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This is likely not the first article you’ve read on the topic of productivity. There is a plethora of articles out there offering advice on how to be productive and giving answers to questions you never even thought to ask.
Yet, all too often, we find ourselves stuck with the same bad habits because it takes time and effort to form better habits that lead to a more productive life.
Why does this happen?
Much of the advice out there is unhelpful, and sometimes even counterproductive. There are plenty of myths surrounding productivity that are false and may confuse you and disrupt your journey to becoming more productive.
In the rest of this article, we’ll dispel some common myths about productivity and share some tips that will keep you on the right track.
Without further ado, let’s dive in.
Top Eight Productivity Myths
Here is our list of the top productivity myths most people believe are true — but aren’t!
Myth One: You Must Copy the Habits of Successful People to Achieve What You Want in Life
Many articles on productivity are based on the routines of highly successful people which the reader is encouraged to emulate. You know the kind of article we’re talking about. Here are a few examples we made up.
- Oprah Winfrey’s 5am morning routine for a super productive day.
- Orlando Bloom’s 20-minute chanting session sets him up for the day ahead.
- Two hours of daily meditation keeps Jack Dorsey going.
But lionising the habits of successful people is not the best way to give out productivity advice.
One problem is that statistics imply that for the few people who obtain success through cultivating productive habits, many others will not manage it, even if they develop the same habits and adopt the same routines. Feelings of inadequacy that may arise from not being able to meet the same high standards may slow your process.
Also, it gives people the idea that successful people can always operate at peak performance. But as shown by Benjamin Franklin’s demanding to-list and his own admittance that he was often not as organised as he could be, most successful individuals are as fallible as the rest of us.
Putting famous people on a pedestal can be counterproductive and have a negative effect on our endeavours because we forget that successful people have had trials to go through and obstacles to negotiate, just like the rest of us. Thus, we convince ourselves that their lives are unattainable.
What to do instead
It is better to view the examples of how others have achieved success as something to admire and aspire to, rather than viewing them as idols. After all, all idols eventually crumble.
By admiring such people, you are free to experiment with their routines, figure out what works for you, and discard whatever doesn’t.
Myth Two: Make the Most of Every Moment
This myth is so ingrained it is how many view productivity itself. Nevertheless, the idea that being productive and working effectively means you must make the most of your day and complete as many tasks as you can in the shortest possible time, is, in fact false.
If you focus on maximising your time, it may impair creativity. We have around 3-4 productive hours each day and focusing on time management makes us aware of how much time we waste, which can demotivate us.
So, while time management has its place, it is more important to manage your energy. That’s why creative, productive people can focus their attention and energy like a laser when they need to but know they need rest to recharge afterward.
What to do instead
Pinpoint the hours when you’re at your most productive. Protect those hours and concentrate on being productive at those times. Tackle your hardest or most complex task in the first productive hour of your day when you have the most energy and can focus. You can use time blocking to help create pockets of time you can devote to your most important work.
When you sign off for the day, make sure your take time to disconnect, have fun and sleep so you have enough energy the next day.
Soon, we’ll explain why intrinsic rewards are often of more use than external ones. Now though, let’s look at a myth related to setting goals.
Myth Three: Create Big Goals
It can often appear as if those who set themselves the most ambitious far-reaching goals are the most successful.
However, the truth is that goals can overwhelm you if you give yourself too big a target to hit too soon because they seem daunting. Check out this piece on anti-goals and micro-goals for some unconventional approaches to goal setting.
It is better to focus on the experiences you have as you strive to reach a goal, rather than to focus on the goal itself.
This is because if we concentrate only on our goals, we forget to take pleasure in the work we do to reach that goal, and taking pleasure in what we do is crucial if we want to be productive.
What to do instead
Create micro-goals. This will help you build a sustainable productivity habit. We will avoid becoming discouraged and quitting because we’ve taken on something that seems to be more than we can handle.
As an example, if you want to write a novel, you could make it a target to write 100 words a day, every day, until you reach a certain number of words.
Myth 4: Use External Rewards as Motivation
Western culture puts emphasis on the importance of external rewards as a source of motivation, and the role such rewards play in inspiring us to be productive.
The truth, however, is quite the opposite. We derive most of our motivation from intrinsic rewards, rather than external ones.
The use of extrinsic rewards in the workplace, such as promotions and benefits, can damage workers’ intrinsic motivation if they are already interested in their work. If an external reward is offered to someone who was already working for a more intrinsic reward, say satisfaction, it can displace intrinsic motivation. This, in turn, can damage productivity.
What to do instead
Focus on the process, rather than outcomes or results, and make sure you set priorities that align with your values. Learn to relish and enjoy doing the work, instead of just worrying about the results.
Myth 5: Use the Perfect Productivity Apps and Optimise Your Productivity System
Overhauling our use of apps or making slight changes to our productivity systems can feel like we are being productive. The problem is, tweaking systems and reviewing the apps we use isn’t helping us make progress toward our goals.
Relying too much on a particular app or system can cause them to take on a life of their own and make us focus on the number of tasks we complete, rather than concentrating on prioritising tasks that will help us progress towards you’re goals and completing those tasks to a high standard.
Let’s say one of our goals is to hit ‘inbox zero’ each day, you end up spending loads of time on our email. Even if we end up with nothing in our inbox at the end of the day, we haven’t made any progress toward our larger set of priorities.
There comes a point where tweaking our productivity systems achieves nothing and can distract us from more challenging, but more satisfying work.
What to do instead
Decide on your priorities, then use a couple of your favourite apps and systems to help your break those priorities down into achievable goals. Stick with your favourite apps and don’t worry about staying up to date with everything new. There is no need to feel pressured into using the newest, popular app if the ones you use work well for you.
Next, let’s debunk the myth of visualisation.
Myth Six: Visualise Accomplishing Your Goal
If you can imagine yourself achieving something — landing the perfect job, sending your novel off to be published — then you will eventually achieve it, right? Wrong.
Visualisation can make us complacent, rather than drive us to work harder or leap higher, and may instead zap our energy. When we have an image of success in our heads, we can be more easily discouraged by any setbacks too, because, in our imagined version, nothing went wrong on our path to success.
What to do instead
Use your imagination more realistically. Try to imagine what might happen if you don’t land the perfect job, or you don’t get that promotion you worked hard for. This way, you are less likely to become fixated on one particular result, and helps you keep your goals in perspective and ensure they remain realistic.
Myth Seven: You Have Limited Reserves of Willpower
Willpower is a controversial topic in the field of social psychology. Exercising willpower has long been thought of as having the ability and wherewithal to resist temptation. Doing so, it is implied, is a mentally draining task that impairs our ability to perform and can thus make us less productive.
However, that piece of conventional wisdom has been called into question. More recent research suggests that our reserves of willpower may depend more on context and the culture in which we are raised and can vary as a result.
Those who believe that there is no limit to willpower are less likely to display ego than others. There it may be helpful to take an entirely new approach to willpower and build up reserves of it over time.
What to do instead
Build habits through positive reinforcement to increase your willpower. You can do this by developing micro habits and getting yourself into a routine that motivates you, even on days when you don’t want to work towards your goals.
Another good tactic to employ if you want to increase your willpower is to write down a positive affirmation to yourself.
Don’t forget about making time to have fun and relax though. Doing this will help you learn to like new habits enough to stick with them.
Now we turn to the final productivity myth we will discuss.
Myth Eight: Having an Uncompromising, Rigid Routine Will Help Keep You Productive
We tend to picture very productive people as those who follow the strictest, most rigid routines. There may indeed be some people who find that such a regimen works for them and helps them achieve all they wish to, but many of us might struggle with that sort of routine.
Some unproductive side-effects come along with a rigid routine, one of the most common being directing negative, judgemental thoughts to oneself when you fail to meet your own high standards. This can lead to depression and can have a crippling effect on our long-term productivity, even if such thoughts can spur us on in the short term.
What to do instead
Change the way you think about yourself. Instead of always criticising yourself when you don’t live up to your own expectations, be kinder to yourself. Find positives in what you manage to do and focus on them, rather than on whatever you failed to do.
Wrapping Up
The problem with productivity myths is that they can make us all feel like failures if we end up falling short of the high standards they set for us. They promote productivity for its own sake, rather than to help you accomplish something you truly wish to. We hope that the alternative advice we have offered throughout this article proves helpful.
That advice is designed to help you work in a better way that doesn’t make you feel like an unmitigated failure and unmotivated. It aims to help you become more productive without forming unrealistic expectations of yourself.
What productivity myths have you believed in? What method did you find worked better? Let us know in the comments.
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