Episode 1123: Comfort with Discomfort in Productivity

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,123 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Myles Wakeham: I'm Myles Wakeham. I challenge

[00:00:09] you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, your treasure is to live out your calling. Having the ability to live an unconstrained life is key.

[00:00:21] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:30] Scott Maderer: it's not a lack of energy. It's not a lack of desire. It's not a uselessness or a badness of spirit or something or not having a good work ethic or all of these other labels we give ourselves instead. It's about, we haven't actually got an intentional process by which we can say yes to some things and no to us.

[00:00:51] And be okay with the note. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you [00:01:00] 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 true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in.

[00:01:13] Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:20] And today's episode about investing in others by stewarding your time. I talk with you about why we often react to the words, productivity and time management with frustration. I explain how one step towards what I mean by real productivity is understanding this and getting comfortable with it. And I also talk about why this comfort with discomfort is a constant.

[00:01:45] As we talk about stewarding your time. Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without 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 [00:02:00] via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show.

[00:02:03] Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/. One of those things that happens from time to time as I get emails or messages from people that don't like the way that I use the words productivity, or sometimes you'll hear people talk about time management.

[00:02:25] And often people are triggered by those words because they want to push back against them. They don't like that language. And they say that this language around productivity and minimizing distractions and getting things done is an imperative. To them. I think part of that is all too often when we hear productivity and time management, we think to ourselves.

[00:02:48] Yeah. I know people say we're not supposed to be busy all the time. How busy am I, and am I really getting things done? Am I doing enough? And we end up hearing it in terms of a judgment [00:03:00] about not getting the right things or enough things done. Bernay brown talks about hustling for worthiness and rather than healthy, striving this idea of having to do it all so that others know that we're good enough versus having that mindset.

[00:03:18] Of no, I am going to choose what is the right things in the wrong things to do. I'm not hustling out of a negative reinforcement or shame mentality, but rather I'm getting things done because they're positive reinforcement. They're the things I don't should or have to, or need to do. But instead, they're the things I choose to do.

[00:03:43] They're the things I want to do. I'm giving myself that past. And I think that's part of what happens here is we are discomfortable around it. We have this lack of comfort because we're struggling with that [00:04:00] equilibrium between actually giving ourselves the power to choose things, to be able to say yes to certain things and no to others without actual.

[00:04:11] Feeling guilty about it without feeling like somehow we've let someone down including ourselves or that somehow we've failed in some way, because we didn't get everything done. We chose to say no to something. And that is somehow a failure. We tend to ask questions of ourselves. Like why can I never get to the bottom of my to-do list?

[00:04:34] Why didn't I get that done yesterday after all? Am I lazy? Am I somehow not doing the right thing? But instead you can actually turn it on its head and stop beating yourself up and say Let's be realistic. Let's look at what I did do. Let's look at what I can do. And more importantly, let's look at what I choose to do.[00:05:00]

[00:05:00] Let's give myself the power to say no to certain things and that's okay. Let's give ourselves the power to delegate. Certain things are, put things off till tomorrow and be okay with it. Let's get comfortable with the idea that it is okay to not get everything done. And in fact, it's impossible to get everything done.

[00:05:24] There's always more things to do. There's always more that you could have done. And so why not admit that and get comfortable with this discomfort? Get comfortable with the idea that it's okay. And I think it's funny because there's this push back somehow against this idea of productivity. But I think it's actually in part a misunderstanding of what the word means, because it's been taken over by this hustle culture mentality of do more work 24 7, get it [00:06:00] all done, get it all done.

[00:06:01] If you don't hustle and grind, you're useless. But I actually think that's not really what that word means. And it's not really what the goal is that I'm talking about. When I'm talking about productivity, as I've talked about before, it's about getting the right things done. And the only way to know what the right things are is by making a choice.

[00:06:25] By empowering yourself to choose what you're going to say yes to, and therefore what you're going to let go of and then letting go of it without guilt. That's the discomfort that you actually have to get comfortable with this lack of shame, the lack of guilt, the being able to recognize that you didn't get it done today and you know what it's okay.

[00:06:47] It's not that bad. It's not the end of the world because you still did the things that were most. Most people, I think worry, are they lazy or they ineffective, but in reality, it's not [00:07:00] that it's not a lack of energy. It's not a lack of desire. It's not a uselessness or a badness of spirit or something or not having a good work ethic or all of these other labels we give ourselves instead.

[00:07:14] We haven't actually got an intentional process by which we can say yes to some things and no to others and be okay with the, no, to let that go and be lot, be guilty about it. Not worry about it. Not struggle with it, not be sad about it, but just be okay with. That's the constant battle. That is the dilemma and the pushback that we always have around productivity, because the truth is no matter how much you do, there's always more to do.

[00:07:48] There's always more on your plate. There's always another thing that you should have gotten done and be okay with that is about being okay [00:08:00] with the discomfort around product. Thanks for listening.

[00:08:05] 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 your. 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 your time until next time.

[00:08:49] Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world. .