Productivity at work

I was talking to my colleague the other day and she said when she gets overwhelmed with work it paralyzes her from being able to move forward, not knowing where to begin.  

I appreciated her being open and honest with me, and I totally got where she was coming from. I GUARANTEE this has happened to every single person reading this at least once in their lives, if not multiple times a day. 😉

Overwhelm and that never-ending ‘to-do’ list is the catalyst for the perpetual spiral of “where do I even begin?”. Or the starts and stops of projects and tasks throughout the day trying to get it ALL done at once.  

One thing I have learned and have had to re-learn over and over again is that energy flows where attention goes. To be productive I have had to focus on 1 task at a time, complete that and then move on.

If you are going into a day or week where it feels like you have a million things to do and you are starting to panic about where to begin and how you will get it done, do these three things:

1.Close your eyes, and take 3 big long deep breaths.  

Taking control of your breathing will calm your nervous system so that you can proceed forward level-headed.

2. Remind yourself what you are working towards. 

We all have a goal or project we are working towards. Remind yourself what your big goal is. This will help you cut through what is and isn’t important. Everything feels like it’s THE most important thing. It is easy to get caught up in doing things for others and helping them on their “urgent” task when we really need to be focusing on our own.

3. Pick out 1 to 3 of the MOST important things you need to get done that day, or that will help move the needle forward.  

If your ultimate goal is to hit a quota, then what 1-3 things will bring you one step closer to closing that deal? Put your focus here, not email, not slack, not your phone… But those 1-3 things. 

I do this every week. Do I have more than 3 things to do at once, heck yeah I do, but focusing on the top 3 is what propels everything forward.

When I feel like I was “productive” at work, I feel like I did a good job and I had a good day. No one but me can decide what is “productive”. Being busy is different from taking action. Calming myself, focusing on my goals, and working on my top 1-3 goals always helps me.