How to hack your productivity.
Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash
I have a secret to share with you.
Out of every year, I do probably around three to four months of real "work."
Consistently, these deep dives tend to happen in August and September and again in December and January. I call these deep dives working on my business. It's during these periods that I'm organizing, planning, and creating in really big ways, because I have a huge surplus of energy.
For the rest of the year I tend to move much slower, simply responding to what's alive in my environment as it arises. I spend 3-4 hours a day in active practice (chanting, meditation, movement, and meal preparation), and can otherwise be found socializing, doing absolutely nothing in total silence (I call this "cultivating ennui"), or engaging with my clients. This is what I consider working in my business.
In both situations I'm working with the energy that is available. Neither expression involves any form of force.
I don't "plan" content creation ever. I write what is moving through my heart, which is sourced from deep listening. Most of my content takes me less than 10-20 minutes to put together, this one included.
Most days of the week I don't even sit down at my desk.
I arrange my calls on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and I rarely budge from that schedule.
I never book more than 3-4 total hours of zoom calls on any of those days. Once I hit 4 hours of screen time, I turn off devices and consciously activate my other senses.
Over my 12 year career in investment banking, I learned something really important about myself, which ultimately was the information I needed to venture out on my own and has totally informed my existing energetic hygiene and business practices:
I work in sprints, and I need, and benefit greatly from, a lot of recovery time. When I'm resting, I'm integrating, and that is just as important as productivity for me.
In yoga, savasana is probably the most important posture of an asana practice.
It's like that.
Being a body in a chair from 9-5 never worked for me — although I tried for 12 years — and the physical impact it had on my body, and on my heart and mind, was grave. It was the most uncreative period of my life. I simply had nothing left in the tank after most work weeks.
On top of that, I was capable of doing what most people took five days to do in two hours, when I focused my attention. Hour long meetings — if I had been in charge — could've been resolved in a matter of minutes.
Having two days a week to recover from attempting a marathon of pretending to be productive for five days in a row when my work was actually done in two hours impacted the quality of that work, my professional reputation (because I didn't "look" busy and eventually stopped trying to), and the quality of my recovery time.
I was horribly out of tune with myself.
(this isn't to say that that lifestyle is inappropriate for everyone; it's really to emphasize that it really didn't work for me and for who I am at my essence.)
The work I do now has built in this reality about who I am into my "business strategy."
Because as it turns out, I'm MORE attractive and magnetic to the people I'm here to serve when I feel fantastic inside my own body.
The impact of my transmission is higher when I'm putting more attention on myself than on others. I reach more people when I mind my own business.
When I'm spread thin because I'm trying to hustle and push myself to put myself out there — to do what other entrepreneurs might say is the standard for success — I repel the people who need me the most.
I work with all sorts of people, many of whom are entrepreneurs. I don't assume they all need what I need. Some do extraordinarily well being busy all the time and keeping momentum, continuously putting themselves out there. And for some, this sort of hustle is a huge disservice to their soul. There are also all sorts of variations in between.
The key is finding what is in alignment for you. And then having zero shame about living your life in accordance with that reality.
It takes a special flavor of rebellion to unrelentingly choose yourself in this way, when there are so many loud "norms" in both the corporate career track and the entrepreneurial lifestyle.
THERE IS NO RIGHT WAY TO WORK, despite what your environment and peers might be telling you.
Allow yourself to discover what works for you (which, by the way, does come through researching to find out what doesn't!) and your work will work for you, too.