We all strive to be more productive, to manage our time better and to
get more done in less time. However, this striving to increase
productivity often leads to a very stressful life, exhaustion and both
mental and physical breakdowns. What can we do in order to be both
productive, efficient, happy and relaxed at the same time? I believe the
most important thing for someone who wants to achieve this balance is
to stop chasing short term productivity and focus on long term
productivity instead. It might be tough at first, but it’s really worth
it in the long run.
What is short term/long term productivity?
Short term productivity is your ability to reach and maintain high
level of productivity during a short period of time, usually days, weeks
and months. You can think about it as sprint.
Long term productivity is your ability to reach and maintain high
level of productivity during a long period of time, usually months,
years and decades. You can think about it as running a marathon.
What’s the problem with focusing on short term productivity?
There is a huge social pressure to focus on a short-term
productivity. Imagine two people who are working in the same field. One
of them is coming to work earlier, leaving later, catching up with work
on weekends, trading proper lunch for a sandwich and coke in order to
save time and sleeping six hours every night. Another one is coming to
work on time, leaving work on time, not doing anything work related on
weekends, eating not only a proper lunch, but also a proper breakfast
and a proper dinner and sleeping at least eight hours every night. Which
one of them would be considered a driven and hardworking person?
Exactly. Therefore, it’s not surprising that so many people choose
short-term productivity over the long-term productivity without even
questioning it. However, once you start analyzing long-term consequences
of this choice, it turns out that it might not be a wise choice after
all
The workaholic from the previous example might do well for a while.
He might even do well for a few years or a decade. The problem is that
he’s not noticing that he’s exhausting himself, both mentally and
physically. When we are young, our body recharges very quickly and we
often push harder and harder thinking that we’ll be fine while all the
stress, skipped meals and sleepless nights are quietly adding up, not
talking about alcohol, nicotine and caffeine intakes. Once we get older
and our body can’t recover that quickly, all those things come to the
surface and often they do that very fast. Workaholic might be fine for
ten years, but once his body won’t be able to keep up with this pace
anymore, the breakdown will come, often in a form of physical or mental
illness. He sure was very productive for few years and might even have
made loads of money, but what’s the point of owning a Lamborghini when
you can’t drive it because you’re ill? And what’s the point of being
productive for few years if that leads to a massive loss of productivity
over the coming few decades? This is the part that people often miss
when they see driven youngsters obsessed with their careers.
On the other hand, the other person from previous example might not
get the promotion as fast as workaholic will, but he is the one who will
win in the long run, assuming his lifestyle was a conscious choice, not
a sign of laziness or a lack of ambition. While everyone else around
him is skipping meals, sacrificing their sleep and working on weekends,
he is taking a proper care of himself and this also have consequences.
Once his colleagues will start experiencing breakdowns and health
problems, he will be fine and able to keep the same steady pace he kept
for the last few years, while most people around him won’t be able to do
that and will blame it on getting older. This person might have lost in
terms of short-term productivity, but he will be able to be highly
productive over the coming few decades and few decades of highly
productive work will definitely put him on the top of his field. When
you think about it like this, who was more productivity-focused,
workaholic or this “lazy” guy?
Would you think that it’s a good strategy to sprint when you are
actually running in marathon? Probably not, right? This is the problem
with focusing on short-term productivity. People want to get results
fast, not realizing that they’re hurting themselves in the long run.
Life is not a sprint. It’s a marathon. Wouldn’t it be wiser to use the
marathon strategy then?
Long term productivity and health
Your health is one of the main factors when it comes to your
productivity. People often miss that and think that productivity is
processing paperwork as fast as you can and it’s not related with other
areas of your life. Well, you know what? When your health is a mess, you
won’t be able to process paperwork fast, set correct priorities or make
good decisions. You can’t be really productive without having a good
health.
Things like skipping meals, eating random junk or sacrificing sleep
does not indicate being driven, it indicates being foolish. Excessive
drinking doesn’t make you cool, it makes you an alcoholic. Smoking
cigarettes is beyond words, because all the nicotine marketing aside, it
means that you’re paying money to slowly, but steadily kill yourself.
None of this is compatible with a high long-term productivity. I’m
sorry, but someone has to say it.
Take time to learn more about healthy lifestyle and start making
slow, but steady changes into that direction. You might seem weird to
many people, but it will pay off over the decades – remember the “lazy”
guy from the previous example. Time spent on developing healthy habits
is a time well spent. Ignore anyone who is pushing you to the opposite
direction.
Long term productivity and business
We all want to make money as quick as possible – that’s completely
normal. However, this desire often side-tracks people and they waste
years participating in one “Get Rich Quick” scam after the other, never
really creating a sustainable stream of income. Don’t let this be your
story.
The important thing to realize when it comes to business is that it’s
sustainability that matters, not a few quick bucks. There are a lot of
people who are doing all kinds of things trying to make money without
providing an equal value in return. This might look great for a short
period of time, but it’s a business suicide in the long term. You can
trick people once, but then they are never coming back. On the other
hand, when you take time to create an amazing product or service and
sell it at a fair price, people will not only come back or buy your next
product, they will also tell their friends to come buy it as well. This
is how a real, sustainable business is built.
It really doesn’t matter that much whether your business will take
off after one year or five years, since time is going to pass anyway.
All that matters is that it will take off. You can waste time on “Get
Rich Quick” schemes and tricking people by doing shady things or you can
graduate from kinder-garden and start building a real, sustainable
business. The only difference between these two approaches is that over
the course of five years one will get you nowhere and the other will
make a proud and honest business owner. That’s your choice to make.
Long term productivity and relationships
I’m all for individualistic values, but the truth is that you can’t
pull anything really impressive completely on your own. As long as you
live in a society, you need other people, whether it would be your
significant other, your friends, your customers, your business partners,
etc. Knowing the right people might open you many doors and save you
months or even years of hard work. Now, that’s productivity, right?
The problem is that many people focus of building shallow or win-lose
relationships. It’ easy to have a lot of fake friends and think that
you’re very popular, however, that might lead to a very harsh
disappointment once you get in a real trouble and nobody cares. It’s
also easy to engage in a win-lose relationships where you win and the
other person loses, the problem is that the other person will soon get
fed up with that and then what will you do? It’s really a shame that
this is what most people perceive as “networking”.
In the long-term, it’s much better to focus on building real
friendships and mutually beneficial relationships. It might take a lot
of work with yourself, especially if your social skills are not very
good or you’ve a habit of treating people in a rude or arrogant manner,
but it will be worth it in the end. It will also take a lot of general
efforts from your side, because in order to build good relationships,
you have to learn to help people without expecting a quick gain from it.
It’s like planting flowers. You wouldn’t expect the flower to appear
the minute after you put the seed in the ground, right? You know that it
will take time and care to make that small seed grow into a beautiful
flower. This is the same with relationships. It takes time and efforts
to create a relationship, but once it develops, it might bring you a lot
of benefits, including career and monetary ones. Good relationships are
also known for contributing a lot to your overall happiness.
Long term productivity vs. Short term productivity: You have to choose.
The truth is that you can’t have both long term and short term
productivity. When you focus on long-term productivity, your short-term
productivity suffers dramatically and vice versa. You have to make a
decision and choose between those two. I’d obviously recommend choosing
long term productivity, but don’t take my word for it, think for
yourself. Analyze the long-term effect your actions have on your life.
Then, choose the actions whose consequences you like the most and drop
the ones whose consequences terrify you. It sounds very simple, but most
people never sit down and think about what it is that they’re doing
with their lives. Don’t be like them, don’t play follow the follower.
Make your own decisions.
Agota writes a blog www.outsidethebox.
lt’s about getting different results by using different approach. She
writes on a wide range of topics, including productivity, emotional
mastery and goal achievement. Agota has studied martial arts for almost
ten years; it’s no surprise that her favorite topic is applying Eastern
philosophies in our daily lives.
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