Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #229| Working Harder Is Killing Your Productivity (And What To Do Instead)
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: If working harder actually worked, you wouldn't still feel overwhelmed right now.
- 0:04Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:16Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:21Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:26Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:33Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
- 0:36Michelle Gauthier: Welcome to the podcast.
- 0:37Michelle Gauthier: I'm glad you are here today.
- 0:39Michelle Gauthier: Today we're going to be talking about why working harder is actually killing your productivity and what to do instead.
- 0:46Michelle Gauthier: If you're like I used to be, when you feel overwhelmed, the first thing that you want to do is work more.
- 0:51Michelle Gauthier: That was my only go-to solution.
- 0:53Michelle Gauthier: But today you'll discover why pushing through when your nervous system is fried actually lowers your productivity, why preventative rest is one of the smartest time management strategies that you can use, even if you were brought up to believe that rest was bad in all cases.
- 1:07Michelle Gauthier: And also we're going to talk about the real time wasters that are secretly draining your energy.
- 1:11Michelle Gauthier: And it's not binge watching Netflix.
- 1:13Michelle Gauthier: That can actually be a really great time waster.
- 1:16Michelle Gauthier: So if you're someone who prides yourself on being productive, this one might loving, lovingly challenge you a little bit.
- 1:23Michelle Gauthier: But before we do that, I want to tell you about a little productivity hack that I use.
- 1:27Michelle Gauthier: I love when I can kill two birds with one stone.
- 1:29Michelle Gauthier: And that is exactly what I do with products from today's sponsor, who is Inspire Wellness.
- 1:34Michelle Gauthier: Inspire Wellness is a St.
- 1:36Michelle Gauthier: Louis-based woman-owned business, and the owner, Christy, has created this high-quality supplement line.
- 1:42Michelle Gauthier: And my hack is that I subscribe to their bestseller bundle, which is creatine and collagen, two supplements that I love.
- 1:48Michelle Gauthier: And I've been doing that for about six months, and I can definitely tell the difference.
- 1:51Michelle Gauthier: When I subscribe, it just shows up on my doorstep once a month.
- 1:54Michelle Gauthier: And then I put it in these cute little glass containers that I have right next to my coffee pot.
- 1:58Michelle Gauthier: Put the supplements in my coffee cup, pour in my coffee, mix it up, add my unhealthy French vanilla creamer, and I am all set.
- 2:05Michelle Gauthier: The supplements are unflavored, so there's no weird taste or chunkiness.
- 2:09Michelle Gauthier: You wouldn't even know they were in there.
- 2:11Michelle Gauthier: And these supplements are known to help with brain fog, help you build muscle, and collagen has 18 grams of protein.
- 2:18Michelle Gauthier: So that's great too.
- 2:19Michelle Gauthier: You can just hack your way to starting a healthy morning.
- 2:21Michelle Gauthier: Our sponsor Christy's giving us a great deal.
- 2:24Michelle Gauthier: If you go to inspirewellness.com, so inspire wellness and then stlforstlouis.com slash OWW for overwhelmed working women.
- 2:34Michelle Gauthier: You will see that if you subscribe to the best seller pack, which is the one I get, you'll get 15% off your order when you subscribe.
- 2:41Michelle Gauthier: Not just the first month, but every month.
- 2:44Michelle Gauthier: I'll also put that link in the show notes.
- 2:46Michelle Gauthier: I promise you it's easy and I can definitely feel the difference from taking these.
- 2:50Michelle Gauthier: Okay, let's get back to our episode.
- 2:51Michelle Gauthier: The first thing I want to talk about is the idea that productivity equals efforts, that we need to work harder, push through, dig deeper, stay up later.
- 3:00Michelle Gauthier: And if you feel overwhelmed, just try even harder.
- 3:03Michelle Gauthier: Just double down on that.
- 3:04Michelle Gauthier: But here's the problem when your nervous system is dysregulated, when you're stressed and tired and overstimulated, your brain literally works worse.
- 3:12Michelle Gauthier: It makes sense, right?
- 3:14Michelle Gauthier: You get slower processing, you make more mistakes, you don't have as good a focus, you have more emotional reactivity and decision fatigue.
- 3:24Michelle Gauthier: And when that happens, you have to read the same email five times to understand it.
- 3:28Michelle Gauthier: And you overthink simple decisions and don't trust your judgment, and you snap at your kids, and then you procrastinate and then shame yourself for procrastinating.
- 3:37Michelle Gauthier: So it's not really a time management problem, it's an energy regulation problem.
- 3:42Michelle Gauthier: So let's just say I'm gonna do a simple math example.
- 3:45Michelle Gauthier: You've got a super crazy day and you end up working like 12 hours straight, and then you come home and you do a few things at home, and then you go back to work for three more hours.
- 3:54Michelle Gauthier: So you end up working 15 hours in a day.
- 3:57Michelle Gauthier: We all know that's not sustainable.
- 3:59Michelle Gauthier: I've definitely done some 15-hour days in my career, but that is not a sustainable way of living.
- 4:04Michelle Gauthier: And I can promise you that the emails that I was sending at midnight were not as sharp as the ones that I was sending at 9 a.m.
- 4:10Michelle Gauthier: that morning because truly you're just brain dead at that point.
- 4:14Michelle Gauthier: So think about this for you and how this can apply to you.
- 4:18Michelle Gauthier: At what point do you know that you need to take a break?
- 4:21Michelle Gauthier: When does your productivity start to slump and even though you're still sitting at your desk, you're not making any progress?
- 4:29Michelle Gauthier: Think about what that feels like for you.
- 4:31Michelle Gauthier: I get a certain feeling in my stomach when I'm just like brain dead.
- 4:35Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so what to do if you know you're gonna have a really busy week or day?
- 4:39Michelle Gauthier: Think about preventative rest as a productivity strategy.
- 4:42Michelle Gauthier: Resting before you hit empty is not laziness, it's maintenance.
- 4:48Michelle Gauthier: It's just putting gas in your car.
- 4:50Michelle Gauthier: Do you want to run your gas until it's one mile until the car's absolutely gonna die?
- 4:55Michelle Gauthier: Or do you want to look ahead at your day and your week and think, okay, I'm gonna put a full tank of gas in on Sunday.
- 5:01Michelle Gauthier: And then if I need to, I'll just add a little bit throughout the week.
- 5:06Michelle Gauthier: Think about rest like that because culturally we define wasting time as anything that doesn't produce visible output.
- 5:12Michelle Gauthier: I sent out an email a couple weeks ago about all the things that I did that were wasting time that didn't at all feel like a waste of time to me.
- 5:20Michelle Gauthier: By the way, if you're not on my email list, you can sign up to be on that list.
- 5:24Michelle Gauthier: You'll get a weekly email on Tuesdays.
- 5:26Michelle Gauthier: I always write an article and try to leave you with a good tip or two.
- 5:29Michelle Gauthier: But this was a couple weeks back and it was right after the Super Bowl, and I watched a bunch of Bad Bunny halftime videos just because it made me happy.
- 5:38Michelle Gauthier: I took some naps.
- 5:39Michelle Gauthier: I had breakfast with a friend just to catch up.
- 5:41Michelle Gauthier: I made handmade birthday cards because I like doing creative things, drove an hour out of my way to pick up my handsome man friend so we could ride together somewhere.
- 5:49Michelle Gauthier: I laid on the couch and watched the Olympics.
- 5:52Michelle Gauthier: I finished a novel and started another one.
- 5:54Michelle Gauthier: I talked to my sister on the phone about nothing important at all.
- 5:58Michelle Gauthier: And if you just heard that list, you might think, geez, that sounds like a light week.
- 6:02Michelle Gauthier: It really wasn't a light week.
- 6:04Michelle Gauthier: It's just those are the things that I planned in to waste time.
- 6:08Michelle Gauthier: And Kari, who's my podcast producer, said something so great to me the other day that any time that I enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
- 6:16Michelle Gauthier: And so doing those things like lying on the couch and watching the Olympics or getting in bed early and reading really give me and can give you two, might not be those exact things, but can give you more stamina and more brain power for having the best productivity.
- 6:33Michelle Gauthier: So we've talked about why pushing through when you're fried just makes you slower and inefficient.
- 6:38Michelle Gauthier: We've talked about how preventive rest is a great productivity strategy.
- 6:43Michelle Gauthier: So that's doing things that are fun wastes of time and let your brain rest so that you can be productive.
- 6:49Michelle Gauthier: Now I want to talk to you about a couple of things that I think are actual real time wasters, and both of them are mental.
- 6:55Michelle Gauthier: The first one is going back and rehashing decisions that you already made because you feel guilty or going back to a conversation that you had with someone and replaying the story.
- 7:06Michelle Gauthier: And I wish I had said this, or I wish I had said that, or I can't believe this person did that to me, and then going and telling somebody else that story, those I'd say are a real time waster.
- 7:16Michelle Gauthier: It's something that has already happened, it's over.
- 7:19Michelle Gauthier: The only time, I'll put a little asterisk on this, the only time I think this could be a good use of your time is if you're actually going to say something in order to make a change.
- 7:27Michelle Gauthier: But if you're just rehashing it for the sake of retelling the story, it's done, it's in the bag, just move on.
- 7:33Michelle Gauthier: That is a total waste of your time.
- 7:35Michelle Gauthier: The other thing that is a waste of time is negative self-talk.
- 7:39Michelle Gauthier: We can't help if our brains offer negative thoughts.
- 7:41Michelle Gauthier: Every person's brain offers negative thoughts, some more than others.
- 7:45Michelle Gauthier: If this is you, remember the trick where you can think about it, like you can see those thoughts coming into your brain.
- 7:51Michelle Gauthier: So if your brain's saying, Why did that take you so long?
- 7:54Michelle Gauthier: Why can't everybody else get this done more quickly?
- 7:56Michelle Gauthier: Why can't you get your whole to-do list done?
- 7:58Michelle Gauthier: Why can't you be the mom who never yells at her kids?
- 8:01Michelle Gauthier: When you see those thoughts coming in, just notice them.
- 8:04Michelle Gauthier: Notice that your brain is dropping those thoughts in and just simply say back to it, I'm not going to entertain those thoughts.
- 8:11Michelle Gauthier: That is not helpful to me in any way, shape, or form, and try to move on to an activity that either is productive or something that you enjoy doing instead of entertaining those thoughts.
- 8:22Michelle Gauthier: So here's what we covered.
- 8:23Michelle Gauthier: Working on a fried nervous system makes you slower, less efficient, etc.
- 8:27Michelle Gauthier: Preventative rest increases long-term productivity, and mental shame spirals waste more time than rest ever will.
- 8:36Michelle Gauthier: You'd be so much better off to take a nap or do something like that.
- 8:39Michelle Gauthier: If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend who thinks that rest is lazy.
- 8:43Michelle Gauthier: She needs to hear this.
- 8:44Michelle Gauthier: I think a lot of us grew up thinking rest was lazy.
- 8:47Michelle Gauthier: So you're not alone if that's you or your friend.
- 8:49Michelle Gauthier: And if you're ready to stop managing your calendar and your to-do list and start managing your energy, which is what I'm really talking about here, that's exactly the work we do inside my coaching program.
- 9:00Michelle Gauthier: There's a link in the show notes.
- 9:02Michelle Gauthier: If you want to set up a time and talk to me about doing one-on-one coaching, I would love to talk to you.
- 9:06Michelle Gauthier: You can tell me what's going on with you, and I can tell you what we do in coaching, and you can see if it feels like a good fit for you.
- 9:12Michelle Gauthier: Have a great week.
- 9:14Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 9:20Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com.
- 9:26Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.