Tag: Hustle

How To Be Productive

Achieving Goals, Success

Productivity is something I have struggled with in my professional life. Having Fibromyalgia means that you have less energy resources to hustle throughout the day. So I’ve tried to work smarter not harder and have started to find some traction. There are two key lessons that I have learned which I would like to share with you today.

Lesson 1: Just do it

I am a great planner and not a great doer. I spend time planning to do the work later and end up with too much to do and not enough time. I am learning to do tasks as they arrive without planning when to do them in the future. This gives me room to plan other tasks that have deadlines and defined start times, like calling a customer when they are available. Plan what needs to be planned and get the other things done as soon as they arrive.

Lesson 2: Ship it!

This lesson comes from the great Seth Godin. His advice is to not spend time wondering if the work is good enough or if it should be sent off, or ‘shipped’, but instead to ‘ship it’ as soon as it is completed and move onto the next thing. The thing to do is not to be too attached to the outcome. You do the work to the best of your ability and send it off, submit it or share it. This frees up head space and time to do more of your work.

Get Out Of Your Own Way

Happiness, Success

The Resistance is something that effects us all and has been defined by Steven Pressfield as follows. If we try to do anything new, whether creative or not, there is a voice inside our heads that tries to talk us out of it. It says things like “who am I to do this? I don’t have the experience to pull it off” and “I’m too old” or “too young,” and so on.

If being creative or being successful was a film the Resistance would be the villain that needs to be overcome. We all have it and we can all overcome it by just starting and having the discipline to work on what we want to achieve, every day. It is the fear of judgement by others and of failure, this is the Resistance.

If we think of ourselves as amateurs then we will develop habits that allow the Resistance to stop us reaching our full potential. If we think of ourselves as professional then we build in the discipline and the habits to get the work done. When we go to our paid jobs we turn up and work regardless of how we feel, this is being professional.

“Amateurs tweet, Pros get to work.”

– Steven Pressfield