Episode 1033: What is Productivity Anyway?

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1033 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Dr. Kelly Henry: I'm Dr. Kelly Henry. 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 deliver. Customer service is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:33] Scott Maderer: it's about not looking at what you cut out and what you leave in until you think about what you actually want in your life and what you want to cut out of your life. It's not about turning it into being more about your work until whether the work is even the goal that you have. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts.

[00:00:59] [00:01:00] 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. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:21] and today's episode about impacting the world by stewarding your time. I talk with you about what productivity really is. I talk about how it's defined, but why we need to understand it for ourselves. I also talk about how so much of the productivity culture is a false promise as we talk about stewarding your time.

[00:01:42] 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 via Amazon and a small commission. We'll come back to support the show. Just that [00:02:00] quick.

[00:02:00] If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/. Cook all the time about productivity instead of time management on the podcast. I like to talk about productivity because the truth is we all have the same amount of time and we don't manage that time. We manage ourselves.

[00:02:24] But I've been thinking about it. And I did some digging because it turns out productivity is a weird word. It's a vague phrase. It's one of those things that you hear a lot in business and around work, but it's not something that necessarily, everyone means the same thing. When they talk about it when you survey people and ask them how productive they feel, it goes up and down.

[00:02:54] It talks in some surveys, people feel very productive and others, even [00:03:00] little things derail them from being productive during the day. And it's really. Muddled now during the pandemic, there was a big concern about, would people be as productive when it came to work, if they were working from home. And yet there were a lot of reports that showed an increase in productivity when people were working from home.

[00:03:23] So what are they talking about when they talk about products? The basic definition, at least around work is productivity is an equation where productivity is equal to the ratio of input and output. In other words, how much work are you putting in versus how much are you getting out, usually measured in some sort of monetary or measurable.

[00:03:49] Reward. So it's how much, how many hours do you work versus how much money do you make for the business or how much money do you generate in that work? But [00:04:00] that's of course not the only way to talk about or measure productivity often ties with companies and businesses. They think about productivity in terms of quote butts in the seat.

[00:04:10] How many hours are people actually at work? This is one reason that. Especially pre pandemic. There were a lot of bosses and HR people that wanted people to show up in the office, even if all they really did was sit around and do nothing at the office. It's the same reason why oftentimes we have meetings that could have been an email or emails that could have been a slack message.

[00:04:37] Are we send up things that take a lot of time and don't actually get a lot of benefits. If you think about productivity like that, what about personal productivity? Oftentimes we talk about things. Creating systems or creating your desired results as a way of productivity, but that's nebulous.

[00:04:59] [00:05:00] What does that really mean? And this is where I think a lot of the productivity culture starts going wrong and the time management culture starts going wrong, they talk about. Reducing your decision load. And I've even talked about that on the show, but they talk about that in terms of streamlining everything you do simplifying your life so that you don't have to make decisions about non-important things like what are you going to wear or what clothes do you have?

[00:05:25] And instead you can focus all of that energy on business and. These things oftentimes talk about productivity in terms of getting rid of all of the stuff that is quote, life or living, and just focus on producing the work. The truth is productivity. In that measure is measured by decisiveness efficiency, structure rigidity, and it often cuts out things like self care, sleeping, exercising, doing all of these [00:06:00] things that help us take care of ourselves or work-life balance kinds of things.

[00:06:05] It's focused on going to bed at eight, getting up at five and spending 24 hours working it's that hustle culture begins to come into the productivity culture. And if you spend some time reading a book or relaxing, that's not being productive in this measure, but the truth is, this is one of the reasons that in the productivity course I talk about productivity for your past.

[00:06:33] Because the truth is it's not about getting more done. It's not even about getting what you're getting done more efficiently or quicker until what it is that you want to do in the first place. And quite frankly, if included in that is making decisions and wearing something different every day, instead of dressing in the same black turtleneck so that you don't have to make a decision about what you wear, then you shouldn't be.

[00:06:57] Re make yourself into that rigid [00:07:00] box of getting rid of that part of your decision-making life. It's about not looking at what you cut out and what you leave in until you think about what you actually want in your life and what you want to cut out of your life. It's not about turning it into being more about your work until whether the work is even the goal that you have.

[00:07:25] And I'm not talking about being irresponsible and doing things and just going and living on a beach somewhere. Whenever you can't afford it. I'm talking about making sure that you're allowing some freedom and some flexibility at the same time that you're developing systems and processes so that those systems and processes actually work for you.

[00:07:47] They're not necessarily the same ones that the person next to you. Has that's why so much of productivity culture turns into a false promise because people tell you, Hey, this is the [00:08:00] one way that you can be productive. This is what you must do. And usually what they mean, this is what I've done, and therefore you should do it like I do it.

[00:08:10] But the truth is it's more important to know who you are and tailor your life to what you want to be and what you want to become. Before you focus on what you're doing. We need to be focused on our being and becoming before we focus on our doing. And so often with productivity, we focus only on the doing and never on the person behind it.

[00:08:37] And when you do that, you almost always set yourself up to burn out, get frustrated and quit. Thanks for listening.

[00:08:47] 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 [00:09:00] what you've heard and find a way to live your call. 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.

[00:09:32] Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.