STP 159: The Secret of Productive Work
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[00:00:00]
James Marland: For most of my life, I've, I really felt like there's just something wrong with me. I get distracted easily. I get stuck. I even have this magnet that is on my desk that says I never finish any without finishing the sentence. I never finish anything and I've just told myself that I just need to be more disciplined.
I need to work harder. I gotta push through. But what if that is the wrong advice? What if that is not the reason why I struggle? If you are feeling this way, if, if you feel like you're broken too, if you feel like you are trying to grit your way through the day, then this episode is for you because I'm gonna show you the secret and the shift that I'm doing in my life that is helping me be more energetic and productive and more focused during the day.
And [00:01:00] if you've been stuck in this cycle for too long, where you stopped and you got distracted and you've paused your work, I've created something to help you reset. It's called the Unpause Playbook, and you can grab [email protected] slash unpause now to the episode.
For most of my working life, I felt broken. I felt like I was missing something that other people had when I sat down to work, there were things I could focus on and things that I couldn't focus on. When I struggle with focus, I get distracted. I don't struggle with effort, I struggle with sticking with things that are either not interesting to me or are tedious or take a lot of time to figure out, or I get frustrated with.
If I'm interested, things like I get in that flow [00:02:00] state and I lock on, so I've felt like I've just been broken, broken most of my life with working and I. What, when this happens, when I'm not in that flow state, I will check my email. I will open up my phone and get distracted by, uh, hack reacts videos, or joke videos, or I'll get into my email, which will make me go to my Google Drive, which will make me do, uh, go to Canva and all of a sudden I have 20 tabs open, like literally 20 tabs.
And then I'm, then I'm playing whack-a-mole with the tabs. Like, where am I and what, where should I be going? And, and which ones need to be closed? And, and this is what I used to think, I used to think there's something wrong with me. I just gotta push through. I need more [00:03:00] willpower. If I struggle through this.
If I grit through this, then, then I will be productive. But pushing through never worked. Like literally pushing through doesn't work. The more I push through, the higher the frustration gets. The more the draw in the call of something more interesting to distract me becomes, and then, then I have those 20 tabs open again, Something that should take five minutes or 30 minutes, ends up taking two hours because I, I tried to stick, Here's something that puzzles me, and this is something I'm learning and I wanna share with you. If I step away from trying to push through and take even just a short five to 10 minute break, I come back and I'm faster, I'm [00:04:00] cleaner, I'm more decisive, I'm less distracted. So maybe the real issue wasn't effort or willpower.
Or grit. Maybe the real issue was I wasn't resting, I was trying to work just straight through, like I'm built for, uh, like a machine, nonstop work. And the I, I've learned I need to change things. There was a book by Jordan Rayner and he says, we're not machines. We're human beings who need rest to do our work.
And
what I've started to put into practice is a 90 minute cycle that Jordan recommends in his book, 90 Minutes, real focus, deep work, take a break, come back, repaired. And this cycle is working because I'm realizing. I'm not broken. I just [00:05:00] needed productive rest. Most people think if they can't work straight through the day that they're broken, that they need more discipline, that they're lacking something.
They just need to tough it out. But maybe it's not about willpower, it's about the rhythm of work.
Maybe the problem is thinking you gotta push through those times of distractions. Maybe the problem is thinking you are broken. Maybe the problem is just a better system because if pushing harder worked, it would've worked already.
I've been struggling with this for 50 years. You know, I'm a little over 50 and I've always thought I just gotta push through and when I push through. The drag outta my brain, the drag on my focus, the drag on my energy just [00:06:00] compounds, and I get slower and slower and slower. I lose clarity and I start avoiding the work.
So here's the shift that that I'm making. I notice when. First, I set up time blocks, but I also notice when my attention is shifting and I start to manage that attention with, with productive rest, that is the lever I am pulling to be more productive. That is the secret, the goal. It's not to push through, it's not to grid it out, but it's to have a productive rhythm, a productive system that aligns with how your mind and body works.
~This is how, this is what I'm putting in practice. This is what it looks like for me. I have 90 minute work blocks. That's a task like making the podcast or doing my social media or responding to emails. One clear task, one clear target. No switching. When that block is done, I stop.~
~Do I really do this though?~
Here's what I am putting in place, 90 minute blocks of of deep work. When the deep work is done, I take a break. Also, if I notice that my attention is waning, I will also do [00:07:00] some productive rest. And what I mean by productive rest is I'm not scrolling on my Facebook, I am not looking at email. You know, in my break time, I step away When that work is done, I step away from my desk, my working station. To fully disengage from the work in the area and the distracting. I need to do something so different that my brain shifts it's sort of like a cleanser. When I step away from the desk or the phone, it cleanses my mind in a, it gives me more space to do my best work, and it gives me more time and energy in my brain to focus on what I need to focus and not drift into distraction.
So.
The answer isn't willpower and the answer is rhythm. We need to kind of get specific on how that [00:08:00] rhythm of rest works, because not all rest is equal. I could rest and I have tried resting by just scrolling through Facebook and looking up jokes or doing my email or doing some something else, but that is not the type of rest that works because as Jordan said in his book,
if you.
Work with your mind, rest with your hands. If you work with your hands, rest with your mind. So I am working mostly with creating content and figuring things out on the internet and creating podcasts and writing scripts. And so that's a lot of mental work doing that. So the rest that works for me, the rest that works best for me, that actually restores me is doing something physical.
The scrolling isn't rest. The email isn't rest. That's more input for my brain, and it's trying to shove more information into my brain. I come back and I'm still mentally fatigued, [00:09:00] but the secret for me is when I go out and do something physical, take the laundry down, two flights of stairs, put the laundry in, bring the laundry back up, wash the dishes, mow the lawn.
Something just physical. ~It, ~it really helps, it really washes my brain and allows more space for the deep work. Uh, when I'm working with my mind or when I'm resting with my mind, I'm asking my brain to process more information, to sort it, to remember it. It doesn't work. I need to do. Rest that is different.
I need to get that space in and it's working. ~Why? ~Why I'm sharing this with you is because I feel more productive in the last month after I've read this book than I have in a long time. I don't feel bad that I need rest. [00:10:00] I feel great that I need rest. I'm looking forward to those tasks and chores that get me outta my seat, clears my brain, and allows me to come back and be more intentional and focused on what I was doing or even the things I don't necessarily wanna do.
Those tedious tasks that drag me down. I'm able to do more of those things. This works and it's a secret that I wish I had. Uh, people have probably been telling me this for a while, you know, oh, take rest, take breaks. But ~I haven't, ~I haven't, uh, done the right type of breaks with the right type of rhythm to, to allow me to prioritize these breaks.
I was taking the wrong type of breaks, but when I take the breaks that ~are, ~are a little more physical in nature, ~I, ~I've given my brain space to relax and ~it's got, it has given it, ~it has its [00:11:00] own space to rest. When I come back, I can think again, and I love this and I want you. If you're working with your mind, and if you're listening to this podcast, you probably work with your mind quite a bit to embrace the act of switching it up and do some sort of physical rest so that you can think again, so that you can process again so that you have more space to get.
Now this, this is the double bonus. This is the double bonus, uh, secret or trick. The things I am trying to do are also things that are, are service to the family. I mentioned the laundry, the dishes, and mowing the lawn. When I do those things, my wife doesn't have to do them. I get the joy of serving her and I also get to rest.
~I'm, I'm being productive. ~It's, but it's productive rest and it's productive in like multiple areas. There's just this, this, [00:12:00] uh, joy. When I get to do those things, I'm improving my environment. I'm improving my rest. I'm bettering my relationship with my family. I'm serving my family, and I am also cleaning out my mind and allowing myself to do better work So it's just the best of both worlds. The rest restores me and I'm bettering ~my family. Now maybe you're wor, you work in an office and you can't do those sorts of things. How? How do we do that?~
~For me, that's a double win. Getting rest and serving ~my family. Now, maybe you work in an office, so maybe your double win is, uh, resting, but also maybe taking a brisk walk so you're serving you, you're, you're, um, serving your health and also resting. So that's, that could be your double win. The trick could be finding that double win like your rest could help you.
Win. So I want you to see the rest that I embracing isn't just [00:13:00] doing nothing. That's not the type of rest that I'm talking about because real rest is not necessarily passive. it's restorative. It brings back the energy that you just drained. So if you're like me and you felt broken and. You wonder why you couldn't push just through and have more willpower, and why aren't you like everyone else?
Stop. Stop trying to grit your way through it. Stop believing that you're broken. Change your rhythm. Change the way you rest, and watch how your work life will change.
the next time you're sitting there, tabs open everywhere, jumping between email and files and programs and searches, playing whack-a-mole with your browser tabs, trying to get to the right one.
Feeling guilty that something that should take you 15 minutes has taken two [00:14:00] hours. Don't label it as a discipline problem because it's not a personality problem, it's a rhythm problem. It's not a willpower problem. It's your routine, and it's not a laziness problem. It's the lack of restorative rest. You don't need to push through In that moment, maybe the solution is step away, reset, do something simple.
If you work with your mind, rest with your hands, like wash the dishes, move the laundry, clean up your space, mow the lawn, then come back. And be ready to work, ready to think. Because rest resets your powers. Rest sustains your focus. Rest restores the energy that work just drained. So stop thinking you can win by pushing harder and start winning by using the [00:15:00] right work and rest rhythm.
I'm doing it and it has been great for my productivity. I wanted to share that with you, the, the entrepreneurs and creators
So that you can be more productive in your work and family life so that you can increase your impact, your income and independence in the, and love the work that you do.
Thanks for listening to the show. Here's the main takeaway I want you to leave with. If you work with your mind, you need to rest with your hands. Stop trying to push through that mental fatigue. That's not where the best work comes from. That's not where my best work comes from,
To the listener out there who's feeling stuck and they're feeling distracted and they feel like I did where I can't focus. Remember, you're not broken. You just need to realign with your natural [00:16:00] rhythms on how you work best and how you rest. Best focus then rest, work, then rest. That's where that clarity comes from.
That's where the momentum comes from. This idea was shaped from the book Redeeming Your Time by Jordan Rainer. I'll put a link in the comments to that book if you wanna go deeper. The rest part was just a tiny part of it, but it's what is making the most impact in my life today. Finally, if this episode hit home for you and you wanna get unstuck from that cycle of starting and stopping, and you.
You paused your mission, but you wanna get started, go grab the Unpaused playbook. It's a simple reset for your rhythm so that you can reclaim your mission and vision and find one clear step to move forward and put your mission in motion. Again, you can find [email protected] slash unpause.[00:17:00]
It's now time to start. Resting with intention and resting to get your energy back and put your mission in motion. We will see you next time. I.
