Episode 1208: Happiness and Productivity

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,208 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:06] Chip Baker: I'm Chip Baker I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to find inspiration to find success in your life is key.

[00:00:25] And one way to be inspired to do. Is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader. Go get it.

[00:00:36] Scott Maderer: When you begin to understand that you begin to recognize that since there's a feedback loop, you can work on either end. You can work on productivity habits, you can work on happiness habit. Both of those will improve your productivity. And so if you work on both at once, that's also going to even more improve your productivity.

[00:00:59] [00:01:00] Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. 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 true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:26] In today's episode about developing your influence by stewarding your time. I talk with you about the surprising connection between happiness and productivity. I'll also share how your happiness can make you more productive and how your productivity can make you more happy. As we talk about steward in your time.

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[00:02:10] There's some interesting studies out there about the connection between productivity and happiness. I think instinctively, we have this feeling that happiness and productivity are somewhat related. I, in that, I think when we feel like we're getting things done, especially important things or things that we find.

[00:02:31] I think we find that something that causes us to get happier, but it also works the other direction. There are studies that show that people who rank happier in their life actually get more things done as well. There's a feedback loop between productivity and happiness, where productivity can make you happy and happiness can make you productive.

[00:02:54] So it actually connects in both directions. It's not just in one direction [00:03:00] over the other. Studies where they go in and they measure people at random on a happiness scale. And yes, they're a psychological test that can tell how happy you are. And then they measure their productivity. And what they see is a direct correlation.

[00:03:14] The people that score as happier. Actually get more done on the productivity test. But interestingly, there's also studies where they've gone in and they've looked at people who are very productive. They get a lot done, especially when they get a lot done using some very specific productivity techniques, many of which we've talked about on this podcast before, and what they see is when they compare people who use those technique.

[00:03:43] Versus people who don't, the people who use them also score as much happier, sometimes two or three times as happy as the people who don't use those techniques. So clearly there's a connection in both directions. [00:04:00] Being productive can make you happy and being happy can make you productive. So what are some of those productivity drivers?

[00:04:09] That actually make you more happy. And what are some of those happiness drivers that make you more productive? Let's talk about the happiness drivers. First, when they've gone in, they've studied and they've found people who smile more often, they actually get more done. And that's ironic because it, by the way, that smiling actually causes changes in your neurobiologic C.

[00:04:34] Whether or not, you're actually happy. Smiling begins to trigger happiness hormones in your brain. They've looked at people who tend to be more optimistic. People who start the day feeling like the day is going to be a good day. They get more done. They've looked at people who feel like they have a worthy goal or job, something that is important that they're doing.

[00:04:58] It can be in their work life or [00:05:00] in their personal life, but as they have goals that they feel connected to emotionally that they have a deep, why about those people tend to be happier and to get more done. It there's about people that are grateful. Remember how we've talked about doing things like a gratitude journal before those gratitude activities help you be more happy and therefore more productive people who actually are helpful and generous and go out of their way to find opportunities to help others tend to actually be more productive and score happier as.

[00:05:39] People who have good relationships and connections with others, people who exercise and have an active lifestyle. people who actually find ways to reward their progress, all of these things, interestingly cause you to score happier, but also end up showing up in the amount that you [00:06:00] get done in your productivity.

[00:06:01] They make you more productive as well. Happiness and productivity go hand in hand is in that way as well. How about activities that. Directly make you more productive, but then also show up in making you happier. There's a few of those as well. People who actually take treasured time that is they take time to spend with family and friends or re recreational activities like sports or vacation.

[00:06:32] They regularly devote some amount of their. Towards these treasured activities. They don't just work all the time and they don't just play all the time, but they have some harmony between these people who have tools in place to sustain their energy. Even over long periods of time actually tend to score higher on productivity and happiness people who have resiliency.

[00:06:59] That means they [00:07:00] recover quickly when they're derailed, when something goes wrong. When they get off task, when they get off track, they're able to get back on task relatively quickly. People who have the ability to set their own agenda, even if they're in a job where someone else is their boss telling them what to do, they still find a way to have a sense of autonomy and control over their own agenda.

[00:07:27] And then last two, they maximize their investment time. They spend time on activities that actually drive results and success. They actually do the important stuff, not just the urgent stuff and that they're active in fit. They actually have physical activity in their life. You notice how a lot of these overlap taking treasured time is about having good relat.

[00:07:52] Maximizing investment time is about learning and growth activity and fit is about exercise. All of these things [00:08:00] are connected because it turns out that the psychology of productivity and the psychology of happiness are deeply connected at a primal level. When you begin to understand that you begin to recognize that since there's a feedback, You can work on either end.

[00:08:18] You can work on productivity habits, you can work on happiness habits, both of those will improve your productivity. And so if you work on both at once, that's also going to even more improve your productivity. I think all too often, we overlook the psychological connection between what we do in terms of productivity and how we feel in terms of happys.

[00:08:44] Thanks for listening.

[00:08:46] 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 [00:09:00] find a way to live your calling. If you like 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 time tips.

[00:09:23] And that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time invest your. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.