“Sometimes, being effective isn’t enough because achievement can be hollow if it gets out of sync with who you are, what you really want to be doing, what you are actually capable of.”
Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits
Brendon Burchard, in his book High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way, presents the basics of productivity, looks at work life balance, and gives us three practices to become more productive while increasing happiness.
Let’s dive in!
The factors of productivity, according to Burchard, are goals, energy, and focus. On goals he says:
“When you have clear and challenging goals, you tend to be more focused and engaged, which leads to a greater sense of flow and enjoyment in what you are doing.”
Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits
The key is not wandering from activity to activity, but rather to state goals that you can work toward. A person can be very busy, and even produce a lot, but without goals that work is unfocused. If your motivation is waning, try setting clear goals that are challenging to see if you become more productive and get more enjoyment out of the work you are doing.
We discussed generating energy, the second factor of productivity, in the article on High Performance Habit #2. Eating well, getting enough sleep, and exercising are all contributors to having energy. In Burchard’s research, he found that energy is a big factor in determining productivity.
Focus, the third factor of productivity, can be sidelined for a variety of reasons. One reason is reactivity. Burchard advises not checking email first thing in the morning. “The big flood of e-mails causes overwhelm and reactivity – not the emotion or mindset you want to frame your day with.”
Distraction is another contributor to loss of focus. Multitasking is a big reason for distraction. Turns out that “when people multitask they cannot focus fully on the task at hand because their brain is still processing their last unfinished task.”
A third thief of focus is interruptions. We all know that when we are interrupted at work it takes a bit of time to get back on track.
We experience an overwhelming number of emails, distractions, and interruptions daily, if not hourly or more often. It’s not difficult to see how these deterrents to focus are impacting our productivity.
Work life balance
Burchard makes an interesting statement about work life balance:
“The great mistake most people make is to think of balance in terms of evenly distributed hours.”
Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits
Burchard considers the following areas when evaluating work life balance: “health, family, friends, intimate relationships (partner or marriage), mission/work, finances, adventure, hobby, spirituality, and emotion”. He asks his clients to first rate their happiness on a scale of 1-10, and then note their goals in each of these 10 categories every single week. In bringing awareness and intention to each of these areas, it becomes apparent where the work needs to be done to bring life into balance.
“When most people feel that they’re out of balance, it’s because one area of their life became more intense, important, and time-consuming than other areas.”
Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits
The author also notes that “You’ll always feel out of balance if you’re doing work that you don’t find engaging and meaningful.”
Taking a break to increase productivity
We may think that powering through for long periods of time on a task will make us more productive. Turns out the opposite is true. Researchers have found that taking breaks actually helps us to work faster, experience more positive emotions, and be more productive.
Burchard’s research has shown that a 2-3 minute break every 45-60 minutes of the day is optimal. The break should include at least standing up, and moving around if you can. A couple minute walk, light stretching, or bouncing up and down in place all count. As mentioned in Habit 1: Seek Clarity and Habit 2: Generate Energy, you might also set an intention for the next block of work.
This breaktime does not include checking email, texts, or social media. We want to use the break to give our bodies and mind a short break before focusing again. Checking on input from others can knock us off course.
Three practices for increasing productivity
Increase the outputs that matter
You can be very busy, but if you are not producing what is needed or valued, then you are likely not a high performer. Burchard coins the term ‘PQO’, or Prolific Quality Output. We have to figure out what relevant PQO is for us. You’ll see higher productivity and become more valuable when you “[figure] out what you are supposed to produce, and [learn] the priorities in the creation, quality, and frequency of that output.”
Chart your five major moves
Burchard challenges us to think of our most ambitious dream and then to determine what the five major moves are that would make that dream a reality. We can think of a major move as a project. He uses his goal of writing a book as an example. After talking with best-selling authors, he determined that the five steps were:
- Finish writing the book.
- Get an agent, or self-publish.
- Get email subscribers by blogging and posting to social media.
- Create a web page for promotion of the book and bonus offers.
- Get people who have big email lists to promote the book.
Each major move can be scheduled by breaking down into activities and tasks, deliverables, and deadlines. Burchard suggests that 60% of the work week should be dedicated to completing each major move.
Get insanely good at key skills
High performers identify the skills they need to develop so they can carry out the five major moves and prepare for the future. These skills may be technical, social, hard or soft. Whatever knowledge and capabilities you need to develop to be successful in the next three years should be considered.
Burchard encourages us by noting that “Everything is trainable.”
tl;dr
High Performance Habit #4 from Brendon Burchard’s book High Performance Habits is about improving productivity. We need to make sure we have clear and challenging goals, great energy, and focus. If we feel we are out of balance, we may consider looking at many aspects of our life and determining if we’re devoting more time and energy to one at the determinant of the others. Breaking large goals into five major steps and then working diligently on each step will help us be more productive and reach our goal faster.
engineer your life
- Thinking about the factors of productivity – goals, energy, and focus – which one you can improve on to help you become more productive?
- Consider measuring your happiness and goals for a few weeks in the 10 life areas presented: health, family, friends, intimate relationships (partner or marriage), mission/work, finances, adventure, hobby, spirituality, and emotion. See if you notice a difference in your productivity.