Hey, guys.
It's Chelsea from The Financial Diet.
And today, I want to talk about the concept of productivity
and the terrible advice that we often hear around the subject.
In many ways, I'm actually more long-term interested
in changing our ideas of whether or not
productivity as an abstract concept
is even really all that much to aspire to.
As a business owner, personally, for both myself and my team,
I often think more in terms of what
helps people do their best work, not the most work,
on a long-term sustainable basis that respects them as people
first and employees slash workers slash whatever
their job title is second.
Unfortunately though, in America, we still
tend to have a pretty singular fixation
on the idea of productivity that is in many ways
about maximizing.
Maximizing the time you work, the things
you're able to accomplish, the prestige and money you accrue
and everything else, basically geared toward being more.
But I don't think more is always better
when it comes to our work.
And in many ways, the data does support that.
So I wanted to take this video to debunk a few of those really
terrible productivity tips that we've almost
become numb to seeing, but should really
reconsider at their root.
No one is wake up early.
It's pretty much ubiquitous at this point
that when some business thought leader gives you
their secret to life, they're often
going to start with talking about how
they wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning or whatever.
And it's not a new subject for those who know on TFD,
but I've never been a morning person.
I wake up now earlier than I used to,
but I still tend to wake up on average around 8 o'clock
in the morning, which by entrepreneur standards,
is basically midnight.
But the reason why it's so important
to consider that focusing on a particular time of day
is not really that helpful is because for many people,
the morning is not the time at which they're
most naturally alert, productive, or even capable
of critical thinking.
And this actually has a name.
Delayed sleep phase syndrome, or DSPS,
is a disorder in which a person sleep
is delayed by 2 hours or more beyond what
is considered an acceptable or conventional bedtime.
The delayed sleep then causes difficulty
in being able to wake up at the desired time.
For example, a person with DSPS may fall asleep after midnight
instead of at 10 PM.
And then will have difficulty getting up
in the morning for school or for work.
And to some extent, I even resent the premise
that this is a syndrome or a disorder to begin with,
because unless we're talking about agrarian work,
a lot of when we have to do particular jobs,
especially professional white collar jobs,
is completely arbitrary.
But more importantly forcing ourselves
to operate on a time that is not optimal for us
or natural to our bodies has distinct consequences and a lot
of missed opportunity.
As many as 37% of people consider themselves
as evening people or night owls.
These people stay up late, like to sleep in,
and are most productive during the second half of the day
starting from about 2 PM.
But despite the fact that more than one third
of the population are evening types,
society, including many employers
are still holding on to the assumption
that people are most productive and efficient in the mornings.
The result, companies are losing millions of dollars every year
because of sleepy employees who are unable to focus at work.
So the best solution here is to find the times of day
at which you are most clear in your thinking
and most able to do that harder work.
And be value neutral about whatever that time happens
to be, then lean into it.
Which brings me to my next point.
Another terrible piece of productivity
slash business advice you'll hear
is the maxim first in, last out.
Now, let's start with the basics here.
Even the 40-hour work week that most of us adhere to
is really-- especially when it comes to office work-- totally
arbitrary.
First of all, for workers of any kind, 40 hours a week of work
basically precludes any true level of work-life balance
when you consider just how much of their waking hours
that time represents.
But perhaps more importantly, the 40-hour work
week initially arose as a reaction
to exploitative factory workers who were heavily overworking
their labor force and were being actively compromised with
to reach that new 40-hour limit.
It's not as if that number was reached independently
as the correct amount of time for a person to work,
which is why the above and beyond model of emphasizing
being the first person at your desk and the last person
out your door as a key to success--
things that you'll hear all the time on shows like Shark Tank--
isn't just wrong, it's also potentially destructive.
According to research, knowledge workers
have just two hours and 48 minutes
of productive time each day.
This is a far cry from the eight plus hours we typically
spend at work.
And while there are plenty of factors
that inhibit our productivity each day,
from stress and procrastination to a lack of focus,
one of the worst is just simply working at the wrong time.
So when you consider how little of the office workers
actual time is spent doing deep, thoughtful, productive work,
you start to realize that even the 40-hour work
week is probably too much.
Let alone showboating by extending
your day on both sides.
And honestly, most of this is probably just
in an effort to demonstrate how busy you are,
which in my opinion, is really just another way of saying
how inefficient you are.
And it also creates a toxic environment
for colleagues wherein you all become
in a sort of silent passive aggressive competition
for who can seem the most dedicated to their job.
Long story short, you should be working smarter, not longer.
Number three is following this or that miracle diet.
Whether we're talking about Jack Dorsey of Twitter who proudly
talks about-- without seemingly any trace of self-awareness--
his starvation diet in which he just literally doesn't eat most
weekends because, I guess, life isn't difficult enough,
there are also miracle diets on basically every end
of the nutrition spectrum promising all kinds of benefits
that extend well beyond the physical
and into being your most productive self.
There are those business and lifestyle gurus
who champion everything from vegan diets,
raw diets, macrobiotic diets, keto diets, paleo diets,
carnivore diets, liquid diets, and so on and so forth.
Now, to be clear, it is not new that diets position themselves
as a miracle way to achieve the body you want
in the shortest span of time or with the least
amount of effort.
That's quite old.
Although, arguably in and of itself rather problematic.
But it is fairly new for these diets
to be so closely aligned with the vision of health that
is about a sense of purity and detoxification
and control over your higher self and self
actualization, which then in turn
will supposedly manifest in all kind of benefits
in terms of your potential output and productivity.
The truth is, as it's always been,
and as boring as it may be, the diet that is right
for you is one that you can follow your entire life, which
is sustainable and manageable and helps you
feel genuinely good on a consistent basis.
And of course, aligns with your values and your needs.
Whether for your body or your productivity,
there is no such thing as a miracle diet.
Number four is know your competition in and out.
Now, it may seem intuitive to be very keyed into what a rival is
doing in your career, whether that's
another employee at your own organization or a rival
at a different organization or an entire other organization
within your industry.
But it can actually be stifling to creativity
and independent thought to be super aware of what others
are doing, as well as being a pretty substantial time suck.
Plus, it can have the unintended consequence
of subtly influencing you on your own ideas
based on what others happen to be doing.
From a business perspective, thinking about competitors,
endlessly researching them, making spreadsheet
after spreadsheet takes up a lot of time,
especially when there are a lot of them.
Take marketing technology as one example.
If your startup is looking to bag some market share here,
then you probably can't even keep up
with the number of competitors given
the phenomenal pace at which this landscape is growing.
The 2017 marketing technology landscape super graphic
really highlights this.
In 2011, there were around 150 marketing technology companies.
Fast forward six years, and there are now over 5,000.
In the last year alone, there has been a 40% growth
in available solutions.
You would need to hire someone full time just
to keep up with it.
But even just on an individual level, workplace politics
and gossip can have a damaging effect on mental health,
as well as your own career trajectory.
Since the '90s, many researchers in the fields
of mental health and organizational management
have written about the effects of workplace bullying
and mental health.
Psychological burnout, depression, anxiety,
aggression, even psychosomatic complaints
where psychological strain manifested physical symptoms
like migraines have all been well documented symptoms
of workplace bullying.
But aside from the obvious effects of harmful rumors
on victims, there's also evidence
to suggest that negative gossip can actually change
the way we see the world.
Perception is everything, or so the saying goes.
And priming ourselves to only detect the negative
in our daily lives can have long-term consequences
on our own mental health that can
persist, regardless of whether we're
the victim or the perpetrator.
Ultimately, it's healthiest to view your own organization
and broader industry as a place where everyone has room
to succeed and someone else's path
does not have a huge bearing on your own.
And if you happen to be in a situation
where you have a coworker who's unbelievably frustrating to you
because they're lazy or manipulative or incompetent
or all of the above, it's important to remember
that you are probably not going to be
able to do anything about it.
You'll have to let that work itself out on its own
and not waste some of your precious time focusing
on their career.
Number five is multitask.
Simply put, multitasking is just not a good idea
for people who ultimately want to be good at what they do
and able to accomplish it competently.
The neuroscience is clear.
We are wired to be monotaskers.
One study found that just 2.5% of people
are able to multitask effectively.
And when the rest of us attempt to do two complex activities
simultaneously, it is simply an illusion.
Trying more than one thing at a time,
especially anything potentially dangerous,
like texting while driving, seriously
compromises our ability to complete the task safely
and well.
Equally important is repeatedly switching back from project
to project like a hummingbird darting
from flower to flower and then back to the original flower
can impair our ability to function at our finest.
And this fallacy really gets at the heart
of what we often conflate when it comes to productivity.
Doing more for doing better, which
is particularly frustrating when we
consider that focusing on more in a short-term moment
can often mean doing less on a long-term time scale.
Lastly, number six is being a perfectionist.
There is a real cult of perfectionism
in the professional world.
And we can tend to overlook how dangerous it
can be because a lot of the advice
seems to make sense on its surface.
Things like, if you can't do it right,
then don't bother doing it at all.
The truth is that if you are growing in basically
any profession there are going to be
an enormous amount of tasks that you simply
will not have the skills to do right the first time.
And learning and growing in your career with the right mentors
and with the right level of patience for yourself
and ability to learn from your own mistakes
is a crucial part of career development.
And beyond that, this desire for perfectionism
often leads us to a sort of paralyzation
when it comes to trying things we may not be good at
or that we may not perfectly understand.
Or keep us locked in a cycle of doing things that
are familiar to us or taking familiar solutions to problems
without really taking the time to explore
if something could be done better
by being done differently.
And in its most extreme forms, this kind of perfectionism
can actually be fatal.
One older study, for example, found that over half
of people who died by suicide were described by their loved
ones as perfectionists.
Another study found that more than 70%
of young people who died by suicide
were in the habit of creating "exceedingly high expectations
of themselves."
Toxic perfectionism seems to hit young people, particularly
hard.
According to recent estimates, almost 30%
of undergraduate students experience
symptoms of depression and perfectionism
has been widely associated with these symptoms.
And these trends have been rising
over the past few decades, particularly
in the English speaking world.
Curran and Hill studied more than 40,000
American, Canadian, and British college students
and found that in 1989 to 2016, the proportion
of people who exhibited traits of perfectionism rose by 33%.
And while you may not necessarily be at this extreme,
it's important to consider how you're
framing your own successes and your mistakes in your mind.
Is the latter opportunities for learning
or for beating yourself up?
In the end, productivity in and of itself
may not even be the best goal.
But if we are aspiring to work better and more
thoughtfully while taking up less of our precious time,
it's important that we lean into what actually
works not just what sounds good on an inspirational coffee mug.
As always, guys, thank you for watching.
And do not forget to hit the Subscribe button
and to come back every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday
for new and awesome videos.
Bye.