your limits and recharge whenever necessary. Overwork will drain you so far you won’t be able to get anything done productively. When possible, take your meal breaks, rest breaks, weekends, and vacations—or you’ll pay for it with flagging energy and mental strain.
Be sure to get plenty of sleep, too; it reduces stress, evens out your biochemistry, allows your muscles to restore themselves, and gives your brain time to process and deal with new information. Implement simple actions to keep your sleep schedule steady: control the thermostat, shut out snoring, take power naps when necessary, and keep your bedroom sleep-related.
You also need to watch your diet, focusing on portion control and making sure you eat foods that boost your energy rather than drag you down. Add exercise to your daily routine, whether you maintain a regular workout schedule or sneak in “subversive exercise” like taking the stairs instead of the elevator, parking at the far end of the parking lot so you can walk farther, or watching TV from a treadmill.
Don’t leave your mental health out of the equation! Do everything you can think of to make yourself happier. For example:
• Make empowered choices.
• Spend more time with your family.
• Do something nice for someone else.
• Laugh at adversity.
• Surround yourself with happy things.
The PWF will work for you only if you focus on making it work. Step up and make every effort you can to maintain your energetic edge, so your workflow process will keep running without a hitch.