3 Reasons Why You Keep Failing At Reaching Your Productivity Goals | 72
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Podcast Description
Have you ever had one of those days where you sit down to have your most productive work day ever but then crickets? It seems like no matter what you do, you just don’t seem to be “feeling it” and so end up getting nothing done.
Don’t worry, I’ve been there too. What I’ve realized is there’s 3 main reasons why you keep hitting these productivity walls when you’re trying to work on your online business. In this episode, I’m going to share what these are and what you can do instead to help you achieve your productivity goals.
Links Referenced in Episode:
▶ Productive Entrepreneurs Club
▶ Episode 71: Building Sustainable Productivity Habits
▶ Episode 3: 9 Productivity Myths Busted
Connect with me:
Watch on YouTube:
Episode Transcript
(Note: This is a formatted AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through, but is not an optimized blog post. Please excuse any spelling or grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)
Episode Intro
Have you ever had one of those days where you sit down to have your most productive day ever, but then crickets? It seems like no matter what you do, you just don’t seem to be “feeling it.” And so you end up just getting nothing done. Don’t worry. Yes, I have been there too.
But what I have realized is that there are three main reasons why you keep hitting these productivity walls when you’re trying to work on your online business. So in this episode, I’m going to share what they are and what you can do to help you achieve your productivity goals.
Hey, I’m Lucy Reyes, your host of the cheerful product, the chance podcast, where I’m on a mission to help online entrepreneurs that like you focus on all the right things and kiss overwhelmed goodbye. Here, you’re going to learn strategies that will boost your productivity so that you can scale your online biz and impact lives sooner. It’s your time to shine. So let’s get started.
Hey, Hey. Welcome back to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast. Now I am recording this on the last day that my daughter is at school. And there is some hammering going on.
So I don’t know if you’ll be able to hear it or not, but we’re going to continue on with the schedule because otherwise, I don’t know when I would be able to record this episode since my kids are actually on summer break and they’ll be home more often from now on. So I really wanted to get this episode out. So if you hear hammering, I apologize. Hopefully you can’t though, because it’s still like in the other room.
Struggling with Productivity
But I wanted to talk about this, you know, struggling with productivity and not reaching your goals, because I know that especially as we are getting into the summer months, feeling productive might seem like a stretch.
It might seem like something that you’re not going to be able to do. And let me tell you, sometimes I have those moments where I am just so brain fried that if I continue to try to force myself to work, to force myself to come up with some genius idea, it usually doesn’t happen.
And then I feel really bad because I’ve just wasted 30 minutes or an hour, just trying to force myself to do something that I literally can not do. You know, and so I’m feeling unproductive, so it’s not uncommon that this happens, even with people like me, you know, a Productivity Strategist.
So like recently I was actually trying to brainstorm some ideas for my Productive Entrepreneurs Club, which if you’re not familiar with what that is, it’s a $7 membership where I help entrepreneurs like yourself, get productive with small bite sized actions.
And so I wanted to come up with some new idea, some new fun experiment that I want to try in the club. And I had like the overarching idea, but I couldn’t get the details like narrowed in. I just couldn’t figure it out. So this time I was like, you know what? I am not going to waste 30 minutes an hour, whatever the case is, because I probably have already wasted enough time.
And so just a few minutes in this time, I said, you know what, I’m going to go lay down. I’m going to go lay down. I’m going to take a break because I know that for me, some of my best ideas come when I lay down.
So sometimes they come to me in the shower, but a lot of times they do come to me when I lay it down in my super comfy bed. And so that’s what I did.
And this might be the case for you too. If you feel like you’re struggling with productivity, one know that you’re not alone, but two, there are other reasons why this might be the case. And so for me, it was because I had hit this creativity wall and I just couldn’t, I couldn’t function anymore. I needed a brain break and so what I did was I went to go lay down. And once I felt like kind of a little bit recharged, then I came back. If I didn’t have any ideas at the moment that I would just work on something else.
3 Reasons Why You Keep Failing At Reaching Your Productivity Goals
But here are some reasons, some other reasons why you might be failing to reach your own productivity goals and why I don’t want these reasons to stop you over the summer, just because we’re hitting those summer months where your schedules might be changing. We talked about it in the previous episode on what you can do.
Reason 1: One-size-fits-all approaches don’t work for everyone
So one reason why you might not be reaching your productivity goals is because there’s really no one size fits all approach that works for everyone. Now there are so many productivity strategies and they can be pretty limiting, especially if you’re trying to follow one specifically and trying to follow it to the T.
And so you really want to take these productivity strategies, but tailor them to match your individual needs because you are your own unique person. And so you might end up seeing yourself taking a little bit of this strategy, following a little bit of this and trying this to come up with a productivity routine that works for you specifically.
I really don’t believe that there is a one way to be productive. I don’t believe that. In fact, in episode three, one of the very first episodes I released on this podcast, I’m talking about some productivity myths that I don’t stand by, that I don’t believe and I don’t force you to do. And so if you’re curious on what those are, definitely go back and listen to that episode. But here’s a quick tip on how you can kind of avoid falling under this trap of trying to fit your own self into one productivity box.
You can start by assessing your own needs. Start by taking a good look at yourself and what it is that you actually need, what it is that you actually want to do. What you want to get out of like, what is your productivity goal? And then create a list of what is working and what is it? Have you tried a certain productivity strategy and it hasn’t worked? Well, then let’s go ahead and mark that one off the list for you.
If there’s another productivity strategy that you’ve tried and maybe it’s worked a little bit, but not so much, well then take some notes on what exactly worked and what didn’t. You don’t have to completely take it off the table, but maybe you can use that little bit that did work and start crafting your own productivity strategy.
Okay. Knowing this is going to help you tailor a unique productivity approach to you specifically without having, without trying to fit yourself into one of these productivity strategy boxes that you know, you might not fit into anyways. So that is the first reason.
Reason 2: Ignoring your natural rhythms and peak productivity times
The second reason is that you might be ignoring your own natural rhythms and your peak productivity times. Now I am not the Productivity Coach that’s going to tell you to wake up at 5AM in the morning. No, no, no, no, no. Like I am not even that person.
I don’t like to wake up that early. I am a night owl and I know that about myself. I know that I am actually my best whenever I am feeling really rested. And sometimes that could be in the morning and sometimes I just like to stay up.
And that’s when I do the most focused work that I can do. But you want to figure out what that is for you. What is your own natural rhythm? So obviously there’s other caveats here, Like how much sleep are you getting every day? How are you eating? Are you exercising? Like there’s other things that plays a part with this.
But you can start to really tune into and feel your body to see when do you feel the most productive? When do you feel the most energized? When do you feel the most creative and start to make note of that so that way you can really focus your high, high energy needing tasks on those moments.
So start tracking your energy levels throughout the day. That’s something that you can do. You can start to see like, okay. Do I feel energized right now? Do I not? And do that for a couple of days to see if you find a pattern.
Maybe you’re feeling energized in the mornings on Mondays and Wednesdays because you don’t take your kids to their afterschool programs the night before. Or maybe you’re feeling energized on the days that you don’t work at your your day job, whatever it is, right.
Start to track your energy levels to see if you can find some sort of pattern on when you feel the most energized. When you feel the most energized, that is when you’re going to get your most productive work done. Okay.
So I would really recommend that you aim to schedule your most toughest tasks or the ones That require more creativity or focus from you during those times. So that’s reason number two.
Reason 3: Not aligning strategies with personal goals
Reason number three is that you’re not aligning your strategies with your own personal goals and values. So whenever you are not aligning your productivity strategies with your own personal goals, whether it’s for your health or your business, then it’s kind of like you’re rowing against the current that you’re going the opposite.
Like you’re trying to force yourself, go into one way when you really don’t follow that. Right. So for me, that would be like really trying to wake up at 5:00 AM in the morning when I know I’m a night owl. And I know that because I’m in night owl, I like to go to sleep late. So unless I’m going to sleep like at like eight don’t expect me to wake up at 5:00 AM. I know that about myself.
And so that is one of the values, the goals that I have for myself is I still want to have my seven to eight hours of sleep every single night, but I like to stay up late and I know the time I have to get up in the morning, say, get my kids ready for school or summer camp or whatever it is that we have going on.
And so I’ll do the backward math to be like, okay, well, what, what’s the latest that I can go to sleep at in order to get my number of hours of sleep. Sometimes it’s six. Sometimes it’s like, oh, I’ve had a really easy day today. I can, I can go with six hours. And sometimes that’s great for me.
Most of the time I try to average around seven on the weekends. I definitely like eight or nine hours of sleep. So that is what I’m talking about when you’re trying to align these productivity strategies to your goals and your values. So the tip here is for you to take some time and really try to figure out what are your productivity goals and what are your values? What matters to you and which productivity strategies kind of could fit into that box?
Another example I can give you here is before I had my daughter, when my son was, I dunno, he was like five, six, and I first became a full-time entrepreneur, time blocking is a strategy that worked really, really well for me because I had my set hours during the day where I could work on the business.
He’s at an age where he’s not really getting sick anymore. So there’s not as unexpected random trips to the doctor. We had his schedule for his soccer. He was playing soccer at the time. I knew what time he came home from school. So I couldn’t block out my schedule during the day. And it was, it worked very well.
When my daughter was born. Time blocking does not work anymore. It does not work anymore for me and that’s okay. That’s not to say that time blocking is a bad strategy. It worked for me in a season of life that I was in, but it doesn’t work for me now. And so you really have to pick and choose and see and test which strategies are the ones that are going to work the best for you.
Episode Recap
Okay. So now let’s go ahead and just recap the three reasons why you might not be reaching your productivity goals so that way you can keep those in mind whenever you are trying to work on and improve your productivity. Reason number one is that there is no one size fits all solution for everybody.
You need to find a mix or the one that’s going to work the best for you. Reason number two is you’re ignoring your natural rhythms and your own peak productivity time. So really find out what that is for you and get your most toughest, more focused creativity tasks during those times. And three, you’re not aligning the strategies with your own personal goals.
So you really want to make sure that the strategies you’re trying to follow or ones that actually meet you where you are at. So those are the three reasons. If you want more support with getting more productive and taking some bite sized actions, even throughout the summer to help you stay productive or get productive, then I really invite you to join my Productive Entrepreneurs Club.
It’s only $7 a month, and you can learn more about everything that’s included at cheerstoproductivity.com/club. I hope to see you inside and have an awesome summer.
Thank you so much for listening to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast with me Lucy Reyes. To view the complete show notes and all the links mentioned in today’s episode, visit cheerstoproductivity.com/72. And before you go, make sure you follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening so you know once the next productive chat is released. Talk soon and cheers to your productivity and success!
Episode References + CTA
Links Referenced in Episode:
Links Referenced in Episode:
▶ Productive Entrepreneurs Club
▶ Episode 40: How To Have More Time: 3 Simple Strategies
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