SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTIVITY

Your resistance is a map.

It’s the feeling of dread you get when you see that task on your list that you’ve rolled forward for eighteen days in a row.

That sense of resignation when you open the email for the tenth time, sigh, and mark it unread again.

The way your life force drains from your body when you finally sit down to do the work and just can’t make yourself.

Too many of us, when faced with this resistance, assume that the problem begins and ends with us.

Some of us handle that by pushing through; some of us, by avoidance. Neither makes us feel good. Neither is sustainable.

What if, instead, we were to use the resistance as diagnostic information -- not about us, but about the work?

The resistance is a sign of something wrong, and it’s not necessarily something wrong with you.

There might be missing information or a missing skill.

A missing system upstream or downstream.

Or maybe there’s a conversation that needs to take place.

When we acknowledge our negative feelings without assuming that we are bad or immature for having them, we give ourselves a chance to find the real problem. That might possibly lead us to a workable solution that doesn’t require us, or anyone else, to magically be better or different.

This is the foundation of Sustainable Productivity. We start with a specific problem — because why would we waste energy on something that isn’t causing a problem? — and explore the space that opens up when we don’t just try to paper over it, push past it, or blame ourselves for it.

What we might work on:

• Identifying your highest-value activities and making space for them

• Breaking down work that feels too big, vague, or difficult to start

• Clarifying priorities and deciding what to do next without burning all your time in planning

• Finding simpler, more workable ways to approach recurring tasks

• Building workflows and systems that reduce unnecessary effort

• Learning tools, features, shortcuts, and other practical best practices

• Recognizing when you need additional resources to complete your work

• Adjusting expectations when the ideal approach isn’t realistic

• Working with procrastination and avoidance rather than spending additional energy fighting them

Through solving our day-to-day problems and getting our work done, we learn best practices, build better processes, and improve our systems. With that expanded toolkit, we’re better able to solve the next day’s problems.

What you might notice:

• You spend less time agonizing over how to do the work and more time doing it

• Difficult tasks become easier to approach and complete

• You develop a larger repertoire of ways to respond when you get stuck

• Your systems and processes work better

• You become more skillful and efficient with the tools you already use

• You can distinguish between a problem that needs solving and discomfort you can simply work through

• You rely less on pushing yourself through work by force

• You gain confidence in your ability to figure out what to do when something isn't working

• You free up capacity for the work that you most want to do

In the twelve-week Sustainable Productivity Partnership, you’ll benefit from an ongoing thought partner and sounding board as you navigate your daily work, plus live sessions to gain perspective and build momentum. The resistance will still show up, and we will navigate it together.

The work is hard enough without beating ourselves up over it. Ironically, when we stop being so hard on ourselves, we get a chance to gain the resilience, confidence, and competence to do our best work.