What are the myths and mistaken beliefs that are preventing you from being more productive in both your work life and your personal life? How are you actively undermining your efforts to pull it all together?
Yeah, I mean you.
The sad fact is that the beliefs that we hold about productivity and organization often prevent us from doing and being everything we want to do and be in our lives. While we cannot control the circumstances around us, the things that we think about work, life, effectiveness, success, and innovation affect the way we respond to those circumstances, and often for the worst.
Here, then, are ten common beliefs about productivity that keep people from enjoying the success they desire. How many of these are keeping you from being more productive, effective, and balanced as a person?
Myth 1: Organized equals clean
Too many people equate âorganizationâ with the cold, sterile, un-lived-in spaces they see in glossy magazines. Thatâs not organization â the cleanest-looking space might still take forever to find anything in.
An organized space is simply one in which the things you need the most are close at hand, the things you need often are easily found, and the things you need rarely are out of the way but easily retrieved when needed. That means that organization has to meet your needs, not some imposed notion of cleanliness.
If you never spend more than a minute trying to find anything in that mountain of clutter you call your office (or room or cubicle or kitchen), then leave it alone. At the same time, be honest with yourself â most people claim they can find anything they need, but when put to the test, theyâre left scratching their heads. If your clutter isnât working for you, put some time into figuring out how to make sure it does work for you.
Myth 2: I donât have time for a system
This is a popular complaint about systems like David Allenâs GTD. The thinking goes something like this: âIf I spend all my time maintaining my list and doing weekly reviews, Iâll never get anything done.â
The reality is that while most systems take some time to get set up, once you start using your system, the time you use in âmaintenanceâ is more than made up for by the time you save not having to think about what to do â or making up for the things you didnât remember to do.
Myth 3: Systems are rigid and unflexible
This is another common complaint about productivity systems. The fear seems to be that, unlike everyone elseâs life, my life is so chaotic and unpredictable that no system can possibly accommodate it all.
Iâve read a lot of productivity literature in my life â it is, after all, part of my job! â and Iâve never come across a productivity system that didnât make room for differences in personality, work requirements, or personal situation. In the end, the important thing is to have a system so that you can respond effectively to unforeseen events without losing your grip on your whole life!
More to the point, though, if your life is really that chaotic and unpredictable, itâs likely that its because youâve resisted adopting some kind of system rather than because no system is good enough for your life. Which tells me that you havenât spent the time you need to figure out what your own life is all about â instead, youâve just responded to everything the world has thrown at you as itâs come. Adopting a system means spending some time figuring out whatâs important to you, what isnât important, and how to get rid of the less important stuff so you can start making ground on the important stuff.
Myth 4: Productivity means more work
Once you start down this rabbit hole, it can be really hard to turn yourself around. The idea is that if it takes me half as long to do all the things in my life as it takes me now, then getting productive means Iâll be doing twice as much.
If youâre not smart about things, that can sometimes be true, at work at least. Supervisors hate to see people lounging around while theyâre still on the clock, so finishing up your dayâs work at 2:00 pm means youâll be expected to find more stuff to do to fill in the remaining hours. So if youâre that productive, you need to either leverage that extra work into a promotion or raise â or convince your boss to adopt a telecommuting plan so you can work from home.
But productivity isnât just about work, either. Being more productive in your life means you should have more time to do things like spend time with your family, take a vacation, read a book, visit a museum, or write your plan for world domination. Getting your work done in half the time just so you can do twice as much work isnât productive â itâs dumb.
Myth 5: Creativity canât be fit into a system
Maybe you believe that productivity stuff is for business people, not creative people like yourself. This is wrong for two reasons. First of all, creative work is still work, and just as susceptible to procrastination, poor planning, and shoddy work practices as bookkeeping, house painting, and world domination.
The second reason is that while you may have a great grasp of the demands of your creative work, unless youâre comfortable with the whole âstarving artistâ thing, chances are you have a lot more to do than just the creative stuff. Records need to be kept, clients need to be contacted, taxes need to be filed, projects need to be invoiced, and so on. And hereâs the rub: creative people generally donât much like doing all that routine, everyday stuff. Having a system to make that stuff as painless and speedy as possible means you can spend more time being creative.
Myth 6: I work best under pressure
There are people who believe they thrive under the pressure of an impending deadline. Nine times out of ten, they donât. They just enjoy the excuse because it means they donât have to take responsibility for the messes they end up in.
Keeping yourself in a high-stress, always-urgent mode isnât good for your health, and itâs not good for your business. Health-wise, it means youâre very likely to keel over on day, decades before your time. Business-wise, it means you arenât much of a pleasure to work with, which means that even when your work is good youâll be turning off employers, colleagues, or clients â and sooner or later youâll miss some important detail that you were too frantic to recognize, damaging your job, your reputation, and your career.
If youâre lucky, youâll have your heart attack before that happens, though.
Myth 7: My lack of a system is my system
This oneâs actually true, though not in the way most people intend when they say it. The mess of habits, practices, and beliefs you have right now are, in fact, a system â and youâre working it every day. Hard.
But what most people mean is that by not having a system, theyâre actually being more productive than if they had a system. For some, this is just a variation on Myth #2, but others really think that the mish-mash of habits theyâve cobbled together out of life experience is working for them. They donât see any room for improvement.
Which is what I imagine being dead is like. For living things, thereâs always room for growth.
Myth 8: I need inspiration to work
No, you donât. Inspiration is wonderful, but rarely compatible with getting stuff done. What you need is a system to capture those flashes of inspiration so that, when inspiration is on holiday, youâve got plenty to work with.
We have a word for people who only work when theyâre inspired. That word is âunemployedâ. (The reverse isnât true, of course â not all unemployed people only work when they feel like it.)
Myth 9: Being organized is boring
This is a variation of Myth #1, flavored with a dash of Myth #6: some people crave the excitement that always being about to screw up brings them. This may reflect deep psychological trauma, but it may also just reflect a lifetime of bad working experiences â pulling a success out of imminent failure can feel great, and if your âeverydayâ successes arenât rewarded, it can be tempting to push for the imminent failure so you can pull the success out of the jaws of defeat all heroic-like.
Whatever the root, this myth is misguided because it places attention in the wrong place. Being organized isnât boring â being boring is boring. Make your own excitement and youâll stop being boring â and then you can stop using your disorganization as a crutch for a life not fully realized.
Myth 10: Thereâs something wrong with me no system can fix
This oneâs probably true. Systems, no matter how good, canât fix the fundamental problems in your life. They wonât make you smarter or more likable or better looking or more experienced.
What they can do is help you make time to figure out how to solve those problems. They can help you make a space in your life for real personal growth. And they can help you highlight the sources of those failures, by eliminating the ânoiseâ that normally masks them.
In the end, your growth as a person, your success â however you define it â is up to you. Straightening out the things in your life that keep you from being effective and productive can be an important step towards that success, but itâs a means, not an end.
But if youâre holding tight to any of the myths above, youâre not giving yourself a fair chance â youâre standing in the way of your own life. And thatâs not doing you, or anyone else, any good.
How have you been holding yourself back? Have you overcome any of these misconceptions, and what happened when you did? Share your stories in the comments â I, for one, would like to hear about it!
1.
Adopt the policy that "the customer
is always right"