Passionate About Productivity

For the past twenty years, I’ve started most of my weekdays and many weekends traveling to an office, meeting, or the airport for a business trip. And over these two decades, I have rarely had to think about productivity as my environment compelled me to always be in action. 

When I would wake up in my New York City home, even on a frigid winter morning, I didn’t have time to decide whether or not to be productive. I just had to jump out of bed, get ready, and take the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan to ensure that I made it to my daily 9:00 am status meeting. I did this for seven straight years. 

Then, while residing in India for the past eleven years, the subway trains may have been replaced by chauffeur driven cars in Delhi and Pune or an Uber in Mumbai. Still, the action was always the same: get myself to work for my morning meeting or to the airport to catch a flight.  And once I am ‘on the pitch,’ I don’t have to overthink as the energy around me drives me forward into continuous action.   

This past year, however, our worlds were flipped upside down as a result of the global pandemic. Some worlds were impacted far more than others.  I have been relatively lucky, though. At the time of writing this post, outside of a few canceled international flights, the most significant impact on me was that I had to shift our sports management education program, the Global Institute of Sports Business, online for what has now been nearly a year (cue: knocking on wood).

Professionally, this meant that I had to take a crash course on how to engage students via an online platform and immediately implement what I learned. Personally, this meant that for the first time in my life, I would wake up and not have to rush to catch a subway, scheduled ride, or flight. Instead, I could jump out of bed and design my days in a way that best suited my commitments, obligations, and aspirations. I’ll be the first to admit that this is so much easier said than done. 

It is natural for humans to choose the path of least resistance when not forced to be somewhere or do something. For me, the path of least resistance is wrapping myself up in a mystery novel, scrolling through social media posts like a zombie, or binge-watching a show on Netflix or Amazon. Unfortunately, these activities do not serve the organization that I’m running, nor do they get me any closer to achieving my personal and professional aspirations. 

This means that it is essential for me to be productive to have the type of personal and professional impact that I am committed to having. But how do you be productive when it is so natural to default into laziness? How do you plan your life and actually stick to the plan when there are so many distractions? How do you find the energy to get up every day and work at the same pace as when you are in an office, especially when there is no office environment compelling you to do so? 

I, like so many others, had to battle with these questions over the past ten months. And fortunately, I feel that I passed the ‘Covid test.’ I found out how to be productive every day despite the plethora of distracting activities all around me and disempowering thoughts within my head. How did I do this? Whatever I’m going to share is my practice, which suits my outer environment and inner wiring. That said, these tips have been validated by what I’ve gathered from experts on human behavior while reading books and listening to podcasts about this particular topic. Because, as the title of the post says, I have truly become passionate about productivity. 

TIP #1 

The first tip is to understand that productivity is not something outside of ourselves. As Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, “akarmany cha karma yah” which essentially means one who sees that even when there is no activity performed still, there is an action that is performed. Simply put, we are always in action.  It is up to us to channel our energy into something that leads to tangible results in line with our short and long-term goals and objectives.  Once we are clear on this, then we can proceed. Otherwise, being productive will always feel like work vs. focused movement.  

TIP #2

Next, it is key to identify your larger goals and break them up into tiny, bite-sized morsels, which you can do every day. For example, one of my larger goals in 2020 was to write a book. Quite a tall task, right? Well, yes, it is overwhelming you when you think about going from 0 to 1,000 (or published book) in one go. But when broken up into a commitment to write one page a day, every day for eighty days, things changed. I ended up writing more than one page a day and completed the first draft of the book in thirty days. The same approach can be taken for literally anything you would want to create for yourself and your life. 

TIP #3

Third, when you are winding down your day, create a detailed plan for yourself for the next day. This ensures that you do not fall into the trap of allowing no structure to justify reverting to default settings unless your default setting is to be wildly productive. In that case, you can stop reading right now. I detail what I will do every hour during the hours where I want to see clear, positive shifts. Of course, there are hours when I have no interest in being productive and happy to allow the magic of the moment to spontaneously take to me where it wants. I do not plan those hours. 

TIP #4

The fourth tip is to practice daily self-care. I have found that when my body is fit and my mind is filled with empowering thoughts, it is easier to work through my schedule.  When my body is aching and my mind is filled with negative or toxic thoughts, I just want to quickly retreat into what ‘feels good,’ like consuming junk food, television, or substances that only give temporary relief from the physical or mental pain.  By self-care, I am referring to practices like exercise, meditation, gratitude journaling, taking walks in nature, or anything that strengthens your body, calms your nerves, or uplifts your spirit. 

TIP #5

Finally, and most importantly, be compassionate with yourself. Understand that overpowering the often-times devious mind and completing set tasks is not meant to be quickly mastered. This is a life-time journey, and you will have many, many hiccups along the way. If you do not complete your task or inevitable distractions win the competition for your attention, then acknowledge it, and start again the next day. There is only one direction to proceed in life, which is forward, so there no reason to have a prolonged pause or go backward when times get tough.  Re-group and proceed ahead.  

That’s it. Those are my five tips on how to be productive, especially when you do not have an external entity helping you establish your daily structure.  I know that none of what I shared is glamourous; however, the results of following these tips can be.  This is exactly how people get in shape, write best-sellers, learn a new language, or even lead a team to a championship. Just micro-actions performed with sincerity on a daily basis. Good luck!   

Sharing a link to a great podcast interview I recently listened to on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwQhKFMxmDY