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Show Notes:

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately on productivity and how to be productive, mostly because right now I have very limited amounts of time that I can devote to projects. As a breastfeeding mama my windows of time are very limited, they're limited when I need to feed the baby next. So a lot of ways it forces me to think strategically about my time. As I manage a household with four little kids and a lot of stuff, as well as my online business I've realized there are two parts to productivity. Those are also the two places I tend to get hung up, but when I get them right, they are key. So hopefully today's episode will unlock some insight for you too. And we'll give you some helpful tips on how to be truly productive.

For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below.

Alright, we are going to talk about how to be truly productive. I'm going to start by reading the definition of productivity, which is the state or quality of producing something. So I mentioned there are two parts to productivity and those two parts are:

You make a plan
You execute the plan

That's basically being productive in a nutshell.

Seems simple, right? Wrong.

I have been thinking so deeply about this lately because of my own life. I just get this simple equation messed up and I'll tell you how I get it messed up. First, I just tend to start doing stuff without reassessing and asking some important questions in order to make the right plan. So I just do stuff in the way I've always done it because it's comfortable and I'm good at it. Or I love planning so much that I plan and then rework the plan and then I plan it again and then I rewrite it out again.

And then I get in my head so much about it, I think—okay, well maybe I'll start a little bit of this work, but then I'll go back to my planner and I dream up more plans and I never get to the part of executing the plan. Or I'll start a project and I won't finish it.

Some examples of this (when I start just jumping into stuff without making a plan, I usually have some default things that I start doing): so when I'm working on my home, for instance, I'll just start unloading the dishwasher—like without even thinking about it, just going, okay, I can do this. I'm going to just tidy the kitchen real quick. I just do the default chores that make me feel good or feel like I'm doing something quickly. And yes, those things need to get done, but I'm just doing the first thing that I see.

With my work, I usually open my laptop and I just go to my emails, start answering emails. I don’t make a plan. My inbox feels overwhelming so it just seems like the right place to start. And I'll just start answering emails or I'll just get on social media. Sure. That's the important thing to do, right? Need to engage with my audience or post something. And it's easy to do these things because it’s kind of our habits, it’s ingrained in us, but without a plan, I end up consuming way more social media than creating, and my email inbox can take my entire day if I let it.

So side note—this is totally the reason why I have put the boundary in place for me to only get on social media once a week, because it was just wasting too much of my time. So the point is we all have these default things that we just go to, we start doing because we're good at them or because it's just a habit of ours to go do these things.

It can be in your work, it can be in your home, it could just be in your life, but it's not necessarily the best thing to be doing. Alright, here's kind of where I get hung up on the planning side of things. If you know me—you know I love a good planner. I have loved planners since high school. I have vivid memories of coloring pictures, color coding everything, going shopping every fall for my planner in high school when Staples or Office Depot was still a thing. I would just pick out my weekly planner and I loved it. Me and my friends would geek out about it and we'd draw each other pictures. It's been a love of mine for a really long time.

So now I have a beautiful planner, love my planners, I write out all the things in my planner. I can make a great plan. Sometimes I just spend way too long on making this plan that I don't leave enough time in my day or in that timeframe that I had, to actually do anything. I get so in my head about the planning part that I don't leave time to do anything. Where I don't actually make the time to do it.

Okay, let me break this down—I get in my head about it, then I start telling myself like these things are going to take a lot longer than they actually will so then I put them off or I write them in my planner for another day or I just procrastinate because it's more fun to plan then actually do.

My work for instance, I'll write record podcast episode or create marketing plans or brainstorm a list of the podcast episodes I want to talk about or, you know, whatever. But I just keep putting these things off, like actually outlining the podcast episode or implementing the marketing plan that I need to make or whatever. Those are the things that are harder to actually do.

So the problem with both of these things, either just going to your default and doing, doing, doing, or taking too much time, planning, planning, planning. The problem with those things is they make you feel like you're being productive, but in reality, they're just ways to avoid doing the deep, hard work that is the productive work. So today, I want to offer you a reset!

I want you to ask yourself some of these questions and get the right plan and then I want to give you some practical tools for executing the right plan well.

First, let's talk about efficiency versus effectiveness.

Peter Drucker said, “Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.” I love that quote. The first time I heard that quote, I was like—my brain, wow. That is so good because the truth is, I can be super efficient at answering my emails or unloading the dishwasher. I am good at those things, but are they the most important things that I need to be doing right then? If not, I'm not being effective, I'm just being efficient.

Another quote about this, Matt Perman says, “While efficiency is important, it's secondary. More important than efficiency is effectiveness, getting the right things done.” Efficiency doesn't matter if you're doing the wrong things in the first place. So this thinking on productivity being efficient or being effective, this can apply to so many areas of our lives. It can apply to your home or it can apply to your work.

I'm going to ask you questions about both of those areas to just kind of pause and let you reset and think, am I being truly productive in those areas? You might want to grab a journal or maybe the notes app in your phone or something just to kind of keep yourself accountable and stay on track and answer these questions.

Or maybe you listened to this podcast episode once and you come back and you listen to the rest of it again with a pen and paper in your hand. Let's talk about work first.

Let's just take a second to clarify your goals; is your goal right now to make the most amount of money in the least amount of time? And if so, where does that land you? What are the things you need to be focusing on? Do you need to develop or fine tune a product that you sell? Do you need to launch something new? Does it mean refining what you already have? Do you need to focus on your offers?

Or is your goal right now, marketing focus? If so, what marketing? What do you need it to look like? Do you need to grow your audience? Do you need to refresh your website? Do you need to network with others in your industry? What does that look like if your goal is marketing focus right now?

Or is your goal to get refreshed? Are you so burnt out that right now the most productive thing you can do is just to take a break and get refreshed? Because if you're listening to this episode and you're so burned out right now, that can truly be your best next thing that you need to do. To gain some clarity, to take a time out.

I heard a talk a long time ago at the Global Leadership Summit and one of the speakers asked this question–Whose responsibility is it to keep your passion bucket full? As a leader, whose responsibility is that? And the answer is you. If you're the leader, it's your responsibility to keep your passion bucket full, not anybody else's responsibility. So what are you doing in your work to keep your passion bucket full? What are you doing to keep yourself excited about your work?

Is your goal right now to just gain clarity on your next steps in this season of your life? Where are you getting counsel from? Are you staying in God's word? Who do you need to talk to? Who do you need to be mentored by to gain that clarity? You can see how important these questions are because being truly productive has to first answer the question—What's the next best thing for me to focus on?

There's so many different things we can focus on in our work and we can't do all of them at once, but it's up to you to choose which one is most important for me right now.

To all the doers out there—I'm talking to myself here. This takes some time and because I'm a doer and I like to just get things done and get to work, just hear me when I say I'm with you. I don't like all the time this takes, to sit down and write out my answers and think through this because oftentimes it just takes longer than you think it should. It takes patience, and it feels like you're not being productive, but I am here to remind you that taking the time to make the right plan is always, always more productive than just spinning your wheels in the wrong plan or even just a plan that's good, but it's just not optimized for where you are in your life and your business.

My husband works with business owners all the time, and he used to do these EOS trainings where basically like helping these businesses get set up on EOS, based on the book Traction. And a lot of times what you'd find is this group, this team of the owner of the business or the CEO business leader and their leadership team would start to get antsy and frustrated. Like, okay, can we just move on to the next thing? When you're making a big cohesive, strategic plan for a business, it takes time and my husband always used this phrase that makes so much sense and I often have to tell myself this too.

It takes what it takes.

It takes what it takes. It might take a few minutes. You might have clarity right away. It might take hours for you to get the right answer, but it's more important that you stop and you get the right answer and the right plan than it is to rush through it.

Let's ask some questions about your home, your family, your home life. What's the next best thing that you need to work on in your home? When I look at my home and managing my home and managing all my little people and all their things and all their toys and all their clothes, I feel like goodness, there is a long list of things to do.

There's a long list of urgent things that need my attention every day. The dailies; laundry, meals, cleaning up each room, bathing, grooming, homework, papers, life, mail, all the things. When I say meals, come on, we gotta multiply that like three times. Make the meal, feed the meal, clean up the meal, wipe it down, dishes, all those.

I mean, there's so many things, right? And they're urgent. I can't serve lunch unless breakfast is cleaned up. I just gotta keep it churning and keep it going. Right?

And then there are the projects. They're these big projects that have to happen, got to clean out the kids' clothes every season and as they grow. Gotta clean up my own clothes, keep up with that. We're in the middle of doing this big project of completing our will. That's time-consuming and very important. Every once in a while, I’ve got to assess everything in my freezer and pantry and fridge and clean it all out and make a list of what I need to use before it expires.

You know, we painted our bonus room the other day. I need to sell a bunch of stuff, it's sitting in my garage. Or make a donation, all these things. They're bigger projects that we need to give our time and attention to. So again, gotta ask yourself, what do I need to focus on today to keep my home running well?

So I usually have a list of things I do every single day, the dailies that I just mentioned. And I also try to tackle maybe one bigger project a month. With four little kids, six and under anything more than one project a month feels overwhelming because it's just too much daily. So right now there’s just a lot going on. So think of what your capacity is for your home and your life with your work schedule and your littles.

What makes sense for you? Pause, go back to the definition of productivity, the state or quality of producing something. What do you want to produce? What you want to produce in your home and your children? An orderly home, a peaceful home, a lively fun home, a home full of music, a home anchored in faith, a financially stable home?

What do you want to produce? Then you make your list to be productive. From there you make a plan. Make a plan for your month, your week, and then your days. What dailies do you need to tackle? What project do you wanna tackle this month? What’s the goal here? What kind of home do you want to produce?

So just some things for you to think about in your work and your home. I hope that you're able to zoom out a little bit and say, okay, where have I just been on the hamster wheel? Running, doing things like I've always done them and I want to just give you the permission to step off for a second.

Think about things. Think, if there's another way that you need to do something in your life to be truly productive.

Lastly, I have to end this episode with just some practical tips that help me so much in this area. Like I mentioned, I don't have a lot of time. I've got these small spurts of time that I have to be productive or do something until I have to sit down and feed the baby again and then start all over.

So my life, I feel like with these precious little kiddos, it's just constantly interrupted and that's not a bad thing. That's just where I am. So I need to think strategically, how can I make this work? How can I get the things done that I need to get done? Because life continues on. So here are 10 things that I have learned that have just helped me.

So take from these. If any of them are helpful, please just take them and use them. And if not, if you're like, no, that's not me just keep going. You can toss some of these out if it's not gonna work for you. But these are things that help me get excited about being productive.

1. buy a planner that you love.

Going back to my love for planners. It really helps me get excited to manage my work and manage my home. If I have a planner, that's like home base. I like the pages, I like everything. Right now, I'm currently using a Golden Coil Planner. I really love it. This is not an ad, it probably should be, but I really love it. You can look into it. They're expensive, but it makes me excited to do all the things I need to do.

2. use a pen that you love.

I love, love, love the G2 Pilot 0.038. It's a very thin black pen. You can get them at Target or Amazon. They’re great, use a pen that you love.

3. plan your week for 15 minutes.

That’s all it takes 15 minutes. Just write down everything that's going on in your week. Every Sunday or Monday morning, beginning of your week, plan out your week.

4. write down all your important dates and appointments first.

Also, put them in iCal, so you can glance at them on your phone as well.

5. time block.

Time blocking is so important and so helpful. So as you're planning your week, try to plan for blocks of time that you can devote to certain projects to get into that deep work or the bigger projects you need to do.

6. this is a no-brainer, but you have to use your planner.

Like use it daily. If you don't open up those pages and you don't use your planner and mark things off and get it messy why do you even have a planner? You gotta use it. You gotta open it up and use it every single day.

Okay. One through six was all about planning. Now let's talk about doing—

7. obviously follow the plan.

This is actually so nice. If you think about it, if you can just show up and just execute the plan that you wrote down in your planner, it takes so much mental fatigue out of it, all this decision-making of what do I need to do? What am I supposed to do right now with my time? I have felt that overwhelmed so many times as a mom.

Like, what am I supposed to do right now? The baby's asleep. What do I need to be doing during this time? Well, if you take 15 minutes at the beginning of your week and plan out your priorities and block that time, you'll know exactly what you need to do. If you get a few times, a few blocks or a few hours that open up in your schedule all you have to do is show up and execute. And it takes a lot of the mental fog in the decision-making out of it. So follow the plan.

8. use a timer. like an actual timer.

I love The Time timer. I use it for my kids, but I also use it for me and it's amazing because it shows you red, it's like a 60 minute timer, and when you twist it all the way around, it shows up red. Then as the minutes click by, the red starts to disappear. So it was great for kids because they can see an actual visual of how much time they have left.

But for me, I'll do that for 20 minutes and say, okay, I've got 20 minutes to clean my entire kitchen. That's all I am devoting to my kitchen right now. So I'll set a timer. I'll say, I'm going to fold as much as I can in 15 minutes. Let me see how much I can get done because really I hate folding laundry, but it's built up in my brain. It doesn't take as long as I think it will. Y'all know I love a good email ninja. I set my timer for one hour and I tackle my inbox. I do as much as I can for one hour, I delete a bunch, I answer everything I can, I file everything I can. I write down that I start with this many emails and I end with this many emails. I make it a game to see how close I can get to zero emails at the end.

9. identify the type of work that you're doing when you time block and then set boundaries around that.

For example, when you time block and you need to do some deep work, you need to like write long paragraphs or prep some content or do something that takes like a strategic brain. You know what I'm talking about? You gotta set up those boundaries. I'm not going to text. I'm not going to Marco Polo. I’m not going to look at social media. I'm not going to do anything during that time.

But if you time block for brainless housework, you can time block but you can also make it fun. You can listen to your Marco Polos. You can listen to a podcast. You can make it a game with your kids and play music. And so I think just defining the type of work you're doing within those time blocks allows you to set the right kind of boundaries and make you more productive within those time blocks.

10. invite God into your work.

Invite him into your productivity. Ask him how you can be most productive. And can I just tell you something? Can I just be real with you? If you get nothing done in a day, if you don't execute your plan, if some baby gets sick, if you get sick, if there's a massive interruption to your day, can I tell you—the most productive thing that you can do is just abide with Christ. Just abide in him. The day is not lost, if you have been doing your day with the Lord alongside you.

Invite him in, invite him into the work, invite him to speak to you as you work, put on worship music. As you're working, make him be a big part of this productivity, because honestly He's the one that makes us effective. He's the one that makes us effective and wise in how we spend our time and how we manage our homes and how we manage our work. So constantly ask him and invite him to be a part of it.

That should have been number one. Oh well, it's done now. It's number 10. I only have limited amount of time because the baby's asleep so I can’t go back and change it. We'll just leave it as it is. But I really hope today has given you some things to think about. I hope it helps you identify those times when you just get stuck in planner mode, but have a hard time actually getting motivated to do anything.

Or when you're mindlessly doing, doing, doing, and it would be more beneficial for you to sit down and take 15 minutes to plan your day first. But my encouragement, as always, is to invite the Lord into this. I ask God to help me plan my days in the morning, I ask him to help me plan my week, to help me prioritize, to help me see my blind spots, help me to choose the right things.

Help me, Lord to be wise and effective in my home and in my work. I feel like this is turning into a prayer as I talk to you, but I need the Holy Spirit's help to know when to stop a project or when to follow the leading of his Holy Spirit or when to tend to a child's heart, even though I'm trying to be really efficient at this thing. I need his help with that. And that is the best thing that we can do. So just a reminder, again, invite him into it. He is the one that guides us and will help us be the most productive that we can be. You and I know our worth is not and never will be in what we produce.

I used to have a big sign in my photography studio that said “productivity does not equal worth.” And that's true, and we have to remind ourselves of that. We still have lives to live and work that needs to be done and homes that need to be managed and that requires wisdom and planning so that we can carry out those plans well, and do it to the best of our ability.

Now, one of the best books I've read on this subject is called What's Best Next. It's how the gospel transforms the way you get things done, by Matt Perman. It's in my Amazon store right now, which you can find at NancyRay.com/Cornerstore, I highly recommend that book.

Also, I'm going to link to my favorite pens that I use, and I hope all of this helps you.

I'm going to close with words from Tim Kizziar.