Productivity seems to be a hot topic lately. And yes, I’m adding to it too. But…why is it so stinking hard to stay productive?!

Productivity depends on habits, attitudes and reinforcement.

Habits

Sounds so easy, doesn’t it? But then, we work on new habits fairly often. How many of us are working on a new exercise program? Getting up in the morning and getting out for a walk or a run? That’s a new habit, well, actually a few new habits. Actually, it’s kind of cool how we develop new habits!

Let’s take a  little jaunt into neuroscience first. Our brains have the capacity to build new networks all the time. A habit is simply a learned behavior. So, as you do the new thing, you learn the behavior. Now, as you repeat the behavior, you make the neural pathway stronger. The other cool part of this is that when you are doing the new behavior, you reduce the frequency of the old habit and weaken that neural pathway.

Tony Schwartz has a good point. Rituals are  a good way to make learning new habits easier. They  have the benefit of combining rules and behavior in a prescribed manner. By following the same routine on a regular basis, say you choose to set an alarm for 2o minutes for uninterrupted work. This is a ritual. What routine could you turn into a ritual that would support your productivity?

Attitudes

This is stating the obvious but how we think and feel does have a huge impact on our motivation. According to Deborah Rinner, one act of incivility can have harmful effects on productivity. It doesn’t even have to be about the actual task you’re trying to complete.

And it’s not just incivility. It can also be exposed to negativity. It’s a tough time to be leading and managing a small business. If you focus on the bad news or spend time with the Doom and Gloom crowd, it’s easier to start telling yourself stories of how tough it is. It can creep up when you’re tired or under additional stress. It’s easy to start using coping strategies such as defense mechanisms like “all or nothing thinking” or projection or many of the other common ones.

So, the negative stories you tell yourself or just the unpleasantness of someone acting rudely towards you affects your attitudes. It becomes a loop which takes you away from your productivity.

Reinforcement

Who cares if you get your work done? Seriously. Is it your customers? Your employees? Your peers?

Even the most internally driven person needs a little sugar. Some kind of recognition that you truly are talented and valuable. It can be lonely running your small buisness. Carrying the weight around without comrades is wearying. That’s why mastermind groups, mentors, coaches, friends, family and/or a trusted peer is essential to your productivity. When you’re with people who know what you’re experiencing, it reduces feelings of isolation, anxiety and frustration. These are the feelings that eat away at your energy that could be spent on your work.

It also helps when you can see that what you’re doing is creating results. I recently was advised to write down everything I had been doing with my marketing and the results. I was totally amazed at how much I had done in just a few weeks. What would you see? How might that reinforce your actions?

Alignment of habits, attitudes and reinforcement is key to your productivity.

So much can happen in a day, a week or a month to get us on or off track. You hold so much responsibility in leading, managing and implementing the mission and work of your small business. When you are fully aligned, your performance is improved.  Building a system that makes sense to you is an important way to create alignment.

What surprises you about productivity?

What do you believe a small business owner needs the most to be productive?

When was the last time you stopped to ask yourself why somedays you are telling yourself stories that you’re not good enough or a geek or a thought leader?  Do you wait until it all completely hits the fan before you begin to wonder?

There isn’t really a reason to think much usually. We drive pretty much the same routes, prepare and eat the same foods, and a host of other activities throughout the day at home and at our small businesses. Even our brains are designed to favor neural pathways that already exist and have been used before.

My brain made me do it? Here’s a quick neuroscience review. Our decision-making process uses more than the front parts of our brains. It also uses our emotional center and our memories. When we’ve done something the same way many times, we’ve learned that behavior. Our brains are constantly processing an amazing amount of data so we develop habits to keep things efficient and we pay attention to what’s in front of us. For example, I have been typing up to this point without thinking about how to type since I do it so often. I’ve spent my time concentrating on figuring out the theme and message of this post. Typing is a habit.

Habits are our auto-pilots. They simplify our actions and, like I said, our brains favor neural pathways that exist. The stories we tell ourselves are habits too. For example, one common fear that people express is that they will be discovered as frauds. This story usually includes that they will be discovered as incompetent technicians and foolish business owners. If you tell yourself a story like this, you are strengthening a pathway in your brain so you can develop the habit of believing you are a fraud.

One of my clients has a recurrent story that she will lose all of her clients if she makes a mistake. This is a habitual story (not based on any facts, by the way) that runs her decision-making and actions when she feels stressed. This is a great example of what Breanne Potter wrote about in The Danger of Mental Auto-Pilot. High emotions cloud our ability to gut-check and fact-check ourselves. Since we’re prone to going with our habits, it makes sense that we activate the auto-pilot of our stories.

It isn’t always a negative. Think about something in your small business that went really well. You might have a story that you rock the world or that you are making your dreams a reality. You may feel a high emotion such as joy, elation, or pride. We can automatically motivate ourselves and follow through on tasks.

It isn’t that habits are good or bad. It’s not even about the story. The key here is to check your stories every now and then.  It’s about the habit of telling yourself the story over and over as if it is completely, 100% true all of the time. You aren’t a fraud anymore than you rock the world. It’s all hyperbole. We make up stories in which we are archetypes and these help our story telling. The truth is really more on a spectrum so give your stories a check. Write them out or tell them to a trusted person so you can hear the story with new ears. You might want to keep them or simply change parts of the story.

Here’s an example of what that process could look like-Let’s say that you have been asked to speak to a group of small business owners like yourself on your area of expertise. You tell yourself that it’s going to go badly because they will all find out you know nothing and have been faking it all along. They will stand up and point at you while yelling, “Fraud, fraud.” Now, perhaps as you write all of this out, you discover that you are really nervous about speaking in front of people and it’s not about knowing your area expertise. You can stop the auto-pilot of your story and say, “Hold on here! I’m nervous about speaking. I know my stuff.” Now you can decide how to handle your anxiety about public speaking or go with your habitual story.

When do you have the auto-pilot storyteller on?

How would your story change if you were to tell it aloud to another person?

What stories do you want to keep telling yourself?