Forget personal productivity

Flickr user iamtheo

(MoneyWatch) COMMENTARY You know all those books and articles about time management and personal productivity with titles like "How to be a better procrastinator" or "999 things successful people get done before breakfast?"

I hate them.

No, wait. Let me be clear about this. It's not the books or the articles -- and certainly not their authors -- I hate. It's the implication that personal productivity should be your goal in life. That if you don't squeeze every minute of productivity out of your day, you're going to be broke and miserable.

Here's the thing. I'm not a morning person. My brain doesn't even begin to function before noon. I'm also a terrible procrastinator. I honestly can't remember ever having done something today that I could get away with putting off until tomorrow. And I'm incredibly lazy when it comes to doing things I really don't want to do.

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If that makes me unproductive, I'm fine with that. And you know what? Not only am I not miserable, I'm happy that way. And the kicker is that my unproductive ways have not stopped me from having a relatively successful career.

So how do we reconcile being unproductive and successful, two things that, if you believe what everyone writes these days, are supposed to be mutually exclusive? Here's how:

I get the job done. I work my tail off when I have to, not when I don't. If you can turn on the afterburners and be a workaholic for brief periods of time, you can sort of kick back and relax most of the time.

I work tirelessly when I like what I'm doing. If you enjoy your work, long hours come easily. Of course, then your personal chores will suffer, but, hey, you can't have everything.

I'm where I have to be when it counts. Sometimes you've got to take a red-eye flight or make a 7 a.m. meeting. That just comes with the territory. As long as you suck it up when you have to, when it counts, you should otherwise be able to waltz in at 9 a.m. or work from home.

I put my health and well being first. If you're always eating fast food, stressed out, gobbling down meals or killing yourself in the name of productivity, how effective can you really be? Burned out people are not productive.

I'm flexible and adaptive. If you say, "Sure, no problem" when people need you, they'll cut you plenty of slack when you need them to. Most people expect their management to be flexible when they themselves aren't. That's not how it works.

I mix work and life. I've been mixing business and pleasure for decades, and not just once in a while, either. I like to mix it up and make work fun and interesting. If that means working on an occasional pitch at night or on the weekend, as long as I can kick back, watch some football and have a beer while I'm doing it, that works for me.

I have a powerful work ethic. The way all this works is that I have a very strong work ethic that guides my decisions on what is and isn't OK to do. I am an effective and hard worker by nature. But my priority has always been to get the job done better than anyone else, not punching a clock or packing as much into eight hours as possible.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying my way is the right way. It's simply an example of how you can be successful doing things your own way, whatever that happens to be. And just because you don't fit some self-help guru's definition of productivity doesn't mean you can't have a great career and a productive life.

Image courtesy of Flickr user iamtheo

[jsargent100]

You are forgetting "be on the same football team". A person can be anti-productive. There are some people who are accident prone but in reality they are either inexperienced or they haven't taken the time to observe coworkers or the boss. If you are inexperienced take time to observe how people keep the department out of trouble and how they communicate with other departments. If you are doing "own goals" all the time then either you or someone else will have to make up for those to keep the side ahead of the game.

[clanssel]

Thankyou! I'm a procrastinator yet I always get things done on time and receive good feedback too. I used to feel terribly guilty about this but I'm realising more and more that lots of successful people I know leave things to the last minute too. I'm very fortunate to work for a great company that respects my need for work/life balance and I have a happy personal life so I have very little stress, otherwise procrastination might be very dangerous for my health. I kind of like the last minute stress of getting things done! The work 'procrastination' has negative connotations so from now on I'm going to say I like to get things done 'just in time' which is true and sounds a lot better.

[futuredoll]

I totally agree, I have a start-up company & found that flexibility of time management works best for me. I had to re-learn that my 30 years of a 9 to 5 mentality just burned me out. You can get a lot more done when you extend your workday & put some fun breaks into the day.

[feralferal]

A few decades ago, I heard that to keep a job you need only do any two of these three things:
Be fun to work with.
Produce results.
Work hard.

It seems you picked the same two I did.

[johnnyplankton]

Great article, Steve. And a bit of a relief. I sometimes beat myself up when I can't account for every second in my work-at-home life, and then I remember all of the fulfilling things I do during the day and make up the time at night - on a press deadline. And I'm happier than 90% of the population, even if I'm not a member of the 1%.

[miller665]

Steve --

I think viewpoints are true and valid for many people out there including myself. As I read your descriptions, I saw myself similar to you in many ways, but I am an early morning person and get a lot accomplished before 9 AM. This allows me to focus on others all throughout the rest of the day. I would propose that for some that lack the ability to focus and do what needs to be done when it needs to be done, rather than waiting until the last minute or delivering things late, to do lists can be beneficial to some to help them focus. People need to be honest with themselves and truly assess what approach to their daily life will make them the most successful at everything they do.

[QuietSpacing]

Steve: Revel in your way! We time management consultants - at least those of us who are somewhat enlightened - do not equate unproductive time as wastes. Rather, it's my personal believe that we should be making the best use of the time we have. Productivity is one aspect of "best use" in my lexicon. Downtime - for me golf and fly fishing - are equally important. Another aspect is that getting something done makes us feel more accomplished. Note the use of "fee" as I also believe success is a feeling and not a result.

On a personal note, I highly recommend John Medina's "Brain Rules" and in particular the chapter on the difference between Larks (morning people - 10% of population), Owls (night people - 20% of population) and Hummingbirds (the rest of us). Fascinating stuff on how/when our individual brains "work" best.

For more on my philosophies, check out my books on Amazon - e.g. Focus Pocus: 24 Tricks for Regaining Command of Your Day at http://*******.com/bl8j5er

Paul H. Burton

[Varun_UAE]

Great article, Steve. Completely agree with the idea of 'I get the work done.'
Though I'd have to say maximum personal productivity is a choice. In a workforce as diverse as the modern one, there will be people who want to see themselves as the 'champions of output'. Maybe being able to show yourself delivering more every second is how you judge self-worth in your own eyes. It's certainly a more logical basis for self-esteem than putting a small round ball in a small round hole 18 times - or any of the hundreds of other things we do to tell ourselves we matter.
On the other hand, if someone I admire and respect is delivering amazing results, and I want to be like him, sometimes this is the way. I had a supervisor with 20 more years of experience who knew the business inside out. To keep up with him - to deliver a reasonable fraction of what he delivered - I had to step up my game and really make every second count. Truthfully, no-one expected me to deliver that much - even he suggested I might be overdoing it - but I did it because I wanted to be more like him. And you can't duplicate ten times the experience without doing something different (perhaps insane).
As long as you know why you want that extra set of moments, I guess it's worth it.

[stobak2]

Agreed. I guess the issue I've got is the literally thousands of books and blogs on the subjects of personal productivity and time management. It's obsessive. While it may help some people, for most, I think it does more harm than good. I think most people would be better off honing what works for them.

ST