The Path of No Resistance: Why Overcoming is Simpler than You Think by Garret Kramer

Author:Garret Kramer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781626341180
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Published: 2015-07-05T06:00:00+00:00

THE NATURE OF PRODUCTIVITY

Evidently, the thought-feeling link is relevant to everything. Productivity included.

Most performance and business experts, though, don’t see it that way. There are thousands of how-to-be-productive books on the market today. No matter how well thought out or helpful some may appear, in my experience nearly all of them lack enduring advice. Reason being, they take the fact that you feel your thinking and not your circumstances totally out of the equation.11

Oh, these books tell you what to think and do in order to excel. They also infer that if you don’t get the job done right, your state of mind will fall to pieces, so you’d better adopt the strategy they’re promoting, ASAP!

Ugh. A lack of productivity is a symptom of an inefficient mind-set; it’s not the cause of it. By recommending external tactics to become industrious, these experts have put the cart way in front of the horse.

So, let’s turn the nature of productivity back to its true self. Specifically to a question you should answer before considering ways to improve productivity at work, at home, in the classroom, or on the field: What can I do to clear my mind in order to kick some butt?

The answer, as you might have figured, is nothing. You need to stay in the game—leave ill-at-ease thinking alone—and you’ll easily return to your most productive psychological perspective. It’s when you try to fix a lull in productivity that it becomes a crapshoot. As I’ve said, do anything from an inefficient mind-set and your performance level goes south.

An associate of mine, Tim Grahl, once put my perspective on productivity to the test. Tim’s company, Out:think Group, is a cutting-edge resource for authors and speakers. Tim is a super-creative guy. He and I have spent many hours talking about the fallacy of productivity books, and the necessity of not trying to force efficiency through the use of another person’s theories or strategies.

So, when a usual Monday morning rolled around and Tim experienced unusual negative thoughts about his to-do list, followed by anxious feelings, followed by the temptation to take a break from his work even before starting, he decided to stay in the game. Not by reaching for a productivity strategy to pump himself up. Not by pulling back. He decided to allow his negative thoughts to settle and his level of clarity to rise on its own. What exactly did Tim do? He poured himself into his to-do list.

And the result? Tim easily completed all of his tasks by lunch, so he had the afternoon open to ardently start a new project—for me, I might add.

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