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?

Taking action seems to intimidate a lot of people in business. Sure, we all know someone who seems to never procrastinate or doubt a decision. But for the rest of us…

There are loads of reasons why we avoid making  choices. In some cases, it is simply the phenomenon known as “choice overload.” Research is pointing to people faced with many choices and becoming unable to make a decision. Remind you of the menu at The Cheesecake Factory? If you haven’t been to that particular restaurant, they have a book for a menu.  A book?!

However, this could be very bad for your small business.It’s hard to take action when you have so much information to process but taking action is really about productivity. We tend to think productivity is great. We can enhance it with efficiency. We can measure it. And yet, if you change the word from productivity to action, some of us do the deer-in-the-headlights freeze.

Are there dangers in taking action? Of course there are! You could end up changing the world as you know it. It doesn’t even have to be on the end-world-hunger scale. Our individual worlds have value as well. There are people in our lives who depend on us. We may be in an enviromnent where rocking the boat is strongly discouraged.

It works something like this. You start off with a predictable circle of comfort. No risk. Vanilla.  And then, you come across a very good reason to expand this circle of comfort. Its not nice and tidy. Change can be awkward and uncertain. Do you want to to rethink who you are and what you can do? This is dangerous!

Then again, maybe there are very distinct advantages to taking action. Your small busines grows into what you meant it to be. You discover you are powerful and talented. People acclaim your actions. Your ability to cope with change is strengthened. The possibilities are endless since our actions bear all kinds of fruit. Our perception that something would be too painful to manage turns out to be a complete nonevent.

This is where you sing the chorus to REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”

                                                                    “It’s the end of the world as we know it

                                                                     And I feel fine.”

The thing with taking action is it triggers our fears, our hopes, and our beliefs about our efficacy and our self-worth. There may be inertia because we’ve tolerated some kind of discomfort for a long time. There may be very good reasons to choose inaction. If you avoid decisions, do you avoid life as proposed by Jeff Stibel?

In this week’s #kaizenblog chat, we’ll be exploring “The Dangers and Advantages of Taking Action” so join us on Friday, August 20, 2010 at 12 pm ET/9am PT/5pm BST. Come join in on this conversation!

What does taking action mean to you?

What dangers or advantage do you see in taking action?

What keeps you from acting on what you desire most?

 iStockphoto BookMama