This is characteristic 7 of the 9 characteristics of becoming a Productivity Ninja….
Our minds are our most important tool. Being emotionally intelligent and self-aware are important for so many reasons, not least because they equip you to take action. For instance, a lot of the things that make up the Ninja mindset, such as remaining calm, being ruthless and pushing the boundaries by being unorthodox, aren’t easy. In fact, in many ways they go against our evolutionary design.
Our brains have evolved a lot since we were monkeys, but one thing has hardly changed: the lizard brain. A term popularised by Seth Godin in his brilliant book Linchpin, this part of our brain still remembers what it was like to need to survive, to blend in, to not make a fuss. In fact, the worst thing for the lizard brain to think would be that whatever we’re doing makes us stand out. Standing out from the crowd in evolutionary terms meant you’d get picked off by a predator and this is exactly how the lizard brain still thinks!
Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art is a revealing and personal account of his battles as a writer against what he calls ‘the resistance’. The resistance is a mindset, usually developed by the lizard brain, but characterised by stress, anxiety, fear of failure, fear of success and a whole host of other emotions that whir around our brains and tell us to stand still. “Stop. Don’t do it. It’s risky. Do it how others do it because that’s what we know is already accepted behaviour. Innovation and unorthodoxy is a crazy idea. Creativity is just wrong.” Your job as a Ninja is to silence those thought processes as much as possible.
This sounds easy but it’s not – mainly because they’re often so quiet that you don’t even realise they need silencing at all. Pay close attention to yourself and your gut instincts, but also objectively observe your productivity, noticing which tasks you’re drawn to and repelled by. You don’t need to be a psychologist or a counsellor to understand your own thinking, but you do need to pay close attention to it.
Many people will tell you that allowing time and space to listen to your emotions, listen to your heart and just be mindful is either a waste of time or somehow ‘hippy psychobabble’. The Ninja knows differently – knows that it’s all about perception and there’s a greater force inside of us that we can channel towards fulfilment, success and changing the world.
A bad day can be as much about what’s going on in your head as what’s going on in the office. Those that regularly practice or have even tried some form of mediation will know of its benefits. In fact, meditation can help sharpen all of the other aspects of the Ninja mindset we’ve just discussed.
I take a wide definition of meditation here that includes sitting quietly staring at a beautiful view, praying, free writing and other creativity pursuits, Yoga, walking (if the purpose is to walk, not to arrive!) and many other things. Again, the aim is to promote Zen-like calm and be focussed and fully present in your work.
As well as taking the time to listen to our own thoughts and emotions, active and effective listening is at the heart of great meetings and collaborative work. Listening to objections and hearing only feedback and connection rather than criticism and opposition is a crucial skill, too.
Productivity and mindfulness go together like peanut butter and jelly. Yesterday is history tomorrow is a mystery and the action is in the present. Think Productive time management training courses focus on the moment enabling you to get your inbox to zero.
“Begin with the end in mind.”– Stephen Covey
This is the second in a series of posts defining the Characteristics of a Productivity Ninja….
As well as needing to make more and better decisions, we need to be choosy, processing information to sort the wheat from the chaff and the big opportunities from the even bigger ones. Ruthlessness isn’t just about how we process information, it’s also about our ability to protect our time and attention, focussing only on the things that add the greatest impact, even at the expense of other things that are ‘worth doing’.
With abundance of information such a problem, being choosy is the only way. It goes against the western, protestant work ethic culture that we’re so familiar with to decide not to do things, but that’s exactly what we must do. Being much choosier about what we say “Yes” to is an important skill – and learning to say “No” to ourselves means not biting off more than we can chew. If you do get into situations where you’ve bitten off more than you can chew (and I do this regularly,by the way!), it’s about realising that renegotiating your commitments to yourself and others is better than burning yourself out trying to meet them all.
Picture this. You’re in a meeting that you thought you were attending purely to contribute to, and the meeting discussion begins to come around to some decisions and commitments about actions people could take at the end of the
meeting. There’s a particular set of actions that you’re renowned for being good at, and just as it’s mentioned, several pairs of eyes turn and focus on you. Saying “No” to others is tricky. It requires steely resolve, a ruthless streak and some great tactics so that you come out smelling of roses.
Our attention – particularly that proactive attention when we’re most alert, in flow and on top of our game – is arguably our most precious resource. It needs to be nurtured and valued. At the same time, there are a million interruptions out there: emails, phone calls, thoughts, stress, colleagues, social media, the next big crisis, the next big thing.
We often like to be distracted because it’s the perfect excuse for procrastination and thinking less. Facebook or Twitter win over the report we’re supposed to be finishing simply because it’s easier to be in those places, having conversations, than it is to get into the difficult thinking we’re supposed to be engaged in.
Using the 80-20 rule, we can start to recognise that not all of what we do creates an equal amountof impact. 20% of what we do accounts for 80% of the impact. Often, there’s a temptation to aim for perfection. In some areas of our work, this perfection is healthy and even necessary but in other cases, it can be avoided and the impact on the final result hardly even noticed. So we need to be ruthless in our planning. What are we trying to achieve? Has someone else solved this problem before? Could we beg, borrow or steal?
I hope you enjoyed this article on increasing productivity by developing the ninja skill of ruthlessness. If you have any other time management tips, please feel free to share them below!
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