I say personal productivity isn’t about doing more. I also say I want you to achieve goals in every area of life. If that sounds like telling you to eat less cake while handing you a bigger plate, I get it.
But I don’t think it’s a contradiction. In fact, it’s the reason wholistic has a “w”: we’re looking at our whole life, not just one slice of it. Let me explain.
Why Personal Productivity Gets Overlooked
Historically, productivity has been about work efficiency. Factories and employers embraced these strategies to increase the output of their people and strengthen the company’s bottom line. That’s one reason we’ve spent so little time talking about productivity in our personal lives. At home, there’s no bottom line to manage. No shareholders to answer to.
Or is there?
Your Life Has a Bottom Line Too
Better time management doesn’t just benefit employers. When it takes you less time to do the things you have to do, there’s more time for the things you want to do. That might mean more time with family, hobbies, side projects, volunteering, or anything else that’s meaningful to you. The bottom line that moves is your personal happiness and satisfaction, because you get a better quality of life.
And yes, you do have shareholders. They’re your family, your friends, and the people and organizations that benefit from your involvement. They’re better off when you can invest time in them without feeling stressed or worrying about what’s happening back at the office. Their dividend is your full attention. No quarterly earnings call required.
The Laptop-After-Bedtime Years
I remember my younger years. I would leave work, have dinner with the family, do the bedtime routine with the boys, and then open my laptop and keep working.
There wasn’t time for the projects that meant something to me. There wasn’t as much time with my wife as I would have liked. There wasn’t enough room for basic self-care like sleep and exercise. Work-life balance? It was more of a work-work situation.
What I’ve learned over the past decade or so is that when I’m more efficient at work, I arrive home with more focus and energy. That freed me up to do more of what actually matters to me. Which brings me right back to where I started: wholistic productivity isn’t about doing more.
Efficiency gets a bad reputation, usually from people who say the word while holding a clipboard and a stopwatch. But being efficient at work isn’t the enemy of a full life. Used well, it’s what buys your life back, one reclaimed hour at a time.
Prune Your To-Do List First
Part of becoming more efficient is pruning and trimming your to-do list. Yes, there are plenty of time management tips that can help you get things done faster. But one of the best moves you can make is getting rid of the things that eat up major chunks of your day.
Here’s a simple test. Look at your to-do list and ask whether each item moves you toward a professional, personal, or purpose-driven goal. If it doesn’t, it’s a candidate for the chopping block. Not every task has to earn a gold star, but every task should earn its spot.
Here’s the kicker: a lot of what I was doing didn’t actually move me closer to my goals. Every one of those tasks I let go meant more room for my personal and purpose-driven projects. And the less time I spend in meetings that could have been an email, the more energy I bring home. (If you just felt a small, satisfying nod coming on, you’re in the right place.)
One Way to Improve Your Productivity in Every Area of Life
So, the next time you hear the word productivity and start having flashbacks to that offsite where a corporate efficiency expert clicked through slide after slide on time management, remember the ripple effect. How you spend your workday shapes how you show up for yourself, your family, and your friends after work.
If you want a simple place to start, try my Sunday Strategy worksheet. It’s a way to improve your productivity without adding a single thing to your plate, and it includes space for your whole life, not just your professional goals.
I’d love to give it to you for free. Just sign up for my weekly newsletter and I’ll send you the Sunday Strategy worksheet and guide. You can use it over and over, and it can have an incredible impact on your life.