Seasons & Rhythms

I’ve always been one of those people who get a lot done. Kind, flattering people even sometimes ask how I manage “it all”.
“I don’t.” Is my standard response.

Because I don’t manage it all.
Not all at once anyways.

For me, it’s always made sense to break life into seasons.
During this season of life, I’m working on my book proposal and on STORY.
Two things.
That’s it.
As a result, I turned down a couple pretty cool speaking engagements this morning.
And I agreed to do a series at our church on Outreach, but only if it could be pushed back to May.

At the end of the year, it might look like I did it all.
Editing projects, writing my own books, speaking, whatever.
But the truth will be that I did different things in different seasons.

The same goes for for how I see my day to day life.
Productivity is about knowing my daily rhythms.

In my experience, there are really just two kinds of projects:

1. The kind that require you to capture inspiration, to think, to reflect, to wrestle passion stirring inside you to expression.  (Writing, speaking persuasively, design, brainstorming)

2. The kind that require you to execute tasks (organizing spreadsheets, filing papers, finding information on the web, sending form emails)

And, for this purpose, there are also two general states of mind:

1. A positive state of mind, where we’re functioning at full energy, feeling physically and emotionally well.

2. A less than positive state of mind, where for some physical, emotional or other reason, we are functioning with sub-par energy.

The secret to productivity, in my humble opinion, is figuring out which task to do when.

Meaning, if your energy is high and positive, recognize that. Conciously choose not to sink your best emotional and physical energy into tasks like stapling papers or sending form emails that you could do on 10% energy.

As follows, if your energy level is low, don’t frustrate yourself trying to create the most inspiring work of your life. Stick to tasks that you can easily do with low energy, even if you had the flu or were sitting at home in your pajamas. Staple those million papers that need stapled. Affix stamps to envelopes. Send form emails. Enter data.

Yesterday, I did something I rarely do: I rescheduled an important appointment. It was an appointment that had been somewhat difficult to set up and that I had been genuinely looking forward to it.

But I knew the meeting was one of those inspiration-tasks that will only thrive when I myself am able to tap and deliver inspiration. And I recognized that I was operating out of a more depleted place than usual and that, as a result, I couldn’t bring my normal passion and heart for the project to the table.

But I didn’t let the low energy discourage me into being unproductive. I still cranked out all kinds of other work, from returning emails to scheduling future tasks. By doing this, I cleared my to-do list, so that when my energy hit full-swing again, I’d be able to devote myself to those most creative projects.

All humans have rhythms. My secret to being productive isn’t trying to be super-human; it’s to do seasons and rhythms well.

What about you? If you’ve learned a thing or two about what keeps you healthy and productive, drop me a comment. I’d love to hear it.