Hi there, you're listening to Take Out Therapy, short lessons in popular topics about emotional health. This is your host, Rebecca Hunter. I'm a therapist by day, and we don't really tell people what to do.
We listen, we validate, and we focus on helping people reach their goals. But in the next few minutes, I'm just going to be straight up with you about what to do in certain situations, because sometimes we need some damn instructions. Clearly, this is not a substitute for therapy, but I guarantee you it might help.
Listen up. And if you have little people in the room, throw on some headphones, because I swear. Okay? I'm grateful you're here.
Thanks. Hi friends, thanks for joining me today. Happy January 2020.
I am recording this episode in the very first month of the very new year, and I have a lot of intention about this episode, because it kind of goes along with the theme of the season, which is basically, it's that time of year when the calendar year switches over, and so we start to think about our intentions for the next year, which basically, for a lot of people, it means that there's things we want to do, whether we want to make a change, or we want to add something to our routine. But for a lot of people, in January, it's very on the top of the mind to get more stuff done, basically. And I hear this a lot in my private practice, and so I just thought it would be really helpful to give you some ways to get stuff done.
So it's really hard for some people, I think many people actually in this day and age, to be focused and do what they need to do. I will just raise my hand here and say, I have a tendency to be less productive than I could be. So if you're like me, and you have trouble getting things done, and that's like, I definitely like get stuff done, but when I sit down to work, it is like, sometimes it's like an uphill slog.
If I don't use the skills that I know how to use, which I'm going to explain to you, then it's like, I'm having a really hard time getting traction, getting in the zone, getting focused, all of those things done, which just means I have to work for longer, right? Because I'm like, spinning my wheels. But I really want to talk about this, because it does come up, we have a lot going on in our lives. And people are really overwhelmed.
Because as I'll say a million times, this life is very overwhelming for us, for our bodies and our minds, the human being. And so people are really easily distracted. We're very unfocused, and we're pretty overwhelmed.
And so we kind of think it should come natural to get into the flow and get a lot of stuff done and be super focused and productive. I'm just going to tell you, this setup is not there for that. And so if you're the most productive person on the face of the earth, I'm so happy for you.
But a lot of people have problems with productivity, because we just have too much going on, frankly. So we need to use some techniques and some skills to be able to be productive and be less distracted and unfocused. And then the other thing is, if you're anything like me, you get in your own way.
And I totally get in my own way. Right. Sometimes it's like I'm going to work and then sometimes it's like I'm going to work and the work has the little quotations around it.
Right. And then I just come out here to my studio and spin my wheels for an hour and a half and then I go inside like super frustrated because I didn't really get anything done. There's just a lot.
Right. And so as soon as you like pull up your computer, you know what I'm talking about, because you got the email and the Internet's and the calendar and then you got the music. Right.
You got to get your music anyways. So a lot of people kind of beat up on themselves because they think this is going to come natural and it just doesn't. It's just not how our brain works.
Our brain has is amazing. It's a really cool machine. But like it only has a capacity to do what it has the capacity to do.
And sometimes what we're asking it to do is just too damn much. So I'll just say that. So let's create some change and get some productivity going by using some like higher level skills for for getting shit done.
Because then it's like we can take care of our business. We can get the things done, meet the goals that we want to meet, stop beating up on ourselves and feel like less overwhelmed and more in control of our lives, which would be awesome. That's like empowered.
We want to be empowered. So let me give you. Well, I started this episode with three ways to get stuff done, but I actually do a lot of reading and I'm very interested in the world of productivity.
So lucky for you today, I have 10 ways to get stuff done. So the first thing is just kind of a setup piece and it's start your morning right. Do you have a morning routine? How do you approach the world when you pop your eyes open in the morning? Are you like hit the ground running? You've got your cell phone in the hand when you're heading to the shower, because that's kind of a setup for, you know, it's totally counterintuitive.
You would think that the sooner you get going and the more kind of robust the process looks, the more you would get done. But it's actually the reverse. And so starting the morning right means starting the morning slow.
It means just hanging back from picking up the technology just for a hot second. I will soon do an episode on why it's a really good idea to sit for a few minutes in the morning with yourself and do nothing, which we can call all sorts of things. But do a morning sit as part of your morning routine.
And what I would recommend is use the bathroom, do the sit. Like it is the first thing before you go out and say good morning. Just pretend you slept five more minutes.
Seriously. So five minutes. And then the second part of the do the morning right thing is like just put pen to paper in some way, some really nice intentional way.
So whether it's, you know, just a report of how you slept and what your dreams were or a blurb about what you thought about yesterday or what your intention is for today, it's a really good idea to journal. Plenty of research shows that journaling is really beneficial for us and done right in the morning. It's just a nice setup for a really productive day.
And then the other thing I would say is part of your morning routine is like don't overindulge in caffeine, like just avoid doing that because you're not going to get anything done if you've had too much caffeine. Right. And we don't need as much caffeine as we consume, actually.
So we kind of need to be a little bit careful about that. So start your morning right. And then the the other thing that I recommend or the second thing that I recommend is go ahead and make a list of the things that you need to get done.
So the way I recommend doing this is like the must do's and then there's things below that. Right. Because obviously, you guys, we have long lists.
I don't know about you, but I have notebooks of lists. So like the list never ends and it's OK. We don't need to feel so overwhelmed about that.
But do make a little list each day. And so maybe you have an agreement with yourself of like, what are the three things that I really need to achieve today? And when I make when I suggest to make a list, I would also like to suggest please make your list items very small task items. So basically, instead of saying, you know, to let's see what's something people do, like do all the meal planning and grocery shopping and putting it all away and all of that stuff right for the week.
What I would say is like break the instead of saying like grocery shop. You have to like be step back from that and break it down a little bit further is kind of what I'm suggesting. And this goes for like business oriented tasks as well.
So instead of having this huge category, because it's not just a grocery shop, like you have to figure out what you need. Right. You have to inventory.
You have to figure out what you're going to have or else things get topsy turvy. Guys, are you doing meal planning? You have to figure out what you're going to have. So you know what the hell to buy.
Right. And then you've got to go there and you've got to do it and then you've got to come home. Right.
And then there's a whole process after you get home as well. And so a lot of work tasks are like this as well. Like, for example, making travel plans or paying bills, those things can get broken down further into smaller tasks.
So like if you're making travel plans, it's like book the hotel for L.A. Right. Book the flights for L.A. Does that make sense? So just break things down into really nice, small chunks. And then when you before you enter into like a work work time, I would say take care of your emails first and anything else that you feel like is kind of needs to be taken care of before you enter into a no disturb zone.
Just take care of those things. So if it's like I need to check my email for 10 minutes before I get going on my other projects today. Yeah.
Get that out of the way, because if you don't, then it will affect your productivity because it's going to be kind of popping up into your field of thought until you just do it. So I would say take 10 minutes, do that and then let that go. Right.
And then and then go ahead and enter the productivity zone in a really intentional way, meaning how much time are you going to work? Right. How many hours or moments, minutes are you going to give to this these tasks that you need to do today? And then how are your chunks of time going to be broken up? So the way I kind of schedule my calendar a lot of times is if I have, say, it's a day when I see clients, I will actually schedule in the things that I'm going to do on the front and back end of clients as well. So maybe I need to go and like tweak my home page of my website or whatever.
So I'll put that in like in between two clients. I'll put it on my calendar. Right.
So you just need to chunk out your time really well. And then again, when you're making that list and before you enter the zone, just decide like how much is enough, basically. OK, so like how many tasks are the minimum? And so in order to figure that out, you need to know kind of an estimate of how much each thing's going to take.
Right. So instead of setting yourself up in this in this kind of failure oriented way where we get in our own way, you guys just be realistic. So if maybe I don't have time to plan all the travel today.
Right. And so I've made those very small chunks and then I need to like make three steps towards that bigger chunk. Right.
So maybe it's I need to email the person about the dates and then book the hotel and research flights so we can get really specific. And then before you get to down to the business of the of the productivity time slot, go ahead and turn off everything. Turn it all off.
Right. Turn all your notifications off. Put your cell phone like across the room.
If you're not using it specifically for the tasks that you're working on, put all your distractions away. So this is like you're going in. Right.
And then work in chunks is my next thing. Work in time chunks. You guys, there's a really cool method.
It's called the Pomodoro method. And I don't know everything about it. A fellow colleague of mine introduced me to it, but I've talked with a couple of people who use it.
And it's a great method. You just basically like set a timer and not on your phone. You said like a real live physical timer.
It's amazing. For like 25 minutes, you just pick your time blocks. Right.
And that's kind of what I'm saying is like, pick a time block. And and the Pomodoro methods like you work for that chunk of time. And then when that timer goes off, you get up and stretch and take a five minute break.
And then you go back to it for the next designated chunk of time using the timer and no distractions. So when that timer, you know, is in play, you are doing what you're supposed to be doing and nothing else. So that's kind of a fun method to try to use.
And frankly, you know, the other thing that I want to say is like we have to consider brain science when we're getting down to the business of being productive, you guys. So listen, our brain, it can only be productive for a certain length of time before it kind of needs a little break. We have to be kind to the machine.
And actually, brain science says 50 minutes on, 10 minutes off, which is kind of funny when you think about it, because that's not how life is really designed. So when I say like this setup that we have that we're living in right now is too much. I mean, it it's too much.
The next thing on my list, I think it's number eight or something like that, is reward each accomplishment with internal or external rewards. So what that means is like every time you check something off your list or every time block or every item, just go ahead and have a hot tamale or or say something to yourself that's very helpful. So it's like you can just create a little reward system, basically.
I I will kind of get up and just go outside like that feels like a reward to me. So I'll plug away for a while and then I'll stand up and go outside. Or another thing that I do that I just realize is sort of a reward is I work for a while and then I get up and I'll dance to a song, which I know is a little bit wacky.
But I like to do that. It feels really good and it kind of gets my wiggles out. And so and I just like, you know, I think that it's a reward to cross an item off a list.
I get a lot of good feels on that and then I can get right back to it in the next time block. So and then number nine is be realistic and really kind to yourself. Don't set yourself up for failure.
Right. And don't listen to your excuses and then beat yourself up about listening to your excuses. Just be realistic.
Right. Our excuses are sometimes just a way of saying, like, maybe I wasn't really able to do 10 things today anyways. Does that make sense? So just be nice, be kind, work it out over time.
What's realistic? Try to estimate your time and then do the work and then say, like, well, where was I on that estimation? Right. Maybe this task just takes me longer than I thought it did. And so just be open to, you know, just be open to some wiggle room there.
And then the 10th thing that I think is important and pretty helpful, actually, is to have an accountability partner. And I don't always have this, but I think it's very helpful to have somebody who were like, hey, so I'm going to go out and I'm going to record, you know, three podcasts. And then, like, when I go in, you know, oftentimes John will say, did you get your did you do your what you were hoping, you know? And so it's like, oh, yeah, you know, I did or oh, no, I didn't.
I got distracted or whatever. And so it's just a good idea for it to be a verbal conversation is all I'm saying is like tell somebody what you're doing and ask them to check in with you after or maybe an accountability partner would be a productivity project partner. Right.
Maybe, you know, somebody who also struggles with productivity, who you could partner up with and get some stuff done. So anyways, those are all of my 10 ways to be more productive and get stuff done. And hopefully that will help you out.
Will you let me know? I would love to hear from you. I always appreciate you being here and listening as I explore these fun topics. Bye bye.
Thanks so much for listening. This podcast is not meant to be a substitute for therapy, but I hope it was super helpful for you in any case. I want to be part of some much needed change, but I'm going to need your help.
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Let's do some good where we can. All right. Visit my website at RebeccaHunterMSW.com to have access to resources, videos and the show notes if that interests you.
And again, I'm so grateful you're listening to Take Out Therapy. Thanks.
