Episode 65: Why productivity advice doesn’t work for everyone (and what to do instead)

00:49 Welcome to Unfrazzle, a podcast for solo business owners with the big vision who are ready for a kinder more sustainable approach to productivity. I'm Louise Miller and each week i share bite-sized insights to help you step away from the hustle stop faffing and stay focused so you can make your brilliant ideas happen and make a bigger impact in the world So grab yourself a cuppa and let's get started Get up at 5am. Hustle, don't hustle! Get some accountability. Plan every minute of every day. Follow your energy. Put everything in your diary Use this fancy spreadsheet and break your projects down into tasks Decide how long each task is going to take and when you're going to do it Time block? Use the Pomodoro technique

01:34 When it comes to being more productive, everyone seems to have an opinion. Once people find what works for them they often start evangelising telling you to do what they do insisting that there's no reason why it can't work for you and that if it doesn't work for you you're not trying hard enough And I call BS on all of that because if you have a rebellious streak for example accountability won't work for you no matter how hard you try And those magical unicorns who can put a thing in their calendar and then actually do that thing when the calendar tells them to, according to Gretchen Rubin's research on The Four Tendencies those people are very much in the minority. And if you're a night owl getting up at 5am is going to leave you feeling exhausted and sleep deprived

02:20 There's no one-size fits all, so trying to follow someone else's idea of what works will only make you feel like a failure. And I've worked with enough clients, read enough books listened to enough podcasts and observed enough people moving through the world to understand that we're not all the same It is not as simple as just do X Y or Z and all your problems will be solved! So whether i'm working with clients 1 on 1 or in Make it Happen Club that is NOT how I roll Instead, I give you the space to find what works for you. And yes, I have plenty of tips and tools up my sleeve that I share with the people I'm supporting but never make blanket statements or suggest a single approach is going to work for everyone

03:02 Over time, as you keep showing up and keep experimenting with different ways of doing things You'll gradually learn what feels good for you and what doesn't. You'll discover how much easier things become when you accept And work with your own tendencies rather than fighting against them Telling yourself you should be able to just put things in your calendar and then do them And then giving yourself a hard time because no matter how hard you try that simply doesn't work So I am here through this podcast and in the work that i do with my clients, I'm here to empower you to find what works and find what feels good for you not to tell you what to do. And I know I've said this here before, I used to get nervous before sharing my approach to productivity on podcasts or as a guest expert in people's communities because I would worry that people wanted me to tell them exactly what to do to be more productive and then would be disappointed when I didn't

03:55 But time and time again, I am seeing that actually is not the case. I was delivering a session for a marketing membership a few weeks ago and we were talking about making the most of your time your energy in your attention And one of the attendees fed back to me at the end that actually he's fed up with listening to a speaker who shares their foolproof plan to achieve whatever it is they're saying they can help you achieve when the reality is what was being shared actually wouldn't work for about 80% of people in the room Another person during that session actually popped something in the comments as I was speaking about how amazing it felt that somebody actually understood her brain because i wasn't there to tell them what to do. I was there to help them understand, there's nothing wrong with them and give them some things to think about around how they can make better use of their time energy and attention. I gave them um a resource they could go away and reflect on

04:49 And actually the group agreed that it's really refreshing not to be told what to do. Because the thing that makes a biggest difference when it comes to your productivity is not trying your hardest to follow someone else's way of doing things until it becomes too much, you give up and go back to square one feeling like a failure because you couldn't make that person system work The thing that makes the biggest difference is finding what works for YOU And that is what happens when you come and work with me. So in Make It Happen Club, you are invited to pause and reflect before creating a plan for the month ahead. When you keep taking that time in the treehouse month after month, you can't help but build your self-awareness which in turn empowers you to find your productivity groove and get the important stuff done

05:33 So I mentioned the treehouse there. If you're interested to hear more about that, I talk about the tree house in episode 13 of Unfrazzle so please do go and listen to that it's all about how productivity happens before you take action and that concept i know has been a real game changer for lots of people so do go and check that out So if you're ready to ditch productivity advice that doesn't work and you want to focus instead on getting stuff done in a way that feels good, maybe it's time to join us in Make It Happen Club. But whether you come and work with me or not what I really want you to take away from this episode of Unfrazzle is that If you keep trying different kinds of advice, people telling you just try this or that. If you keep doing that and it isn't working for you doesn't mean anything about you It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with you it doesn't mean that your broken. It just means you haven't found what works for you yet So please be kind to yourself

06:26 Be gentle, keep your eye out for anyone promising you a quick fix or one size fits all solution because those things rarely work and if you need my help please do get in touch. Alright I hope that this helped and i look forward to seeing you again soon Thank you for listening to Unfrazzle. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who needs a dose of calm productivity in their life and I'd love it if you could leave me a rating and a review as that will help more people discover this podcast. If you'd like to hear more from me to help you stop faffing and take back control of your time, you'll find a link to join my mailing list in the show notes and I would really love for you to join us so thanks so much for your support and I look forward to seeing you next time!