Working Smart Rather Than Hard

It has often been said that 20% of our effort produces 80% of our results. This would also suggest that 80% of our effort only produces 20% of our results.

As I think of this, I think of the spiritual teaching story of "The Cat In The Hat Comes Back". Do you remember this?

The Cat has made a pink mess in a bathtub and in his attempts to clean it up he spread the pinkness in more places.

Then to get help he lifted his hat and Cat A entered upon the scene, and then Cat B and C and so forth. The more cats there were working on cleaning up the mess, the messier things got. Until, we got to Cat Z. When Cat Z lifted his hat out came Vroooom!!! Suddenly all the snow was white again and even the sidewalk had been shoveled.

Here we have an example of a tiny percentage of the effort producing 100% of the result.

Being optimally productive comes from our doing the things consistently that bring the best and greatest result.

How can we bring the power of Vroooom into our days today?

Can we work smart and locate the pivot points that can turn whole situations around in flashes of brilliance?

How can we leverage our efforts with what we are currently working on?

Working smart is a choice we can make, moment to moment.

Once Lazy, Now Productive

I have always been a pretty lazy guy. I don't like to work, and have been quite dedicated to assiduously avoiding as much work as possible. Being contemplative by nature, I would much rather sit around reading a book or contemplate the meaning of life than dig a ditch.

I have, to a large degree, been successful in my attempts at avoiding work, and have spent many more hours reading than I have working, much to my delight. But yesterday I had a rather startling insight that turned this happy state of affairs quite on its head.

I have a two-day-a-week job where I am free, for the most part, to read to my heart's content. There are a number of tasks I must perform on this job, but essentially I am free to read. Well, last night at work, I spent the first couple of hours working on a few different items that needed to be addressed. At the conclusion of this two-hour period I noticed, much to my surprise, that I felt better having worked for two hours than I usually do reading for two hours.

This was quite unexpected! Work is more fun than reading?! What's up with that? I don't know, but I have discovered that to be productive (which can only be achieved by working) actually feels better than being lazy. Fancy that! At any rate, I am happy to have made this discovery, and have wasted no time in putting this newfound wisdom to work, as I have been busy, busy, busy working my tail off today. I am awfully tired now (not used to this sort of thing), but I honestly do feel much better about having been productive today, rather than merely ruminative.

Time will tell how the course and quality of my life may change as a result of this stupendous insight (at least it seems stupendous to me at present), but if today is any measure, it could be significant to the point of revolutionary. We'll see . . .

I originally wrote this post just over two months ago, on June 30, 2008.

Productivity And Our Brains

I just came across this from a Wikipedia article discussing physiological cause of procrastination:

" Research on the physiological roots of procrastination mostly surrounds the role of the prefrontal cortex. This area of the brain is responsible for executive brain functions such as planning, impulse control, attention, and acts as a filter by decreasing distracting stimuli from other brain regions. Damage or low activation in this area can reduce an individual's ability to filter out distracting stimuli, ultimately resulting in poorer organization, a loss of attention and increased procrastination. This is similar to the prefrontal lobe's role in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), where underactivation is common."

When we are not being productive it can be so easy to put ourselves down, to think that our personalities are somehow tragically flawed.

Somehow it is encouraging to know that our character is not the whole picture.

Perhaps part of what we need is just higher activation in the prefrontal cortex of our brains.

How do we get that? Stay tuned... I plan to get more information about this soon.

Anything you know about prefrontal cortex activation is welcome in the comments section.

I had a darshan with Mother Meera yesterday. Perhaps that is helpful.

Our Behind The Scenes Fear Of Change

Hello. I have been unusually proactive recently. I have been taking many new steps and venturing beyond my comfort zones. Bravo!

In many respects this is good news. I love that I am doing this. Yet, for part of my psyche it is "bad news." Being productive has impact. My life starts to change.

Change! When I am really honest with myself, I see places inside that really don't want my life to change. I want to "be right" in my previous limitations.

Here is one example. I put an ad out on Craigslist yesterday for something that would really help my life move forward. Great, I said to myself. Yet, the only problem with my taking that action step has been that people have started to respond!

"Oh my God, I am not sure I want that. I do not want to move forward, I don't want to step out of the life I am so used to."

Another example: Years ago, when I was first starting my coaching practice, I went to a networking meeting and presented my work quite eloquently.

This felt great until...until a woman came up to me and was actually interested in my work. I didn't want to have to deal with that. I wanted to keep my small little life and keep on scrubbing boats at a local marina.

As we take more and more steps to be productive, I see that we need to grow bigger inside to be able to surf with the results of that productivity.

How can we work with the part of ourselves that holds fiercely to the opinion that "Change sucks"?

I would love to hear your thoughts on how you work with your fear of change, and how you navigate the stretch of growing yourself bigger.

Thanks,
Bruce

Proactive-ness Is Next To Godliness

When I am rapidly getting a lot done and multi-tasking with great efficiency, I have this sense that I am closer to the frequency of God. God is ultimate productivity and efficiency.

Look at what God is accomplishing right in this moment. God is creating star systems and planets. God is birthing new babies on these planets and birthing whole civilizations on these planets. God is keeping my laptop going right now. God is running the public transportation systems in Hong Kong.

God is clearly a Getting Things Done sort of dude. If God can do all that, so can we.

The Inner Game Of Productivity

True productivity comes from the inside out rather than the outside in.

We can have perfect systems for being more efficient, we can have a strong commitment to being productive, we can have read many books and taking many workshops about being productive, we can hire great productivity coaches and yet still not be productive.

True productivity is a frequency, a state of being, an assemblage point. It is a context. When we are in the right context internally, the content of getting specific things done falls into place easily.

A powerful way to return to this zone of productivity on the inside is to recall some times when you were on a stunningly zinging productive roll. It just thinking about those times you can access the frequency that was operative there. What was going on for you at those times? What did your inner landscape look like then?

What were you holding as true then? What were you believing?

You can reclaim that space now. You can reoccupy that domain. Climb aboard that spaceship.