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Journal Prompts Worksheet for Real Productivity

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Journal Prompts Worksheet for Real Productivity

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Use these 3 prompts to get back to priorities and real productivity.

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A kick-a** podcast that EVERYONE should listen to!!! Productivity themed episodes: #172 and #89.

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One of the hardest conversations to have, especially for women, revolves around money. I see the most diverse reactions to talking about it, from people thinking it's the root of...

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Podcast: Brene Brown with Charles Duhigg on Habits and Productivity

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Podcast: Brene Brown with Charles Duhigg on Habits and Productivity

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Brené with Charles Duhigg on Habits and Productivity

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Listen to this episode from Dare to Lead with Brené Brown on Spotify. In this episode, as I'm writing a book and thinking about habits that are getting in my way of being more productive, I call upon Charles Duhigg, who is a New York Times bestselling author on habits and productivity with The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business.

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Explores the fascinating science of productivity and offers real-world takeaways to apply your life, whether you’re chasing peak productivity or simply trying to get back on track.

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Smarter Faster Better
The Transformative Power of Real Productivity
* Individual store prices may vary.

Other Editions of This Title:
Digital Audiobook (3/7/2016)
Hardcover (3/8/2016)
Paperback, Spanish (11/15/2016)
CD-Audio (3/8/2016)

Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The author of The Power of Habit and "master of the life hack" (GQ) explores the fascinating science of productivity and offers real-world takeaways to apply your life, whether you're chasing peak productivity or simply trying to get back on track.

"Duhigg melds cutting-edge science, deep reporting, and wide-ranging stories to give us a fuller, more human way of thinking about how productivity actually happens."-Susan Cain, author of Quiet

In The Power of Habit, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Duhigg explained why we do what we do. In Smarter Faster Better, he applies the same relentless curiosity and rich storytelling to how we can improve at the things we do.

At the core of Smarter Faster Better are eight key concepts-from motivation and goal setting to focus and decision making-that explain why some people and companies get so much done. Drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics-as well as the experiences of CEOs, educational reformers, four-star generals, FBI agents, airplane pilots, and Broadway songwriters-this book reveals that the most productive people, companies, and organizations don't merely act differently. They view the world, and their choices, in profoundly different ways.

Smarter Faster Better is a story-filled exploration of the science of productivity, one that can help us learn to succeed with less stress and struggle-and become smarter, faster, and better at everything we do.

Praise For Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity...

"A pleasure to read . . . [Charles] Duhigg's skill as a storyteller makes his book so engaging to read." -The New York Times Book Review

"Not only will Smarter Faster Better make you more efficient if you heed its tips, it will also save you the effort of reading many productivity books dedicated to the ideas inside." -Bloomberg Businessweek

"Duhigg pairs relatable anecdotes with the research behind why some people and businesses are not as efficient as others. . . . He takes readers from inside the cockpit of a crashing plane to the writing room of Disney's Frozen." -Chicago Tribune

"The book covers a lot of ground through meticulous reporting and deft analysis, presenting a wide range of case studies . . . with insights that apply to the rest of us." -The Wall Street Journal

"[Duhigg] looks at the numerous ways that people can become more effective, whether in improving motivation, setting goals, making decisions or thinking creatively . . . [He's] an effective storyteller with a knack for combining social science, fastidious reporting and entertaining anecdotes." -The Economist

"Engagingly written, solidly reported, thought-provoking and worth a read." -Associated Press

"Charles Duhigg is the master of the life hack." -GQ

"A gifted storyteller, Duhigg . . . combines his reporting skills with cutting-edge research in psychology and behavioural economics to explain why some companies and people get so much done, while some fail. Almost all books written in this genre are full of case studies and stories, but Duhigg's storytelling skills make this book memorable and persuasive. Duhigg succeeds in challenging our mindsets and existing thought processes. It is not just another productivity book. It is about making sense of overwhelming data we live with." -The Financial Express

"There are valuable lessons in Smarter, Faster, Better. . . . Duhigg is a terrific storyteller, and a master of the cliffhanger." -Financial Times

"As he did in The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg melds cutting-edge science, deep reporting, and wide-ranging stories to give us a fuller, more human way of thinking about how productivity actually happens. He manages to reframe an entire cultural conversation: Being productive isn't only about the day-to-day and to-do lists. It's about seeing our lives as a series of choices, and learning that we have power over how we think about the world." -Susan Cain, author of Quiet

"A brilliant distillation of the personal and organizational behaviors that produce extraordinary results. Duhigg uses engaging storytelling to highlight fascinating research and core principles that we can all learn and use in our daily lives. A masterful must-read for anyone who wants to get more (and more creative) stuff done." -David Allen, author of Getting Things Done

"Charles Duhigg has a gift for asking just the right question, and then igniting the same curiosity in the rest of us. In Smarter Faster Better he finds provocative answers to a riddle of our age: how to become more productive (by two times, or even ten times) and less busy, how to be more effective in the world and more in control of our lives. Duhigg has rendered, yet again, a great service with his sharp, lucid prose." -Jim Collins, author of Good to Great

Random House Trade Paperbacks, 9780812983593, 400pp.

Publication Date: March 7, 2017

About the Author

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and the author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better. A graduate of Harvard Business School and Yale College, he is a winner of the National Academies of Sciences, National Journalism, and George Polk awards. He writes for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications, and is the host of the podcast How To! with Charles Duhigg.

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Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity | IndieBound.org

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Power of Habit and “master of the life hack” (GQ) explores the fascinating science of productivity and offers real-world takeaways to apply your life, whether you’re chasing peak productivity or simply trying to get back on track.“Duhigg melds cutting-edge science, deep reporting, and wide-ranging stories to give us a fuller, more...

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Understand Burnout and How to Complete the Stress Cycle

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Understand Burnout and How to Complete the Stress Cycle

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Dare to Lead is Unlocking Us this week about burnout. We're all experiencing it and we're all desperate for a way through it. In this episode, I talk to Drs. Emily and Amelia Nagoski about what causes burnout, what it does to our bodies, and how we can move through the emotional exhaustion. This has been a game-changer for me and for my family! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Brené with Emily and Amelia Nagoski on Burnout and How to Complete the Stress Cycle

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Listen to this episode from Dare to Lead with Brené Brown on Spotify. Dare to Lead is Unlocking Us this week about burnout. We're all experiencing it and we're all desperate for a way through it. In this episode, I talk to Drs.

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Book: Designing Your Life - Bill Burnett

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Book: Designing Your Life - Bill Burnett

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A book about how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling.

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Designing Your Life
How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life
* Individual store prices may vary.

Other Editions of This Title:
Digital Audiobook (9/19/2016)
CD-Audio (9/20/2016)
Paperback, Vietnamese (7/1/2019)

Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * At last, a book that shows you how to build-design-a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage

Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home-at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve.

In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

Praise For Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life...

"Life has questions. They have answers...Learn how to find a fulfilling career...learn how to better navigate life's big moment decisions and kill your 'wicked problems dead."
- The New York Times

"The prototype for a happy life...Burnett and Evans show how to apply Stanford's famous design principles to finding your place in the world, as a recent graduate or mid-career."
-NPR's "Designing Your Life walks readers through the process of building a satisfying, meaningful life by approaching the challenge the way a designer would. Experimentation. Wayfinding. Prototyping. Constant iteration. You should read the book. Everyone else will."
-Daniel Pink, bestselling author of
"This [is] the career book of the next decade and . . . the go-to book that is read as a rite of passage whenever someone is ready to create a life they love."
-David Kelley, Founder of IDEO

"An empowering book based on their popular class of the same name at Stanford University . . . Perhaps the book's most important lesson is that the only failure is settling for a life that makes one unhappy. With useful fact-finding exercises, an empathetic tone, and sensible advice, this book will easily earn a place among career-finding classics."
- Publishers Weekly

Knopf, 9781101875322, 272pp.

Publication Date: September 20, 2016

About the Author

BILL BURNETT is the executive director of the Design Program at Stanford.

DAVE EVANS is an adjunct lecturer in the Product Design Program at Stanford, a management consultant, and a co-founder of Electronic Arts

www.designingyour.life

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Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life | IndieBound.org

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1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build-design-a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home-at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in.

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Award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing.

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Do Nothing
How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving
* Individual store prices may vary.

Other Editions of This Title:
Digital Audiobook (3/9/2020)
Paperback (6/1/2021)

Description

"A welcome antidote to our toxic hustle culture of burnout."-Arianna Huffington
"This book is so important and could truly save lives."-Elizabeth Gilbert
"A clarion call to work smarter [and] accomplish more by doing less."-Adam Grant

We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable?

Despite our constant search for new ways to optimize our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. We strive for the absolute best in every aspect of our lives, ignoring what we do well naturally and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher. Why do we measure our time in terms of efficiency instead of meaning? Why can't we just take a break?

In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we're searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won't find what we're searching for in punishing diets, productivity apps, or the latest self-improvement schemes. Yet all is not lost-we just need to learn how to take time for ourselves, without agenda or profit, and redefine what is truly worthwhile.

Pulling together threads from history, neuroscience, social science, and even paleontology, Headlee examines long-held assumptions about time use, idleness, hard work, and even our ultimate goals. Her research reveals that the habits we cling to are doing us harm; they developed recently in human history, which means they are habits that can, and must, be broken. It's time to reverse the trend that's making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive, and return to a way of life that allows us to thrive.

Praise For Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving...

"Through deep research and evocative storytelling, Celeste Headlee shows us how to break free from constant pressure and live the life we truly want." -Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global

"Despite working harder than ever, people have never been more depressed, anxious, and unhappy. Without a doubt, our modern way of life is not working. In fact, it's killing us. But what is to be done? With intelligence and compassion, Headlee presents realistic solutions for how we can reclaim our health and our humanity from a technological revolution that seems hell-bent on destroying both. I'm so grateful to have read this book. It delivers on its promise of a better life." -Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love

"Celeste Headlee makes a powerful case that productivity is not an inherent virtue-if you're not careful, it can become a vice. If you've ever felt compelled to work harder, this book is a clarion call to work smarter instead. Sometimes you accomplish more by doing less." -Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take, and host of the chart-topping TED podcast WorkLife

"At a time when so many people are feeling overworked, overwhelmed and addicted to busyness, work, and ever-present technology, Celeste Headlee offers a pathway out. Drawing on extensive research and her own experience, Do Nothing is a powerful reminder that taking the time to stop, connect with others, and forge real bonds is vital for building community, fostering empathy, and ultimately leads to joy." -Brigid Schulte, author of the New York Times bestselling Overwhelmed, and director of The Better Life Lab at New America

"I needed this book. And chances are you need it, too. Celeste Headlee does something amazing in Do Nothing. She battles this hectic, stressful time and highlights the things that makes our lives better. Connection. Experience. Self-care. And, above all, she reminds us to get busy living." -Jared Yates Sexton, author of The Man They Wanted Me to Be

"In this thought-provoking, well-researched book, Celeste invites readers to push back against the I'm-too-busy narrative and discover what it means to be truly successful." -Laura Vanderkam, author of Off the Clock and I Know How She Does It

"This book is honest, heartbreaking, and hopeful. It's that kind of gem that you read and know you need to hear, know you need to embrace, even if it's challenging. Incredibly well-researched and yet never preachy or dull, this book will help us all reclaim a bit of our humanness if we allow it." -Nataly Kogan, author of Happier Now

"[ Do Nothing's] conversational tone draws readers in, and it will appeal to those looking beyond self-help to something more meaningful."-Booklist

"This is neither a self-help book nor a how-to for people looking for a guide for different working habits. Rather, Headlee systematically deconstructs the toxicity of hustle culture with historical and scientific research to help readers question their habits and impulses surrounding overwork."-Shelf Awareness

Harmony, 9781984824738, 288pp.

Publication Date: March 10, 2020

About the Author

Celeste Headlee is an award-winning journalist and professional speaker, and is the bestselling author of We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter. She is cohost of the new weekly series Retro Report on PBS and season three of the Scene on Radio podcast- MEN. Celeste serves as an advisory board member for Procon and the Listen First Project. In her twenty-year career in public radio, Celeste has been the executive producer of On Second Thought at Georgia Public Radio and has anchored programs including, Tell Me More, Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. She also cohosted of the national morning news show The Takeaway for PRI and WNYC, anchored World Channel's presidential coverage in 2012, and received the 2019 Media Changemaker Award. Celeste lives in Washington, DC.

Coverage from NPR

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Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving | IndieBound.org

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ldquo;A welcome antidote to our toxic hustle culture of burnout.”-Arianna Huffington “This book is so important and could truly save lives.”-Elizabeth Gilbert “A clarion call to work smarter [and] accomplish more by doing less.”-Adam Grant We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable?

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Author May's personal journey offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat.

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Wintering
The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
* Individual store prices may vary.

Other Editions of This Title:
Digital Audiobook (11/9/2020)
Library Binding, Large Print (6/8/2021)

December 2020 Indie Next List

"When we all started our own 'winters' in March, some of us were more prepared than others. May writes delicately of the struggles of life and the ways we may be able to prepare ourselves for such times, something I feel we all need to learn in order to survive the emotional winter that is a worldwide pandemic. Grab a cup of tea, find a cozy blanket, and burrow into this book of thoughtfulness and comfort."
- Emma Warren, Oblong Books & Music, Millerton, NY
View the List

Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! AS HEARD ON NPR MORNING EDITION AND ON BEING WITH KRISTA TIPPETT
"Katherine May opens up exactly what I and so many need to hear but haven't known how to name." -Krista Tippett, On Being

"Every bit as beautiful and healing as the season itself. . . . This is truly a beautiful book." -Elizabeth Gilbert

"Proves that there is grace in letting go, stepping back and giving yourself time to repair in the dark...May is a clear-eyed observer and her language is steady, honest and accurate-capturing the sense, the beauty and the latent power of our resting landscapes." -Wall Street Journal

An intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May's story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.

Praise For Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times...
PRAISE FOR WINTERING
"A beautiful, meditative book...It feels like Katherine May opens up exactly what I and so many need to hear but haven't known how to name." - Krista Tippett, On Being

"There is power and clarity and wisdom to be gained from accepting these difficult times. Wintering offered me empathy, acceptance and perspective that will stay with me long after the pandemic." - New York Times

"Honest and deeply sympathetic...proves that there is grace in letting go, stepping back and giving yourself time to repair in the dark...May is a clear-eyed observer and her language is steady, honest and accurate-capturing the sense, the beauty and the latent power of our resting landscapes." - Wall Street Journal

"Wintering succeeds in delivering a powerful, realtime account of what it is to experience life's inevitable winters - both literal and metaphorical - and come out on the other side. I can think of no more valuable voice to have in your ear as we stumble our way out of a pandemic and emerge from a collective wintering." - Popsugar

"May writes beautifully....A contemplative, hopeful, consoling book." - NPR

"Lovely...May is an astute observer of life's emotional discouragements." - New York Times
"A gorgeous book, a generous book, a layered book of uncommon sensitivity and substance...A splendid and soul-salving read." - Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

"Drawing on her own life's difficult periods, May offers a guide to leaning into fallow times and savoring the lessons of hardship." - People Magazine

" Wintering is every bit as beautiful and healing as the season itself. Katherine May thoughtfully examines the emotional, spiritual, and geographical reality of the cold times, the dark days, and those periods of our lives when things are neither soft nor easy. In so doing, she offers a great and humane service to her readers: she shows us that wintering cannot be avoided, but need not be feared. This is truly a beautiful book." - #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert

"Wintering is the book equivalent of a perfectly timed hug you didn't know you needed, a warm blanket on a cold day. So many books about adversity focus on ways to get away from the discomfort, and this book so wonderfully and sincerely says it's okay to be here, even when it hurts. It's exactly what the world needs right now." - Nora McInerny, host of Terrible, Thanks for Asking

"Enthralling...[May] has a gift for unleashing unexpected comedy...There is so much to treasure here...Her sensual connoisseurship a joy." - The Guardian

"May brings a poet's eye and unexpected comedy to this enthralling celebration of our fallow season." - London Observer

"An empowering and touching read that will inspire a survivalist spirit on even the darkest days of winter." - Town & Country UK

"A beautifully written mix of memoir and philosophy...With a pandemic keeping us isolated in so many ways, May offers much-needed solace and comfort and a reminder that seasons eventually turn." " - starred Booklist ★

"Beautiful...She is a poetic observer of the natural world, and quotable lines abound...I want to share Wintering with all my friends who experience winter blues, and keep a copy close at hand for the inevitable winterings of my own life." - BookPage

Riverhead Books, 9780593189481, 256pp.

Publication Date: November 10, 2020

About the Author

Katherine May is the New York Times bestselling author of Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. A writer of both fiction and nonfiction, May has had journalism and essays appear in a range of publications including The New York Times, The Times (London), Good Housekeeping, and Cosmopolitan. She lives by the sea in Whitstable, England and is an avid lover of the outdoors.

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Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times | IndieBound.org

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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! AS HEARD ON NPR MORNING EDITION AND ON BEING WITH KRISTA TIPPETT“Katherine May opens up exactly what I and so many need to hear but haven't known how to name.” -Krista Tippett, On Being “Every bit as beautiful and healing as the season itself. .

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Laura Vanderkam - time management resources

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Laura Vanderkam - time management resources

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Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time management and productivity books and helps people spend more time on what matters, and less on what doesn’t. Also check out her TEDTalks, particularly this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3kNlFMXslo

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My husband was gone over the weekend, so I was mostly managing the kids solo. We did all right. I took all five to the ... Read More

Today is cold - 21 degrees this morning - but spring is in the air. Temperatures will rise into the 60s next week and so ... Read More

This feels ridiculous to type, but I really dislike washing my face at night. I wash my face in the shower in the morning. At ... Read More

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Laura Vanderkam | Writer, Author & Speaker | Time Management

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Meet Laura Vanderkam, a notable writer, author and speaker on the topics of work-life balance, career development, parenting, time management, productivity, and making time for fun. Spend more time on the things that matter, and less on the things that don't.

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Advice , Career , Work

Maybe you've been feeling it lately. That overwhelmed feeling you get when your to-do list is long but your worry list is longer? There's a lot on your plate right now. There are scary, uncontrollable things happening in the world, maybe in your personal life and yet time doesn't stop for your business. I feel you. Some days the last thing you want to do is answer emails or join video calls. One of the worst feelings is a big agenda and no motivation to work on it.

I work a 9-to-5 job and have created a multi-six-figure online business. Needless to say, my checklist each day can get pretty long, and more than that, juggling both mentally can sometimes be a challenge. But, over the years, I've learned that, even though I might not be able to control every stressor that comes my way, whether it's in my personal or professional life, there are ways I can stay productive even when pressure mounts or stress takes over, and you can implement them as well.

I like to call it shiny object syndrome. It's when we get distracted with the latest and greatest and lose sight of the task or goal at hand. This is a productivity killer. To prevent this, set plans, lots of them. Have daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and five-year goals written out and share them with someone who can help hold you accountable (team, partner, a coach/mentor, etc.) and put them somewhere where you can see them often. Whenever you are going through your task list ask yourself if it supports your top three long-term goals, if not put on your blinders and keep moving. Clearly set goals also help prevent decision fatigue which is super important in preventing burnout.

Put it in the schedule, always. Whether it's following up on an email, calling a team member, or an important meeting, add everything to a calendar. Keeping all your to-do's in one place will help you feel less scattered and less distracted. When we don't have a clear way to organize our time it can create extra noise. Instead of focusing on one task at a time, we are nervous that we are forgetting something.

Prioritization is key. This means I align my tasks with my energy levels so I can't procrastinate. For difficult items that require a lot of brainpower or for the "I don't really want to do tasks," I move to my high energy times. For me, I do the most difficult tasks in the morning to create a free-ing feeling for the rest of the day. By the end of the day, most people have made so many decisions that your brain is exhausted. You don't want to leave difficult tasks for this time as the quality will be poor or you simply won't do them- creating a cycle of broken self-promises!

How do I want to feel today? Do you ever ask yourself that? Instead of running through your to-do list first thing in the morning, ask yourself how you want to feel that day. It shouldn't be the same each day. One day it may be "productive" or "energized" but it may be "calm" or "sleepy" another. Claim those feelings and let yourself feel them. Doing this allows you to accept the "slow" days, appreciate them, and not beat yourself up if you don't have the most productive day. Here's the secret, productivity doesn't always mean work, often it means taking care of yourself.

Set a timer. The toughest part of anything is getting started. Set a two-minute timer and just start. For me it's writing content, I have to tell myself that if after two minutes I don't want to work on that anymore I can stop. It's your easy way out, no shame, no guilt. But chances are, once you start it will get you into a FLOW state and you can then create for hours. It's like the Pringles effect; once you start you can't stop. Turn off ALL distractions (once you get distracted it takes your brain nine minutes to get back on track) phone in another room, not other tabs open, and get in your flow.

Work and non-work related. Less time on tasks that suck up your energy means more time on tasks that fill you up. This may mean investing in systems for invoicing, tech work, or posting to social or something like meal delivery that takes one more thing off your plate.

Entrepreneurship is challenging. There will be unbelievable pressure and stressors that will take their toll on you if you let them. But, they don't have to cripple you or stop you in your tracks. I hope that these tips can help you move through the challenges and allow your business to keep growing through it all. And remember to have some fun-the pressure we feel is often the pressure we put on ourselves. Chances are, entrepreneurship isn't the first time you've faced this type of pressure. But it is your opportunity to take it off!

About the Author: Cara Barone is a brand consultant by day and a business coach and strategist by night. She juggles a corporate 9-to-5 job with her thriving online business and helps others do the same. She helps high-performing corporate women and coaches gain confidence and clients, without sacrificing their corporate salary, sanity, and health.

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6 Tips for Being Productive Under Pressure - Create & Cultivate

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Maybe you've been feeling it lately. That overwhelmed feeling you get when your to-do list is long but your worry list is longer? There's a lot on your plate right now. There are scary, uncontrollable things happening in the world, maybe in your personal life and yet time doesn't stop for your business.

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Anyone who's ever been a teenager is likely familiar with the question, "Why aren't you doing something productive?" If only I knew, as an angsty 15-year-old, what I know after conducting the research for this article. If only I could respond to my parents with the brilliant retort, "You know, the idea of productivity actually dates back to before the 1800s." If only I could ask, "Do you mean 'productive' in an economic or modern context?"

Back then, I would have been sent to my room for "acting smart." But today, I'm a nerdy adult who is curious to know where today's widespread fascination with productivity comes from. There are endless tools and apps that help us get more done -- but where did they begin?

If you ask me, productivity has become a booming business. And it's not just my not-so-humble opinion -- numbers and history support it. Let's step back in time, and find out how we got here, and how getting stuff done became an industry.

What Is Productivity?

The Economic Context

Dictionary.com defines productivity as "the quality, state, or fact of being able to generate, create, enhance, or bring forth goods and services." In an economic context, the meaning is similar -- it's essentially a measure of the output of goods and services available for monetary exchange.

How we tend to view productivity today is a bit different. While it remains a measure of getting stuff done, it seems like it's gone a bit off the rails. It's not just a measure of output anymore -- it's the idea of squeezing every bit of output that we can from a single day. It's about getting more done in shrinking amounts of time.

It's a fundamental concept that seems to exist at every level, including a federal one -- the Brookings Institution reports that even the U.S. government, for its part, "is doing more with less" by trying to implement more programs with a decreasing number of experts on the payroll.

The Modern Context

And it's not just the government. Many employers -- and employees -- are trying to emulate this approach. For example, CBRE Americas CEO Jim Wilson told Forbes, "Our clients are focused on doing more and producing more with less. Everybody's focused on what they can do to boost productivity within the context of the workplace."

It makes sense that someone would view that widespread perspective as an opportunity. There was an unmet need for tools and resources that would solve the omnipresent never-enough-hours-in-the-day problem. And so it was monetized to the point where, today, we have things like $25 notebooks -- the Bullet Journal, to be precise -- and countless apps that promise to help us accomplish something at any time of day.

But how did we get here? How did the idea of getting stuff done become an industry?

A Brief History of Productivity

Pre-1800s

Productivity and Agriculture

In his article " The Wealth Of Nations Part 2 -- The History Of Productivity," investment strategist Bill Greiner does an excellent job of examining this concept on a purely economic level. In its earliest days, productivity was largely limited to agriculture -- that is, the production and consumption of food. Throughout the world around that time, rural populations vastly outnumbered those in urban areas, suggesting that fewer people were dedicated to non-agricultural industry.

Source: United Nations Department of International Economic and Social Affairs

On top of that, prior to the 1800s, food preservation was, at most, archaic. After all, refrigeration wasn't really available until 1834, which meant that crops had to be consumed fast, before they spoiled. There was little room for surplus, and the focus was mainly on survival. The idea of "getting stuff done" didn't really exist yet, suppressing the idea of productivity.

The Birth of the To-Do List

It was shortly before the 19th century that to-do lists began to surface, as well. In 1791, Benjamin Franklin recorded what was one of the earliest-known forms of it, mostly with the intention of contributing something of value to society each day -- the list opened with the question, "What good shall I do this day?"

The items on Franklin's list seemed to indicate a shift in focus from survival to completing daily tasks -- things like "dine," "overlook my accounts," and "work." It was almost a precursor to the U.S. Industrial Revolution, which is estimated to have begun within the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The New York Stock & Exchange Board was officially established in 1817, for example, signaling big changes to the idea of trade -- society was drifting away from the singular goal of survival, to broader aspirations of monetization, convenience, and scale.

1790 - 1914

The Industrial Revolution actually began in Great Britain in the mid-1700s, and began to show signs of existence in the U.S. in 1794, with the invention of the cotton gin -- which mechanically removed the seeds from cotton plants. It increased the rate of production so much that cotton eventually became a leading U.S. export and "vastly increased the wealth of this country," writes Joseph Wickham Roe.

It was one of the first steps in a societal step toward automation -- to require less human labor, which often slowed down production and resulted in smaller output. Notice in the table below that, beginning in 1880, machinery added the greatest value to the U.S. economy. So from the invention of the cotton gin to the 1913 unveiling of Ford's inaugural assembly line (note that "automotive" was added to the table below in 1920), there was a common goal among the many advances of the Industrial Revolution: To produce more in -- you guessed it -- less time.

1914 - 1970s

Pre-War Production

Advances in technology -- and the resulting higher rate of production -- meant more employment was becoming available in industrial sectors, reducing the agricultural workforce. But people may have also become busier, leading to the invention and sale of consumable scheduling tools, like paper day planners.

According to the Boston Globe, the rising popularity of daily diaries coincided with industrial progression, with one of the earliest known to-do lists available for purchase -- the Wanamaker Diary -- debuting in the 1900s. Created by department store owner John Wanamaker, the planner's pages were interspersed with print ads for the store's catalogue, achieving two newly commercial goals: Helping an increasingly busier population plan its days, as well as advertising the goods that would help to make life easier.

World War I

But there was a disruption to productivity in the 1900s, when the U.S. entered World War I, from April 1917 to the war's end in November 1918. Between 1918 and at least 1920 both industrial production and the labor force shrank, setting the tone for several years of economic instability. The stock market grew quickly after the war, only to crash in 1929 and lead to the 10-year Great Depression. Suddenly, the focus was on survival again, especially with the U.S. entrance into World War II in 1941.

But look closely at the above chart. After 1939, the U.S. GDP actually grew. That's because there was a revitalized need for production, mostly of war materials. On top of that, the World War II era saw the introduction of women into the workforce in large numbers -- in some nations, women comprised 80% of the total addition to the workforce during the war.

World War II and the Evolving Workforce

The growing presence of women in the workforce had major implications for the way productivity is thought of today. Starting no later than 1948 -- three years after World War II's end -- the number of women in the workforce only continued to grow, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

That suggests larger numbers of women were stepping away from full-time domestic roles, but many still had certain demands at home -- by 1975, for example, mothers of children under 18 made up nearly half of the workforce. That created a newly unmet need for convenience -- a way to fulfill these demands at work and at home.

Once again, a growing percentage of the population was strapped for time, but had increasing responsibilities. That created a new opportunity for certain industries to present new solutions to what was a nearly 200-year-old problem, but had been reframed for a modern context. And it began with food production.

1970s - 1990s

The 1970s and the Food Industry

With more people -- men and women -- spending less time at home, there was a greater need for convenience. More time was spent commuting and working, and less time was spent preparing meals, for example.

The food industry, therefore, was one of the first to respond in kind. It recognized that the time available to everyone for certain household chores was beginning to diminish, and began to offer solutions that helped people -- say it with us -- accomplish more in fewer hours.

Those solutions actually began with packaged foods like cake mixes and canned goods that dated back to the 1950s, when TV dinners also hit the market -- 17 years later, microwave ovens became available for about $500 each.

But the 1970s saw an uptick in fast food consumption, with Americans spending roughly $6 billion on it at the start of the decade. As Eric Schlosser writes in Fast Food Nation, "A nation's diet can be more revealing than its art or literature." This growing availability and consumption of prepared food revealed that we were becoming obsessed with maximizing our time -- and with, in a word, productivity.

The Growth of Time-Saving Technology

Technology became a bigger part of the picture, too. With the invention of the personal computer in the 1970s and the World Wide Web in the 1980s, productivity solutions were becoming more digital. Microsoft, founded in 1975, was one of the first to offer them, with a suite of programs released in the late 1990s to help people stay organized, and integrate their to-do lists with an increasingly online presence.

It was preceded by a 1992 version of a smartphone called Simon, which included portable scheduling features. That introduced the idea of being able to remotely book meetings and manage a calendar, saving time that would have been spent on such tasks after returning to one's desk. It paved the way for calendar-ready PDAs, or personal digital assistants, which became available in the late 1990s.

By then, the idea of productivity was no longer on the brink of becoming an industry -- it was an industry. It would simply become a bigger one in the decades to follow.

The Early 2000s

The Modern To-Do List

Once digital productivity tools became available in the 1990s, the release of new and improved technologies came at a remarkable rate -- especially when compared to the pace of developments in preceding centuries.

In addition to Microsoft, Google is credited as becoming a leader in this space. By the end of 2000, it won two Webby Awards and was cited by PC Magazine for its "uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results." It was yet another form of time-saving technology, by helping people find the information they were seeking in a way that was more seamless than, say, using a library card catalog.

In April 2006, Google Calendar was unveiled, becoming one of the first technologies that allowed users to share their schedules with others, helping to mitigate the time-consuming exchanges often required of setting up meetings. It wasn't long before Google also released Google Apps for Your Domain that summer, providing businesses with an all-in-one solution -- email, voicemail, calendars, and web development tools, among others.

During the first 10 years of the century, Apple was experiencing a brand revitalization. The first iPod was released in 2001, followed by the MacBook Pro in 2006 and the iPhone in January 2007 -- all of which would have huge implications for the widespread idea of productivity.

2008 - 2014

Search Engines That Talk -- and Listen

When the iPhone 4S was released in 2011, it came equipped with Siri, "an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking." Google had already implemented voice search technology in 2008, but it didn't garner quite as much public attention -- most likely because it required a separate app download. Siri, conversely, was already installed in the Apple mobile hardware, and users only had to push the iPhone's home button and ask a question conversationally.

But both offered further time-saving solutions. To hear weather and sports scores, for examples, users no longer had to open a separate app, wait for a televised report, or type in searches. All they had to do was ask.

By 2014, voice search had become commonplace, with multiple brands -- including Microsoft and Amazon -- offering their own technologies. Here's how its major pillars look today:

The Latest Generation of Personal Digital Assistants

With the 2014 debut of Amazon Echo, voice activation wasn't just about searching anymore. It was about full-blown artificial intelligence that could integrate with our day-to-day lives. It was starting to converge with the Internet of Things -- the technology that allowed things in the home, for example, to be controlled digitally and remotely -- and continued to replace manual, human steps with intelligent machine operation. We were busier than ever, with some reporting 18-hour workdays and, therefore, diminishing time to get anything done outside of our employment.

Here was the latest solution, at least for those who could afford the technology. Users didn't have to manually look things up, turn on the news, or write down to-do and shopping lists. They could ask a machine to do it with a command as simple as, "Alexa, order more dog food."

Of course, competition would eventually enter the picture and Amazon would no longer stand alone in the personal assistant technology space. It made sense that Google -- who had long since established itself as a leader in the productivity industry -- would enter the market with Google Home, released in 2016, and offering much of the same convenience as the Echo.

Of course, neither one has the same exact capabilities as the other -- yet. But let's pause here, and reflect on how far we've come.

2015 to 2020

Smart Devices are Everywhere

The Amazon Echo was just the beginning of smart devices that could help us plan out our day. We now have smart thermostats that schedule our heating and cooling, refrigerators that notify us when we're low on food, TVs with every streaming service we need, and a handful of other appliances that schedule themselves around on our lifestyle.

While some might worry that smart devices could limit our level of motivation and productivity, others might disagree. Smart devices often free us up from mundane tasks while allowing us more time to focus on more productive things that are more important.

Big Data Powers Business Productivity

With technology like artificial intelligence, automation, analytics tools. and contact management systems, we are now able to gather more data about our audiences and customers quickly with the click of just a few buttons. This data has allowed marketers, as well as strategists in other departments to build tactics that engage audiences, please customers, generate revenue, and even offer major ROI.

Want to see an example? Here's a great case study on how one successful agency used AI and analytics software to gather, report, and strategize around valuable client data.

Offices Rely on Productivity Tools

We've come a long way from Google Calendar. Each day, you might use a messaging system like Slack, a video software like Zoom, or task-management tools like Trello, Asana, or Jira to keep your work on track.

Aside from keeping employees on task, these tools have been especially important for keeping teams connected and on the same page. As modern workplaces increasingly embrace remote and international teammates, they're also investing in digital task management and productivity tools that can keep everyone in the loop.

Looking to boost your digital tool stack? Check out this list of productivity tools, especially if you're working remotely.

Where Productivity Is Now -- and Where It's Going

We started this journey in the 1700s with Benjamin Franklin's to-do list. Now, here we are, over two centuries later, with intelligent machines making those lists and managing our lives for us.

Have a look at the total assets of some leaders in this space (as of the writing of this post, in USD):

Over time -- hundreds of years, in fact -- technology has made things more convenient for us. But as the above list shows, it's also earned a lot of money for a lot of people. And those figures leave little doubt that, today, productivity is an industry, and a booming one at that.
Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in January 2017, but was updated in July 2020 for comprehensiveness and freshness.

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A Brief History of Productivity: How Getting Stuff Done Became an Industry

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Anyone who's ever been a teenager is likely familiar with the question, "Why aren't you doing something productive?" If only I knew, as an angsty 15-year-old, what I know after conducting the research for this article. If only I could respond to my parents with the brilliant retort, "You know, the idea of productivity actually dates back to before the 1800s."

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"Productivity and the growth of productivity must be the first economic consideration at all times, not the last. That is the source of technological innovation, jobs and wealth." William E. Simon The Dark Days - No Real Prosperity for the Masses
Last week, I wrote about why it is important for a nation's workforce to not only be large and fully employed, but also productive. By "productive," I mean a workforce that is producing a high and growing level of output - creating more value by work than what is consumed. High levels of productivity lead to high levels of savings, which leads to high levels of investment, which leads to high levels of growth, which leads to more jobs... you get the picture. Without high levels of productivity, workers live hand-to-mouth, meaning that savings and economic growth do not occur.

In his book Birth of Plenty, William Bernstein claims that from the time of A.D. 01 to 1850, global productivity grew at an extremely low level. Bernstein cites the British economist Angus Maddison's work as essential in attempting to understand the historical growth of real per-capita productivity. According to Maddison, per capita GDP (productivity) didn't change much during the first millennium following the birth of Christ. The next 500 years saw some minimal improvement. In the mid-1800s, the world changed dramatically and nothing has been the same since.

Now, many economists ask the legitimate question, "How can one say what productivity growth was in the time prior to the 1700s, since such records were spotty and, in many cases, weren't kept at all?" Maddison makes the following argument, which is difficult to refute: the more people in a society who are involved in the manufacture of agriculture, the lower the overall sustainable increases in productivity for that society. This makes sense because the majority of foodstuffs is perishable and needs to be consumed rather quickly, particularly prior to refrigeration.

Consequently, the higher the percentage of a population dedicated to simply keeping the population alive, the lower the overall growth rate of productivity. This is because productivity needs excess savings and investment to occur over the long run. Basically, the more people who are involved in pursuits whose output is consumed yearly, the fewer the number of people who can produce excess wealth or savings.

While the Romans didn't keep detailed macroeconomic records, they did keep rather detailed demographic surveys regarding how many people lived in cities and how many people lived outside of cities, primarily with farming and fishing pursuits. Studying the "urbanization" ratio of societies in the past gives us a strong clue as to how many people it took to simply keep all of the citizens of the society eating and alive.

Records show that at the height of the Greek and Roman empires, only a miniscule portion of the population lived in cities with more than 10,000 people. By the year 1500, the largest city in Europe was Naples, Italy. Naples had a population of 150,000. Records indicate that fewer than 900,000 Europeans or about 1% of Europe's population lived in cities of more than 50,000 people. The rest lived in rural areas where agricultural output was the main driver of economic activity.

Again, in those days, what was produced annually by the vast majority of the population (almost 99% of the population in the example above) was also consumed annually. Excess savings and excess productivity did not occur. By Bernstein's estimates, per-capita real productivity grew at an annual rate of only 0.1% per year from the time of Christ to the mid-1800s.
The Birth of Plenty
Bringing this a little closer to home, 70% of the U.S. population was employed on the farm until the mid-1800s. By 1998, that figure had fallen to 2%. So, until the mid-1800s, only 30% of our population was involved in activities not centered on simply keeping people alive. Now, more than 98% of our population is involved in activities that are not driven by our need to eat.
What happened in the 19 century to usher in this massive change in productivity, output and wealth creation? The change that occurred was seismic. It was so massive that we are still enjoying the fruits of this social/economic change today.
The low level of productivity growth was consistent from the time of Christ until the 19 th century. As stated earlier, the work of Bernstein and Maddison shows productivity gains were consistently less than 0.1% annually until the 19 thcentury. Since that time, global per-capita real productivity has increased by more than 2.0% annually, an increase of 20x the rate of change from the previous 1,800 years.
The views expressed are for commentary purposes only and do not take into account any individual personal, financial, or tax considerations. It is not intended to be personal legal or investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any security or engage in a particular investment strategy.
In a future post, I will reveal the fundamental change that occurred on a global scale in the 19 th century that has led to sustainable increases in global productivity, savings, investment and wealth.

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The Wealth Of Nations Part 2 -- The History Of Productivity

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"Productivity and the growth of productivity must be the first economic consideration at all times, not the last. That is the source of technological innovation, jobs and wealth." William E. Simon Last week, I wrote about why it is important for a nation's workforce to not only be large and fully employed, [...]

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You know it's bad when you start typing "obsession with" in the Google search bar and the first auto-completion prompt is "productivity."

As workers, we are obsessed with getting stuff done. No wonder there seems to be a bottomless well of advice, filled with evangelists, gurus, and thought leaders proferring hacks, tools, tricks, and secrets to help us pack more output into the waking hours of our workdays. Productivity software alone accounts for an $82 billion market, according to IBISWorld research.

But where, exactly, did this lust for wringing greater efficiency from every possible second originate?

Related: Americans have been fighting for paid vacation for 100 years

As old as America itself

There's no definitive source, but we start to see historical mentions of productivity in that classic economics text Wealth of Nations, written by Adam Smith in 1776. In it, Smith contended that there were two kinds of labor: productive and unproductive.

There is one sort of labor which adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed; there is another which has no such effect. The former, as it produces a value, may be called productive; the latter, unproductive labor. Thus the labor of a manufacturer adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his master's profit. The labor of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing . . . A man grows rich by employing a multitude of manufacturers; he grows poor by maintaining a multitude of menial servants. The labor of the latter, however, has its value, and deserves its reward as well.

Benjamin Franklin, a contemporary of the Scottish economist with plenty of productivity theories of his own, put forth what might be considered the first "to-do" list in 1791. The productivity measure in Franklin's list of tasks (wash, work, read, work, put things in their places) was less likely to be measured in hard numbers like Smith's. Franklin's assessment was simple: Start the day asking what good shall be done, and at the end of the day evaluate based on what was accomplished. Lofty, to be sure, but an interesting measure nevertheless.

The abuses of labor in the name of productivity

Another milestone advancing the discourse in productivity occurred during the same era when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. This impacted the U.S. economy, particularly in Southern states where cotton was grown and picked by slaves. Of course, slave labor was free, and abuse of slaves was rampant, yet the landowners got an additional boost to their bottom lines by implementing a machine that increased their production 25-fold. We can also thank Whitney's invention for introducing the term "gin up" (which means speed up) to our productivity parlance.

Related: The 2,000-year-old origins of EQ and how it became a crucial job skill

The cotton gin wasn't the only technological advancement to grow out of the early days of the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. Other machines-from steamboats to sewing machines, light bulbs to telephones-that moved production from handmade in the home to factories sprung up across the country during the late 18th and early 19th century and the frenzy with producing more goods more quickly became something of a national pastime.

Slavery was thankfully abolished after the Civil War, but low-wage factory workers (many of whom were children) continued to toil in unsafe conditions for decades, all in the name of increasing productivity. It took years, but eventually, the organization of labor unions put measures in place to protect workers from the excesses of the push for productivity, like those who perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in 1911 when its management refused to recognize their demands.

The birth of the day planner and consultants

The notion of planning's role in increasing productivity was enjoying a moment during the rumblings of the Industrial Revolution. A Boston Globe report reveals that by 1850, day planners were not only proliferating, their makers were making bank. An 1844 list of wealthy taxpayers shows that among the two Boston businessmen with $100,000 or more was a blank book manufacturer. Productivity became inexorably linked to the virtue of working hard at this time, too. Etiquette manuals of the era suggested that the daily planner was a means to self-improvement.

Although the 20th century was rocked by two World Wars and the Great Depression, productivity was a focal point for manufacturing of goods needed to support military efforts and later, to satisfy the demands of the U.S.'s growing middle class.

Related: The frustratingly familiar history of workplace sexual harassment

So it was ripe for the rise of the earliest efficiency expert, an industrial engineer from Philadelphia named Frederick Winslow Taylor. Nicknamed Speedy Taylor, he would get himself a consulting gig with a company, observe its workers, and calculate how they could do their jobs faster (and then charge a hefty sum for the report).

Peers Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, best known today as the parents in Cheaper by the Dozen, were mining a similar productivity vein by dividing human action into 17 motions and then determining which was the most efficient and effective way to do any task.

From these somewhat ignominious beginnings (Taylor was believed to be a liar who fudged his numbers, and Frank was famous for saying postpartum bedrest was a waste of time-prompting Lillian to keep working after the birth of each of her 15 children) grew a sizeable industry of management consultants who aimed to tackle the productivity problem from every possible angle.

Then came the productivity gurus

Among some of the more recognizable players is Tom Peters, whose book In Search of Excellence chronicles the productivity practices of "America's best-run companies." Michael Porter wrote Competitive Advantages, also exalting the leadership of productive management practices.

Let's not forget Bill Smith, an engineer at Motorola who introduced Six Sigma in 1986 as "a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving toward six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process-from manufacturing to transactional, and from product to service."

According to Six Sigma, "Productivity is much more important than revenues and profits of the organization because profits only reflect the end result, whereas productivity reflects the increased efficiency as well as effectiveness of business policies and processes. Moreover, it enables a business to find out its strengths and weaknesses. It also lets the business easily identify threats as well as opportunities that prevail in the market as a result of competition and changes in business environment."

The current state of productivity and what's next

The thing is that in the frenzy to be more productive, we as a nation have become a little less so. Economist Robert Gordon of Northwestern University chalks this up to the fact that we are using methods and procedures that are over a decade old. He told the Atlantic, "We had a great revolution in the 1980s and '90s as businesses transitioned from paper, typewriters, file cabinets to personal computers with spreadsheets, word-processing software. And then that revolution was accompanied in the 1990s by the internet, by free information through search engines, through e-commerce, and doing away with paper." Until we start incorporating more robots and AI to take over our rote tasks, this downward trend will continue.

The other obsession with productivity is entwined with a false belief that we need to be working all the time to be our most productive selves. And that's simply not true. As Leila Hock points out: "It's not hard work-work is work, and yes, some work requires more brain power, but most of us smart people like that and want more of it, so let's stop calling it hard. Let's call it productive. Effective. Valuable. Anything that speaks to nature over quantity, because that's what we need more of."

Seems like Ben Franklin's to-do list had it right all along. Work and assess what good was accomplished that day. Then the most productive day will have the most good attached to it.

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The dark history of our obsession with productivity

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You know it's bad when you start typing "obsession with" in the Google search bar and the first auto-completion prompt is "productivity." As workers, we are obsessed with getting stuff done. No wonder there seems to be a bottomless well of advice, filled with evangelists, gurus, and thought leaders proferring hacks, tools, tricks, and secrets to help us pack more output into the waking hours of our workdays.

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In this episode, we're talking about the difference between kindness and what our guest, La Sarmiento, calls "radical kindness," how to muster the strength to be kind to annoying people while setting appropriate boundaries, the difference between radical compassion and what the Tibetans call "idiot compassion," and their experience of learning to accept themselves in a culture that is not always so welcoming.

Sarmiento, whose pronouns are they/them, has been practicing Vipassana meditation since the 1990's. They are a graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Training Program and a mentor in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. They serve as the guiding teacher for the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ sanghas at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC, where they are also board president.

We are bringing you this Ten Percent Happier podcast series in collaboration with the Apple TV+ Original Series Ted Lasso because kindness is a huge theme in the show, and there are many practical lessons embedded right in the plot.

Watch Season 2 of Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. Subscription required. Apple TV+ and/or select content may not be available in all regions.

Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install
Where to find La Sarmiento online:
Website: https://imcw.org/Teachers/Teacher/TeacherID/19
https://www.lasarmiento.com/#upcoming-gigs https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/408/
Social Media:

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#376. Letting Go of Perfectionism | La Sarmiento - Ten Percent Happier

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In this episode, we're talking about the difference between kindness and what our guest, La Sarmiento, calls "radical kindness," how to muster the strength to be kind to annoying people while setting appropriate boundaries, the difference between radical compassion and what the Tibetans call "idiot compassion," and their experience of learning to accept themselves in a culture that is not always so welcoming.

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Schedule Blocking for ADHD, Creatives, or people with a "Squiggly" brain

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Schedule Blocking for ADHD, Creatives, or people with a "Squiggly" brain

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Chapters:

0:00 Why I struggle with productivity - ADHD, astrology, Human Design, global panini

1:40 Introducing Monday Hour One (wish this worked for me, Brooke Castillo!)

2:01 The original premise of Monday Hour One and why it didn't work for me

4:15 Time blocking with Clockwise.io

4:35 Building a squiggly brain-friendly Monday Hour One System in Notion

6:03 You're not broken - your systems are

6:28 Introducing the Notion Template for Monday Hour One

⇢ 7:00 How linked databases work inside of Notion

⇢ 8:55 Database views inside of Notion

9:40 Step 1: Brain dump your work, ideas, thoughts, ephemera into your Inbox

14:25 Step 2: Drag your individual tasks into your Tasks linked database

⇢ 15:00 Adding filters to databases to change the property information and how you see information

17:20 Step 3: Assign each task to a day of the week

⇢ 19:17 Using prioritization for tasks depending on your energetic wave

25:00 Advanced elements of this template - using the WEEKS relation and Recurring Tasks with the Template Block

25:41 Why you want to have weeks associated with your Monday Hour One

29:20 Using a filter to help you organize your Monday Hour One

32:15 How to make recurring tasks inside of Notion (hack!)

36:18 Wrapping it up - how to make this work for you!

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How I Use Monday Hour One in Notion to Help My Squiggly Brain Get Organized - Holisticism

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Monday Hour One is an AMAZING tool for students, entrepreneurs, and people who work for themselves and need to be self-directed with their work and time... but struggle with time blindness.

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Most professionals work Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. But why is that? Who decided we should work 40 hours a week? Is it a magic number that leads to productivity in the workplace and happiness at home, or is it just a carryover from the days when most people worked in manufacturing?

Is 40 hours a week too much, too few, or just right? It's an important question for HR professionals to ask. The schedule your office maintains can have major impacts on engagement, productivity, and turnover, and there's more than 100 years of evidence to prove it.

History of the eight-hour workday and 40-hour workweek

"Eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest." This is a phrase coined in 1817 by Robert Owen-an 18th century Welsh mill owner and labor rights activist.

Owen was just one of the many activists and labor union groups who advocated for better working conditions after the Industrial Revolution. In the 1800s, it was common for people in manufacturing to work nearly 100 hours per week: between 10- and 16-hour shifts over six-day workweeks.

Labor unions were the biggest early supporters of the eight-hour workday in the U.S. In 1866, the National Labor Union asked Congress to pass a law mandating the eight-hour workday. Although the law wasn't passed, the discussion increased public support for the change.

By the early 1900s, many industries had adopted the eight-hour workday, but most people were still working six days a week. That continued until 1926 when Henry Ford removed one required day of work from his employees' schedules.

Ford's employees had been working 48 hours a week: eight-hour days and six-day weeks. Removing one day resulted in eight-hour shifts for five days a week-what we now know as the 40-hour workweek.

Ford found that his workers were actually more productive working 40 hours a week than they had been working 48 hours a week. His success with the change inspired manufacturing companies all over the country to adopt the 40-hour workweek.

In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which required employers to pay overtime to all employees who worked more than 44 hours in a week. They amended the act two years later to reduce the workweek to 40 hours, and in 1940, the 40-hour workweek became U.S. law.

Is 40 hours a week too few?

This question is the only one with a definite answer, and the definite answer is no. There's a mountain of evidence from more than 100 years of research and tests to prove it.

Back in 1913, German psychologist Hugo Münsterberg wrote:
Ernst Abbé, the head of one of the greatest German factories, wrote many years ago that the shortening from nine to eight hours, that is, a cutting-down of more than 10 per cent, did not involve a reduction of the day's product, but an increase.
Even before Ford, manufacturers all over the globe were running experiments and discovering how shorter working hours led to increased productivity.

Münsterberg is considered the founder of applied psychology. His book, Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, is one of the earliest arguments for using psychology to find solutions to everyday problems. Since then, psychologists and researchers have put Münsterberg's ideas into action to study nearly every aspect of the effects of working conditions.
What they've found is that working more than 40 hours a week benefits no one.
A 2004 report published by the CDC's Department of Health and Human Services provides a summary of 52 applied psychology studies on the impacts of extended shifts and regular overtime. Across the board, the studies found the impacts were negative-both for employers and employees:

People who regularly work overtime are less healthy than those who don't. They're more likely to gain weight, fall ill, and get injured on the job.

People are less alert and more likely to make mistakes after the 8th hour of work.

People who routinely work extended hours and overtime are less productive than those who work eight hours a day and 40 hours a week.

And although a century's worth of studies have shown that extended shifts and overtime have a variety of negative consequences for both employees and employers, the average number of hours Americans work has been steadily increasing over the last several decades. A 2014 Gallup study found that 50% of full-time workers work more than 40 hours a week.

Is 40 hours a week just right?

If working more than 40 hours is definitely bad for employee health and business productivity, then were Henry Ford and President Roosevelt right? Is the 40-hour workweek ideal?

The answer to this question is less clear, but it's a bit more interesting to consider.

First, the 40-hour workweek is rooted in industrialism. When it was established, most people worked in factories and other manufacturing facilities. They started working when they got to work and quit working when they left. Working from home or outside of business hours was impossible.

But modern advances in technology have provided today's workers with the tools they need to work anywhere, anytime-. 80% of people continue working after they leave work for the day, and 50% check their work email while they're still in bed in the morning. On average, people work an extra seven hours a week outside of the office.

Second, most manufacturing employees were paid an hourly rate, so they qualified for overtime pay. This was a disincentive to employers for requiring overtime because it hit them where it hurts-in the pocket.

But many office professionals today are salaried and don't qualify for overtime. Though 59% of the U.S. workforce is paid hourly, the majority (70%) of hourly employees are under 30. Only 16% of hourly workers are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. As people gain more experience in their careers and industries, they're more likely to become salaried employees.

Finally, when the 40-hour workweek was established, two-income households were rare. Only 15.2% of married women were employed in 1940. But as of 2012, 60% of households had dual incomes.

When both members of a couple work, it leaves less time for children, chores, errands, food preparation, and everything else that must occur outside of working hours.

Society is different now than it was when the 40-hour workweek was established. Knowledge workers are more common than manufacturing workers. People can-and do-work outside of the workplace. People have less time to enjoy their lives because the eight hours they have each day for fun are filed with chores and errands-more rote tasks to handle.

This has led some people to claim that the 40-hour workweek is too long.

Is 40 hours a week too much?

There are a few studies that have shown employees are happier, healthier, and more productive when they work less than 40 hours a week.

During the first two months of 1974, government officials in the United Kingdom limited the workweek to three days in an attempt to save energy. Though people were working two fewer days a week, production only dropped 6%. People worked fewer hours, but they were more productive and less likely to miss work.

From 2000-2008, the French government limited the maximum working hours per week to 35. In a survey of French employees, more than half said they were happier working reduced hours and more able to achieve a balance between work and life.

From 2015-2017, a Swedish nursing home conducted a two-year experiment where its nurses switched from working eight-hour days to working six-hour days for the same pay. During this time, sick leave dropped by 10%. Nurses who were part of the trial claimed they were healthier, more energetic, and more alert.

So there is some evidence that the 40-hour workweek is too long. It's not enough to come to a definitive conclusion, but it's certainly enough evidence for HR professionals to consider the potential benefits of reducing the number of hours in the workweek for their companies.

Finding the perfect full-time schedule for your company

As an HR professional, you're in the perfect position to advocate for changes to the typical full-time schedule. You have all of the most compelling statistics about absences, turnover, and engagement-the things that signal change is needed. These statistics can be used to encourage company leaders to experiment with alternative working schedules.

While you probably don't want to go in asking for a 21-hour workweek, there are some more reasonable things you can propose that will allow you to measure the impacts of changes over time:

Cut the workweek back to 35 hours. Let people leave at lunch on Friday, and keep an eye on changes in productivity. If-like most people-they work an average of seven hours a week outside of work, cutting back the workweek will simply get them closer to a schedule that maximizes productivity.

Consider moving to a four-day workweek. If leaders are against reducing hours, propose a four-day, 10-hours per day schedule. When Utah did this for public employees in 2008 and 2009, people were more productive and less likely to miss work, and these benefits ultimately saved the state more than four million dollars.

Let people decide when they work. Some people are most productive in the morning. Others are most productive late at night. Consider letting people set their own schedules and work during the times when they're most aware and energetic. If necessary, set aside a couple of hours in the middle of the day where everyone must be available.

In any of these scenarios, make sure to give employees the option to accept or decline the changes-especially if changes in money are involved.

While you may not be able to get everyone on board up front, if you can get just a few people to participate, you'll have data to collect. And people may change their minds later when they see coworkers enjoying their new schedules.

HR should define the perfect workweek

How many working hours a week is too much? Unfortunately, it's not a question that research has answered. We know the effects of working 50 hours a week are negative; anything over 40 makes people less productive overall. But is 40 the magic number, or is it outdated-a contributing factor to low national engagement and productivity levels?

HR professionals must carry the torch for this issue. Many of the disadvantages of employees working too many hours fall on your shoulders. Overworked employees lead to higher turnover, more injuries, disengagement, lower productivity, and more health issues-all of which increase your workload.

If you can prove that others don't need to work so many hours to get important work done, you may eventually find that all of that overtime you're putting in is unnecessary as well.

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Is 40 hours a week too much? Here's what history and science say · atSpoke

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Most professionals work Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. But why is that? Who decided we should work 40 hours a week? Is it a magic number that leads to productivity in the workplace and happiness at home, or is it just a carryover from the days when most people worked in manufacturing?