Episode 1088: Influence Your Productivity

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1088 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Ryan Englestad: I'm Ryan Englestead from pop psych 1 0 1. I encourage you to find health. And one way to be inspired to do that is by listening to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:18] Scott Maderer: What is it in these seven areas that has been slowing you down? And then what is the single smallest action you can take that begins to improve that and move those twos to threes and the threes to fours and the forest to fives and do that and recognize that's going to take some time. You've built up a lot of inertia and.

[00:00:40] And how you work. And so making those changes is going to take time. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your [00:01:00] true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:01:03] We'll learn to invest in. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:12] And today's episode about developing your influence by stewarding your time. I talk with you about seven factors that influence your productivity. I also share how you can recognize which of these are influencing you positively and which are influencing your productivity negatively. And I share some things you can do to improve those influences as we talk about stewarding your time.

[00:01:35] Wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it. Just taking too long. It turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show. Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired [00:02:00] stewardship.com/.

[00:02:01] The truth is there are tons of things that can affect our productivity, internal and external factors. Some that are within our control and some that are not, but even then our reaction to them, as often within our control, all of these things can affect how much we get done and how productive we are.

[00:02:25] But often what happens is we find things that we think are the reason that we're not productive, but we don't pay attention to some of the fundamental things that actually have been shown to greatly affect our productivity and influence ourselves and what we get done. And these external and internal influences are often ones that.

[00:02:49] Discount or we say these are things that really aren't that big of a deal. And yet the reality is they are. So I wanted to go [00:03:00] through seven of these and then talk a little bit about how you can examine them and figure out which of these are working in your favor and which are not the first.

[00:03:10] Then I think we often overlook is our actual environment, the environment that we're working in, whether it's neat, whether it's messy, whether it's organized, whether it's disorganized, whether it's too hot or too cold or too bright or too dim. All of these sorts of environmental factors, is there natural light?

[00:03:30] Is there colors or other things that cause the environment to be pleasant and a place that you enjoy working or instead is in a place that you constantly feel like I don't want to go there. I don't want to do the work there because it's uncomfortable. It's a place that you don't enjoy spending time in.

[00:03:50] We overlook the factors that the environment can have on them. Secondly, we often try to use the wrong tools for the [00:04:00] job. We don't pay attention to whether or not we're using the right app or the right program and whether or not we're using it in the right way. We don't spend any time or energy actually understanding how to use the tools in a way that is most effective and how helps us get things done.

[00:04:20] The truth is often we're using the tool that we're used to or most comfortable with as opposed to the tool that is the best. Now don't get me wrong. You can go down a rabbit trail of trying to find the perfect tool and spend all of your time finding the tool instead of actually getting things done.

[00:04:37] And that can be a problem as well, but oftentimes if you're using the wrong tool for the job, it causes a problem. The third one. And I would consider this will have probably one of the most important, and one of the most overlap overlooked is lack of sleep. People oftentimes undercut how much sleep they need, and they actually end up [00:05:00] being less productive because they try to stay up to get everything done, but that lack of sleep actually makes them get less done.

[00:05:08] And it becomes a negative feedback loop. Similarly, poor. Whether that's an illness and not feeling good, or whether that's not eating right. Not having healthy snacks around, not spending time and energy, making sure that things like your hydration are good can cause problems for your product.

[00:05:26] Another thing is if the work that you're always doing feels like it has no impact or meaning. If you haven't done the work to connect what you're doing with what outcomes you actually want, and you haven't tied them to a big enough why it becomes a busy work and makes you less productive. Similarly, lack of knowledge or skill or lack of training, not knowing what it is you're supposed to do and not being good at.

[00:05:55] It can be a reason that you become less productive. [00:06:00] And then of course, the last one, the seventh one, the one that I think we often. Overlook or try to avoid and just say, this isn't a big deal. Is life happening? The truth is if you had a fight with your spouse, if you've had something go wrong in your life, it affects how much productivity you have.

[00:06:19] But we often don't look at that. We think we should just be able to suck it up and move on. So if you think about these seven areas, you can actually take each of them and rank them on a ranking from one to 10, where 10 is this. Thing is really conducive to my productivity. My environment is perfectly designed and everything about it is geared towards making me more productive or a one where it's everything about this is wrong with my environment is completely unconducive to me being productive.

[00:06:56] If it doesn't do anything to lend itself towards [00:07:00] me getting things done. Now the truth is most of the time you're going to find that your environment is not a one or a 10 at somewhere between the two, but if you rank it, you can begin to do that for each of these. And you can think about how much time and effort can I put into moving this closer to.

[00:07:21] Yeah, you probably don't want to ever try to aim for everything being a 10, because again, that product Tivity, perfection isn't really going to happen, but you can move them in that direction. And if everything on this list ends up being a five or a six, you are sending yourself up for being very productive.

[00:07:42] If everything's a seven or an eight, it's even better. If everything, however you find many of these are down at the two or the three range. Those are the ones that you need to spend some time and energy in. And once you've identified one that you need some improving, [00:08:00] then try to identify what is the single smallest action you can take that would improve it.

[00:08:06] Is it simply taking 30 minutes and neatening up my office? Taking some time off and recognizing that this life event that has happened is one that you need to spend some time working on. Is it something where you need to recognize that you need more sleep and schedule that in, or you need to go ahead and go to the doctor and get some health issue taken care of, or is it simply you need to do better meal planning and start eating and taking better care of yourself?

[00:08:35] Budgeting time for exercise and eating, right? What is it in these seven areas that has been slowing you down? And then what is the single smallest action you can take that begins to improve that and move those twos to threes and the threes to fours and the fours to five. And do that and recognize that's going to take some time.

[00:08:58] You built up a lot of inertia and [00:09:00] habits in how you work. And so making those changes is going to take time. But if you do this and spend a little bit of time on the areas that are the lowest, you'll begin to see increasing momentum as each area gets better and better. Thanks for listening.

[00:09:19] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting 4 4, 2, 2, 2 time tips, and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding [00:10:00] your time until next time.

[00:10:03] Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.