I'm not sure about you, but I know those days when I look back and think, what the heck did I do today? Did I accomplish anything productive? Hmm? What was it? I worked all day, but I feel I’ve got zero to show for it. Please tell me you can relate to this feeling. I'm guessing even the most productive people can have days where they feel incredibly unproductive as if they are spinning their wheels. And that's okay. It happens. The best thing any of us can do is give ourselves grace. First, let’s begin to get curious as to why. Here is one of the first questions I ask myself to get into the weeds of my unproductive day.
Ask Yourself “What’s in your head that’s causing this unproductive day?”
What story is going on in your head that’s causing this? Is this just one day or is it a pattern? Is it that you were unproductive or was your attention on the wrong thing? It’s interesting, one of the patterns that I see in Online Entrepreneurs when they are about to uplevel, they hide in the unproductive busy work to feel safe.
Grab Your Journal
Okay, Friend, grab your journal. Begin by asking yourself the curiosity questions from earlier. By journaling it will help you to drill down into the root cause of what is really going on with your unproductive day.
Daily Journal Hack
One hack that I’ve found is keeping a journal of your day inside of Notion. By journaling a bit everyday it will allow you to look back and look for patterns.
This is a concept that I learned from Marie Poulin and her daily journaling practice. I’ll put a link to her is the link to her YouTube video on using her daily journal in Notion. https://youtu.be/1Z06fqYhNgM
You see what is nice about journaling in Notion, as it has the ability to rolls up your daily journal into a weekly, monthly, and yearly wrap-up. The monthly wrap-up allows you to see how many times during that month were you felt unproductive.
Tracking this leaves clues as to when you are having unproductive days. When you pay attention you’ll begin to see a pattern of your productive over the month.
Are you curious why this is important. It will allow you to plan for a big launch around your productivity spikes.
What do you do when you recognize that you’re having an unproductive day? Here are my top tips to save an unproductive day if you begin to notice you’re spinning your wheels.
Restart Your Unproductive Day
Can you do something simple to restart your day?
While we are not able to go back in time, we can reset and clear our minds.
A couple of simple ways to do this is by:
Sitting down for a quick meditation to clear everything and calm your mind. The Insight Timer has great guided meditations.
Perhaps you’d prefer to pick up a journal to write out all the clutter. Or pull open a Google Doc and type it all out.
You see, these are great ways to reset your focus and start your day with a fresh mind.
Allowing you to let go of your unproductive day.
Good Mornings Start The Night Before
What are the things that you could do the night before to ensure that your day begins on the right foot?
It could just be me, but if I cannot get 100% prepared for the next day, the night before, the next day, I feel like I’m running in circles.
Unfortunately, it is happening more than I’d like it to. But it’s summer, the days are longer, and I’m outside attempting to become a gardener. I’m doing the lazy gardener hack. I’ll let you know if it was a success at the end of the growing season. But, so far so good.
Here is a list of the things that set up a productive day.
- Wrapping up my day with my Journal in Notion. Reflecting on the day, how it went, what I’m feeling.
- Clearing out what’s in my mind and getting all my chicken scratches from my planner and notebook into Notion
- Planning the next day with tasks assigned to time blocks in my planner.
Prepping the coffee maker - Making sure my Epic Water Filler is full and my first quart of water is ready to go in a mason jars sitting on the counter.
- Filling the dog food dishes
Laying out my clothes - Having my AirPods, iPad, and Pencil ready to go for the morning.
This sets me up to feel productive and organized. By doing so it sets the whole tone for my day.
Prep For Your Week
When you know a busy week is ahead of you, try to get yourself prepared. Take the time on Friday or the weekend to prep for the upcoming week. Prepping for your week cuts down on the decisions you need to make when you're already frazzled.
I make sure that I have my meals planned out and know the days we need leftovers and the days I’ll be home to make a meal. Inside Notion, I have an eight-week meal plan routine. Creating this meal plan removes the dreaded question: What’s to eat, Mom? It cuts down on decision-making after a long day of well decision-making. By having repeat meals, the decision has already been made for you, instead of taking the time to plan your meals or, worse, the in-the-moment decision-making.
My calendar has all the non-negotiable appointments for my business and life. In my planner, based on what needs to be done, I decide on the time blocks for my done-for-you content repurposing clients, private coaching clients, and things that only I can do in my business.
Planning out the time blocks and when I’ll do the work eliminates the decision of what I will do next. It’s already been prepared,d and I know exactly what I’ll be working on next. This helps with decision fatigue; this is a real thing. Here is a post I’ve written about decision fatigue. https://misstask.com/reduce-decision-fatigue/
Look For Your Unproductive Clues
At the end of the week, pay attention to the things that didn't get this done. This leaves clues for you to evaluate.
Ask yourself: Why you didn’t get them done?
Did I schedule too much? Did I estimate the time wrong? If it’s a task that’s been on the list for a few weeks, it’s time to ask if I really want to do this.
Until you get the hang of it, ensure you have buffer time for those just-in-case moments.
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It’s Time To Wrap This Up
A quick recap for the skimmers: Feeling unproductive? That's okay. Give yourself grace. Determine if it's a one-off day or a pattern. Restart your mindset. Prepare the night before for a good morning. If you didn't prepare, do the essentials when you can. Evaluate your productivity regularly; it leaves clues for improvement.
Thank you so much for reading, I appreciate you and I hope you have a wonderful week.
