Toxic productivity – The real ROI of Busy-ness

We all know the life of an entrepreneur can be merciless – wearing every hat under the sun, from innovating, designing, recruiting, marketing, accounting – you name it – the role is yours!  Boundaries are thin, weekends are for working, and your mind most likely rarely shuts off – even on holiday. Your plus points – you are a do-er, you are prepared to take risks, you keep striving – wonderful!  But what is that behaviour costing you? There is a difference between being so immersed in making leaps towards your dream goal, and being so busy, that you get stuck a loop of never quite making the progress you would want, at the speed you would want.  This is what I call toxic productivity.

What toxic productivity costs you
The toll is ultimately on your health- but when I say health, I am talking about every aspect of health – mental, emotional, social, financial, spiritual and physical.
Physical: working endless hours, sacrificing healthy meals, not sleeping long enough, or poorly, skipping the workout as there is so much to get done.
Mental: you have so much on your plate, the to-do list is endless and multiple projects on the go at once – the mental overload can be crippling, and squashes creativity – an entrepreneur’s lifeline.
Emotional: when you are so busy, the strain and stress can become overwhelming with no time for rest and recovery. Your nervous system goes into overdrive, making you short-fused and triggers episodes of anxiety or poor communication.
Social: meeting up with friends or quality time with loved ones gets sacrificed for getting one more thing done – because when you can tick that off, you will have more time and feel better, at least, that is what you tell yourself.
Spiritual: there is no time to spend on your own personal growth, or on even questioning your thoughts, feeling or actions because you are simply too busy. This will lead to a feeling of disconnect.
Financial: being so busy, but not productive or working on what really needs to be worked on means you fail to bring in the revenue you hoped, or you simply cannot maintain the level of efficiency needed. You may not quite take the risks needed to realise the ROI because trust starts to become eroded as you’re preoccupied elsewhere.

Burnout is on the horizon, and you simply cannot keep going.  Finally, the elusive weekend off arrives – only for you to find yourself too exhausted to actually enjoy it. So, what is the alternative to toxic productivity? How can you in fact achieve more, but with less stress, more energy and more significant impact and results?  This is what I call mastering optimal performance – a place where you can effortlessly tap into flow, align yourself with purpose, maintain focus and drive, and sustain high levels of energy.

How to achieve optimal performance
Optimal performance allows you to  become your own rechargeable energy source so you can achieve even more, but without the collateral damage I have just described.   So let me share some tips with you about to do just that. All of these ideas form part of the NAIL-IT Leadership System.

1- FIRE up your goals
Whenever you set yourself a task, use this formula to determine if it is something you should undertake or consider delegating.  

Feeling: If you don’t feel excited about the goal, then you will most likely do it very slowly, with stress, fail to complete it, or keep yourself so busy with other tasks that you don’t get round to it. This simply feeds the sense of lack of achievement, another cause of burnout.

Integral: How integral is the goal to you? How does it align with your values, your purpose, your level of ambition? How authentic is it to you?  This can be a huge challenge for entrepreneurs and founders when you find yourself misaligned with investors. It triggers becoming busy with everything else but the task required.

Relevance: How relevant is the task to your bigger picture?  This is great tool to use when it comes to prioritisation. If it isn’t relevant to the bigger picture, can you delegate it?  Can you park it for later?

Engagement: How much does the task engage you? As an entrepreneur, you thrive on your brain being challenged. If the task is boring, it doesn’t challenge you. If it doesn’t feed your soul, no amount of mental self-talk to convince yourself to get it done will work. If it doesn’t pass the ‘FIRE’ test, then it is costing you money in lost focus.  Either scrap the idea or pass it to someone else and keep yourself aligned and on track.

2- Just Do It
Procrastination – fear vs dopamine: Procrastination is one of the biggest reasons for toxic productivity. Doing the ‘busy’ work is a great shield to hide from the ‘scary work.’  What are you really afraid of? What is it that is really stopping you and keeping you occupied elsewhere in activities that won’t get you to where you want to be?  There are so many reasons why people procrastinate, but for entrepreneurs, the biggest ones are fear of failure and fear of success.
Consider what is it that is really holding you back? Try to overcome  it by asking yourself, “what is the worst that can happen?” Seek opportunity in every failure. Reframe it to: “It failed, I didn’t.”
There is a dopamine hit in procrastination. You feel better putting things off and feel great that you get so much else done, but that fuel doesn’t last and is followed by guilt and remorse, which then drain your energy even more.

Delay tactics override: Stop trying to convince yourself that your future self will be a better, more productive version. Stop telling yourself that once you get all these small tasks done, you can focus on the bigger one because your head will be clear. That tomorrow rarely happens, there will always be more tasks to keep you busy. Try the five second rule – count down: 5-4-3-2-1 – and just start it. Time block at least 2 hours – once you start – you will need at least 15-20 minutes to activate flow state – where you are super- productive and feel incredible. Give yourself time in that state, and allow another 15 minutes to wind down from it.

3- Fuelling up
Strategic stillness: Those brilliant ideas that jump into your head when you are in the shower or driving – they really are your intuition at work! When you become too busy, you are missing out on the precise answers you need in order to accomplish more.  Gift yourself more of those moments.  Spend some time with your phone off and sit in nature. Be mindful and allow your thoughts to clear. Practice breathing exercises; some up-regulating breathwork techniques actually help you tap into flow, and others calm your nervous system, so the adrenaline hit from ticking off a to-do list is no longer as rewarding as achieving a much bigger task.  This fixes the dopamine trap and allows you build on trust, so you feel more confident in delegating and taking action on your intuitive creativity.  

Reward recognition: Keep a ‘done list’ that fuels you instead of a to-do list, that will drain you. This will calm your brain from having to complete tasks and focus on the good feeling of having accomplished. Celebrate every win and make sure with the big ones, those celebrations are significant. Your brain will then seek out more of those bigger rewards and stop trying to find joy in the tiny tasks that have kept you so busy. This is all about changing habits, one habit at a time – every thought, every feeling, and ultimately, every action.  The more you shift you, the more you will shift the reality you exist in.  It is time for toxic productivity to end and ultimately achievement to start, so go and realise your ROI.