Productivity – Is it All it’s Cracked Up to Be?
Productivity is something we all strive for – but is it always all that it’s cracked up to be?
What does your wise mind tell you?
We hear it trumpeted all the time – how increasing your efficiency and effectiveness with time management tools, tips and tricks will exponentially increase your productivity and ultimately lead to wild success in whatever enterprise you pursue! Right?
Wrong … very wrong! And if overblown claims about productivity conjure images of racing ’round and ’round in a hamster wheel for you, then we are on the same wavelength!
I believe that the ability to be productive is extremely useful and important. But its usefulness is in relation to the ends it serves. In and of itself, productivity is really value neutral. If productivity becomes an end in and of itself, then I think we lose something precious. We lose our heart-connection to ourselves, our time, and our lives.
And that’s why I feel so strongly about Heart-Based Time Management™. While aimed at enhancing productivity where possible, the time tools and tips that I share with you are all founded in that nourishing well-spring – the heart connection.
Here’s how Maria Popova put it on Brain Pickings:
Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living — for, as Annie Dillard memorably put it, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
Presence is about the quality of your time – how you inhabit each of your moments. It’s about being, not about doing. Being present means opening and deepening – there’s a quality of letting things unfold.
Using time – even if you are using it to its fullest – still implies a relationship to time, yourself, and your life, in which you stand apart from the moment and aren’t fully engaged – aren’t heart-connected.
And the reality is that in the end, your productivity dwindles when your focus is solely on that. It’s like trying to run a marathon without nourishing or hydrating yourself. That’s how important that heart connection is. It’s where your energy is replenished and where your resilience and creativity spring from.
So, as important as productivity is for getting things done, I encourage you to let yourself experience moments of presence in your life – as often as possible. That is where your riches really lie!
To learn more about the gifts of energy, time and meaning that my unique, Heart-Based Time Management™ System offers and to begin your transformational journey sign up for my FREE Finding Time Success Kit.
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