Latest / RHYTHMS OF REST℠ Leadership Podcast / Episode 2: How to Do Your Best Work in Less Time — Without Grinding Harder

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Episode 2: How to Do Your Best Work in Less Time — Without Grinding Harder · RHYTHMS OF REST℠ Leadership Podcast

• Kent Murawski: You don't need balance. You need the right rhythms, much like a heart where all four chambers must work together. Real success depends on four key rhythms working in harmony, relational, emotional, spiritual, and tangible rhythms. I'm your host Kent Mirosky and welcome to the Rhythms of Rest Leadership Podcast, where we build rhythms for sustainable success, the kind that doesn't cost you your soul. Before we dive in today, If you're achieving by every metric that matters, and you still feel like something's off, the rhythms of rest assessment will show you exactly where you are and where your rhythms are breaking down in less than five minutes, you'll have some real clarity. You can take the assessment at Kent morosky.com forward slash assessment. Let's go. When did you last have a genuinely great idea while sitting at your desk? Most leaders are grinding harder than ever and feeling further behind than ever. It can feel weary, lonely, discouraging. feel stretched thin, drained and confused. feels like you're spinning your wheels and there's no real momentum. You see, I think part of the reason is because we've been sold a false definition of productivity. And most of it is built on a definition that's vague at best. See companies spend millions of dollars. on productivity, and it's vague at best, harmful at worst. I remember early in my leadership, I was the executive director of a regional nonprofit that was struggling financially. And the board assured me when we came to this point of struggle a couple years into my leadership that now is not the time to do nothing. Well, of course, doing nothing isn't helpful. But instead, I began at their behest a flurry of activity. And I whipped up the whole new series of speaking topics and offerings and products, and I pushed them out there. And guess what happened? I'd love to tell you that it turned the ship around, but what happened instead was crickets. I had put dozens and dozens of hours in to this idea. It felt like a great idea. And yes, I should have validated it. I should have maybe had some people speak into it more. I was a young leader. You can't blame me. ⁓ you know, what happened after that, after that failed attempt was I just felt like maybe I was a bad leader. I felt discouraged. I felt confused. I felt panicked. What were we going to do? ⁓ The bills were piling up. In addition to raising funds for the organization itself, I had to raise funds for my salary. So, you know, I was, I was despondent. And, you know, maybe it was time that I needed to go out and get a nine to five job. Well, we often mistakenly think we need to do something new and different. And there is a time for new things. There is a time for different things. ⁓ but sometimes though that's the case, what if always instead of new and different, we doubled down on what's already working, make it better, give it more focus and simplify it. You see, I didn't need something new. I needed to learn to how to raise funds effectively. And once I did that, the fundraising and the income for my salary and the organization, ⁓ you know, went way up. Productivity is often defined as more or bigger, but many times I think productivity can be better be defined as less and better rather than more and bigger. So today I want to challenge your definition of productivity and give you a frame, some frameworks to restructure your days around what actually moves the needle. If you've ever felt like you're doing everything you know how to do, but not having measurable results you hoped for, this episode is for you. I've been there. I felt weary, discouraged, confused, perplexed, anxious about the future, and wondering if that was the end of my leadership. There's a way out from our productivity trap. And that's what I want to share with you today. Well, not long ago, I was in a coaching session with an executive that wanted to be more productive. And so I asked him to define what productivity meant to him. And he said, he said it was a great definition. Productivity is measurable results. That two word answer cut through the fog for him. And I thought it was insightful as well, but there's a catch. Measure, measurable results in what area and defined by whom Aligned to what? There's some deeper questions we have to ask about measurable results. You could be logging impressive numbers in the wrong work entirely, and it doesn't move the needle a bit. So here's my definition of productivity. It's doing more of the right things, and less of the wrong things. Let me give you a little more definition that by the right things, I mean, work that's aligned with your strengths and your role. Okay. When I say strengths, mean things that you're good at, that you're skilled at, but also energize you. Okay. So the right things is work aligned with your strengths and your role. The wrong things mean work that doesn't maximize your strength and doesn't drive results that matter. So what are the right things aligned with your strengths and your role? Author Gay Hendrix, he wrote book called The Big Leap, he gives this helpful framework for identifying your strengths. He calls it, well, there's actually four, but the strengths, the way I define them, he calls that your zone of genius. And what he says is, your zone of genius is what you uniquely excel at, love and are energized by. Okay, then he goes on to go down the line. Next comes your zone of excellence. These are things you do very well, but they drain you. This can be a real danger zone for high capacity leaders because this is where most of us live. And we live there because we do that thing really well. But at the end of the day, it drains us bit by bit rather than energizes us. Next is your zone of competence. These are things that others can do just as well. So it's nothing that you stand out in, so to speak. And then zone of incompetence. These are things that others do better and that you actually hate doing. ⁓ Hendrix recommendation, he, know, he has a high aim for this aim for 70 % of your time in your zone of genius. Now I know most of us are saying like, ⁓ I may be spending the opposite 30 % of my time if that in my zone of genius and the other 70 and, maybe competence and excellence, ⁓ hopefully not incompetence, but. So we, I acknowledge that it's a tall task, but I think it's worth the effort. I'll just tell you, I'm not there. But I'm day by day working to spend 70 % of my time in that zone of genius. And I'm probably at more like 50 to 60. ⁓ But the more time I spend in my zone of genius, the more, the more I say that was a great day. ⁓ So what's, we talked about the right things. What's the wrong things? The wrong things in productivity are don't, are things that don't maximize your strengths or produce results that matter. What are the measurable results that matter? If you can get clear and focused on that with your with the team you lead or your boss or your manager, then you can make real progress. So I want to ask you what's your definition of productivity? How do you define it? And are you actually measuring the right things? That's definitely a question worth considering. brief aside, I like the word effective better than productive. think productivity, you know, often in the traditional sense measures how much work is accomplished relative to input. like time or resources. So essentially many people use it to say I'm doing more in less time. It's not always doing better in less time, but more. And then the reason I like effectiveness more is because it's about selecting and completing the right tasks that align with your priorities, ensuring results that matter. Okay. If you spent years with your ladder against the wrong wall, or being really good at work that slowly drains you, you're not alone. You didn't know there was another option. And now you do. And so one of the reasons I transitioned three years ago in 2023 from a 20 year career leading nonprofit organizations is that I was bored. I felt stuck in my zone of excellence doing work that I was good at, but that drained me some of it was good at some of it I think I was caught in maybe not. Yeah, I was caught in some incompetence and competence rather than excellence and zone of genius, but I didn't really have enough time for the work that truly brought me energy and life. And so That was one of the key reasons I transitioned out of a 20 year career leading nonprofits. So I want to go back for a minute to that executive that I was talking about. And when, when I asked him how he gets measurable results, because remember he said, what is productivity? I asked him, he said, it's measurable results. ⁓ I asked him how he gets those measurable results. And here's what he said. He said, I sit for 10 hours a day at my desk. He could see through his own answer the moment it came out of his mouth. Why? Because sitting at your desk for 10 hours does not make you productive. In fact, I would argue that it undoubtedly lessens your productivity. The real question is where do your best ideas come from? So when I questioned him about this, he said, well, definitely a hard workout ideas tend to come to me there. Walks sometimes. you know, the in the shower for many of us, it's in the shower. It's not for me, but for many people it is driving. And then he said, ⁓ you know, the hot tub. Now, if I had a hot tub, my best ideas might come from there too. But for me, it's primarily walks and workouts, going to the library. It's a place out of my normal kind of setting and sitting and journaling in beautiful places like the park or near lake. So those are where some of my best ideas come from. I remember one time a business partner and I were having trouble coming up with a name for a service we were launching. And so I took a walk just to let my mind rest and reset. And I was just kind of casually untangling some thoughts and ideas around the project we were working on. And after about 10 or 15 minutes, the name suddenly hit me and it was the name we ended up using for the service or project we were offering to people. ⁓ a mentor once told me, you know, sometimes when you stop chasing the butterfly, ends up landing on your nose. And that's exactly what happens. That's why great ideas don't always come sitting in our desk. But when we relax a little, when we're not pushing so hard, striving, trying to put pressure on ourselves to that we've got to come up with that million dollar idea. I will tell you this and guarantee though that sitting at your desk for 10 hours straight is not an idea factory. In fact, I think it's an idea graveyard. A friend of mine, Mark Batterson, says it like this. He says, change of place, plus change of pace equals change of perspective. So getting away from your desk, at least when you want to be creative and ideate is the best thing that I think you can do. You know, that slightly embarrassed feeling when you realize you've had a wrong way of thinking about something that's actually good. That means you're paying attention. So failure is only really failure when we fail to learn from it. So get away from that darn desk, at least when you want to be a creative and get out there and change your pace, change your place. And maybe just maybe you'll have a change of perspective, but let me give you a story that kind of illustrates this idea. So in 1879, ⁓ forced to resign from his university post due to recurring migraines, author Frederick Nietzsche retreated to the Swiss Alps. He became during that 10 years, it was 10 years from 1879 to 1889, he became a legendary walker, sometimes walking for eight hours a day in the woods and mountains. During that time, he filled six small notebooks with prose, and it was what became some of his most influential work. By 1889, he'd written The Wanderer and His Shadow, one of his most famous works, and regained his health as well. His conclusion was this, and I love this sentiment, ⁓ only thoughts that come by walking have any value. ⁓ This idea is actually rooted in neuroscience. And it and it kind of goes like this. Habitual load demand activities like walking, showering, doing dishes, they actually free your brain up to wander. Scientists call this the default mode network or DMN. It's the brain regions that are active that are activate that that activate when you're not focused. Okay, so this is where unexpected connections happen. This is where breakthrough breakthroughs live. You're not being lazy when you step away. ⁓ you're actually making connections happen. You're activating the most creative hardware God gave you in your brain. So many of us are no longer, you know, when we think about stepping away from the desk, many of us are actually no longer tied to a desk. Many of us either work from home or, or hybrid and work, you know, fluctuate between the office and our home. And so I want to encourage you take the walk, get in the hot tub midday, go sit by a lake. with a moleskin. The proof is in the pudding. Does your company want great ideas and this is for your bosses too. Does your company want great ideas and excellent work that moves the needle or do you want people sitting at a desk for 10 hours a day grinding it out? ⁓ You know at the idea graveyard. I think here's a reframe worth keeping stepping away from your desk is the work blocking margin and white space in your calendar. needs to become necessary. Having blocks of time to work on what you want and products, ⁓ projects that energize you. It's not laziness. It's your brain's most productive. But here's the problem. Modern knowledge work often demands constant visible productivity. You know, we have portable tech. It's our expectation that we're always on between our laptop and our tablet and our smartphone. But creative thinking needs margin. ⁓ it can't be squeezed into back to back meetings bosses. Okay. ⁓ you know, And you say, well, yeah, but people are working from home. So they're actually doing less work. That might be true. ⁓ but are they getting the job done? Is their job description outcome based rather than glued to a certain number of hours or working between a certain time period? ⁓ I've even heard of companies that put, you know, tracking technology on the laptop so they can see how long workers are on their laptop. I think it's a mistake. I think it's a mistake because if you have great core values that have actions defined with them, case in point Netflix, their culture deck, read it over if you've never checked it out. But if you have great values with actions assigned to them, ⁓ and you hire workers that align with those values, you know, eight or nine times out of 10, you're going to set the culture and you're going to get great workers that you don't need to track how much time they're on their computer because they're going to get the job done. They're going to be excellent at what they do and they're going to move the needle in the areas that matter. You know, I used to do this. I used to push through and grind it out until I had nothing left sitting in my office at the end of the day, fried and anxious, realizing that I hadn't really moved the needle the way I wanted to. I was working hard. I've always been a hard worker, but I was not working smart. So If you've built your identity around being the last person, the one who grinds it out and needs to be at your desk 10 hours a day or be the hardest worker, this might feel threatening to you. I know it did for me. I thought if I wasn't always exhausted, I wasn't doing my job right. And I wasn't sacrificing enough. ⁓ That feeling is real, but it's also worth examining and rethinking. So I want to challenge you. If that's you. Your identity is probably tied to your work in an unhealthy way. And we need to untangle our identity from the work we do because you know, even many high performers and high achievers, ⁓ you know, there's often some issues that, that go back to our childhood, even with, with fathers many times. And I'm not making a blanket statement about that. I'm just saying like those overachievement tendencies usually come from somewhere. And it's worth thinking about. So what now what do we actually do about it though? I want to give you three practical ways to protect your energy and produce your best work. So idea or framework number one, protect your peak creative times. ⁓ Author and leadership expert, Kerry Newhoff in his book, At Your Best, he defines three energy zones. The first is the green zone. This is where you're you have your peak energy. your peak creativity and your peak focus. And this might surprise you, maybe not. I think this is, you know, well documented today, but that green zone is usually only three to five hours a day. That's where your best work that moves the needle is going to happen. Next is the red zone. That's where your mental mush. That's one to two hours, at least as it relates to your work day and more, if you count the evening, don't fight it, work with it. And then your yellow zone is that in between space. It's, it's solid, but it's not spectacular. Okay. ⁓ you know, in your yellow zone, you might want to do, ⁓ administrative tasks that require some thought, but not really heavy creative lifting or thinking in your red zone. You can put some meetings, you can do low level administrative tasks. ⁓ you know, I got to schedule a doctor's appointment. I've got to schedule a couple of meetings with coworkers, whatever in your green zone. That's where you want to put your. your best projects that you're excited to work on and where you need creative problem solving, thinking and ability. Here's a simple question to find your green zone. When in the last week did you feel most alive, focused and sharp? Not when did you work the hardest? When did you feel the work was almost effortless? That's the type of work you want in your green zone. And that's what you protect. Framework number two, idea number two, treat each day like it's three days. Okay. So, ⁓ I'll walk you through my personal daily rhythm and I'm acknowledging this is for early risers. ⁓ so if you're not an early riser, feel free to adjust it to your own chronotype. and do it that way. So if you treat each day like three days, here's how I do it. I'll give you an example in a starting place. I treat morning like day one. That's my green zone, 730 or 8am to about 11 or 1130. This is where I do creative focused work, high priority tasks. ⁓ Afternoon I treat as day two, yellow zone, and that's from about noon to 4pm. ⁓ At noon around noon, I eat lunch, I take a walk that kind of reinvigorates me. ⁓ I schedule meetings, I do some admin that's important, but not maybe, you know, it's important as far as priority, but doesn't require heavy, heavy, heavy thinking and creativity. It's necessary, but not deep. And then ⁓ evening I treat as day three, that's my red zone. And that's after about 3pm. So it includes about an hour of work. But after 3pm the rest of the night, this is where I work out. I replenish. I'm present with my family. I'm not needing to do a lot of creative heavy lifting. Okay, your day already has three phases. The question is whether you're using them intentionally or letting the calendar decide for you. So before I structured my day this way, I was often frustrated and angry because I was doing yellow or red zone work in my green zone and at felt like a waste. I think you'll find that you're more productive doing more of the right things that move the needle if you structure your day like three days. Lastly, framework number three, ⁓ time blocking. But most people think of time blocking as your hours. I want you to think about time blocking both your days and your hours. So here's what I mean. ⁓ Blocking your your hours is only half the equation. ⁓ So how I look at this and again, I'll share how I do it doesn't mean how you have to do it this way But it'll give you an idea of what I mean when I say block your days Let me get a drink first Okay, so here's my weekly day blocking rhythm. Mondays, I usually have a creative morning block of about two hours, and then the rest of the day and I want to try to, you know, boil this down where half the day is creative and the other half is my yellow zone. But my I have creative morning and then I do admin and finances most of the rest of the day after that creative block. Sometimes it's exhausting. It's not really invigorating. But I found If Monday's not admin day, it dogs me the rest of the week. So I want to get to it. I want to get it done. And then I want to slowly build sort of my overall philosophy is, build towards the end of the week being things I enjoy more and more. So you'll see this, how I structure my week. Tuesday is a full coaching day. have coaching and meetings all day, ⁓ Wednesday. And, and by the way, I enjoy that. ⁓ It is taxing mentally and it's full, but I enjoy it. Wednesday ⁓ is margin day. I have cleared my schedule to do whatever the heck I want. ⁓ and, and especially during my work day is what I mean. So thinking, writing, creating, working on an important project, no meetings. And I follow the work. I often have some things jotted down, but I do. what I have energy and motivation to do and the stuff that energizes me. Thursday is sort of a flex day. I usually have some coaching in the morning, sometimes an appointment in the afternoon, but usually the afternoon is sort of flex time project wrap up decision time things that I need to wrap up that haven't been resolved and they need to be resolved before the end of the week. Then Friday. ⁓ Again, usually no meetings. As far as work related type, ⁓ co no coaching meetings, sometimes one maybe lightish meeting, but, ⁓ I reserve Friday for writing and relationships. And so, ⁓ you know, I typically, go on a date with my wife, ⁓ early from like eight after we dropped the kids off to school from eight to about nine 30 in the morning. ⁓ then I do a writing block at my favorite. library from about 10 to noon. And then often, sometimes I go longer if I don't have anything in that afternoon, but often I schedule late lunches like 1pm or coffees or with Pete with friends or sometimes business related meetings, but people that I enjoy hanging out with. it's a day for writing and relationship. And so that's how I structure my week. Now I'll say less about hourly time blocking because we generally understand that. But when you're hourly time blocking, I'd encourage you to do is map out your day in 30 minute increments. So use a pencil. Most planners have both a spot for tasks. I like the full focus planner from the full focus company with Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt Miller. I've used this planner for four or five years. I love it. And so they have a place for your big three for the day, then some other tasks. And then they have a, you know, an hourly schedule along the other side where I map out my day in half hour increments. ⁓ and so you don't have to nail all of this on week one. Here's what I want you to do. Pick a day, just one and protect it. Okay. See what happens. You might be amazed at what one day protected. So, or what one protected day of deep work does for the rest of your week. Okay. So let me give a quick word for leaders with teams before we wrap up. So this could be for managers leading teams or divisions, ⁓ know, executives, overseeing others, ⁓ or, or the senior leader or CEO. And I will, I just briefly want to speak to you leaders who lead or manage others. So do you have a shared definition of productivity with your team? Are job descriptions built around your team's strengths and meaningful results? Or are those job descriptions buried somewhere collecting digital dust? What I want to encourage you to do is research some strength or research tells us that strengths based management drives higher sales, higher profitability, higher retention and higher safety, among other things. So this strength based job and role description is a big deal. And so I want to encourage you to dig into that, lean into that, you know, one and two employees, I think it was a, I think it was a Gallup poll. said one in two employees has left a job to get away from their boss or manager. So the reality is bosses and leaders, we need to get better. ⁓ we need to invest in ourselves. We need to, as John Maxwell says, like invest in our leadership before we need it. ⁓ you know, that personal development, that professional development, a lot of, a lot of the reason that people leave their jobs or dissatisfied with their jobs. is on us bosses and I'm not currently a boss of someone but I have I have been in my two previous roles of leading organizations and I can say that sometimes I was a good one and sometimes not so good and so we've got to do better we've got to invest in our leadership. Let me give you a three-step team prescription actually four steps sorry a four-step team prescription it's quick but I think it'll really help you leaders managers bosses okay. Step number one, have each person write their ideal job description aligned to their strengths. So start with them, put the responsibility on them, have them write their ideal job description aligned with their strengths. Then step two, I want you to compare their ideal job description to the current job description and adjust accordingly. Now they might not be able to get Some of the things might not be realistic, but I'm, I'm pretty sure many of them are realistic and you can adjust accordingly. Step three, set three quarterly priorities, one primary and two secondary, and then let them run with it. I don't care if you call them big rocks. I don't care if you call them your big three, but three quarterly priorities set, set it with that person you're leading one primary, two secondary in line. with the company's, ⁓ the company's goals and let them run with it. Now, I don't mean let them run with it without ever checking in, encouraging coaching, all those things. ⁓ definitely let them run with it without micromanaging, but step number four is, is that part check in weekly and reevaluate quarterly. So chances are you're already meeting with your team weekly. So that's a perfect time to check in on their, on their big three. ⁓ that primary and to secondary help them coach them through how do I prioritize this primary thing and these two secondaries over the next quarter, encourage them to have put white space in their calendar to think about it, and to work on these important projects, and then reevaluate it quarterly. So at the end of the quarter, let's look at, you know, even percentage wise how far along we got on that one primary and two secondary goals. And then reevaluate it. might be that that's part of you know some of those goals are part of a bigger project so they take more than one quarter or it might be that there's new a new big three for this next quarter but check in weekly reevaluate quarterly. You see when your team knows that you've actually seen them their strengths what lights them up something shifts you stop managing people and you start leading them. This might feel a little bit uncomfortable if you've Especially if you've built your identity around being indispensable to your team, you've got to have the answers all the time. ⁓ if part of you is thinking, but, but what if they don't need me? That's something worth sitting with and asking yourself about. See the best leaders empower others. ⁓ recently starting to read through a well-known book called the coaching habit by Michael Bungay Stannier. ⁓ great place to start. If you're leading people on how to. embrace a coaching paradigm for the people you lead and help empower them ⁓ in their role. So Each week or each two weeks when we do this podcast, we do a section called your rhythms check. And that's based on my rhythms of rest framework. ⁓ I contend that being overwhelmed, being burnt out is, is the answer is not work life balance. It's the right rhythms. And so each time we end with one rhythm, you can implement right away from my rhythms of rest framework. And here's what I want you to do right now. As soon as you finish this episode, I want you to Pull up your calendar. want you to find your green zone, those peak two or three hours of creative energy that you have each day. And I want you to block it for at least one day a week. Let's start there. Name it, block it, protect it like a non-negotiable meeting with your most important client. Then after you do that, I want you to identify one recurring task living in that green zone that doesn't belong there. something that either belongs in your yellow zone or your red zone and move it out. Okay, so you're going to identify your green zone that peak two to three, two to three hours of creative energy block it. And then you're going to identify one yellow or red zone task that doesn't belong there in that slot and you're going to move it out. Okay. Here's the reflection question for this week. Where are you spending your best hours on your worst work? Where are you spending your best hours on your worst work? If you're watching on YouTube, drop a comment below. What's one thing you're going to move out of your peak creative time this week? I read every comment and I might just have a thought for you as well. If you're seeing this on my email list, shoot me back a reply. I read every one. So. When you do this, even if it feels small, want you to notice what happens to the quality of your thinking in that day. It's not a coincidence. That's your rhythm starting to work. And I'll close with a story before I sign out for today. I keep a five year journal. It's just, you can buy them on Amazon or wherever. It's just a little two to three sentence ⁓ block each day and it's for five years. So on one page, you can see your journal entry for each year on that same day. When I look back at my five-year journal, because I review it yearly, ⁓ know, those, those, all the days that say great day are the ones where I've blocked my day in such a way where I maximize my strengths, those things I'm good at that energize me and I have more room to work on those. And so I think you'll start to see that too, that it's not a coincidence. ⁓ And notice what happens, maybe just fill out a little line in a journal somewhere about what happens to the quality of your thinking and the quality of your work when you structure your day to have that green zone and work on things that really move the needle. Well, if this resonated with you, you're going to love my bi weekly newsletter. Every other week I send out honest practical insights to help you live and lead from internal rest instead of burnout and overwhelm. No fluff, just simple tools from my rhythms of rest framework to help you slow down without losing momentum. Just go to KentMoroski.com forward slash newsletter to sign up. It's absolutely free and you'll be the first to hear about exclusive offers and get bonus content. Have a great day.