Dr Natalie Isaia, Clinical Psychologist & Founder of Empresa Psychology
This article was originally published on the Expert Services Directory and can be accessed by clicking here.
I’ve always considered myself to be a highly organised and efficient person, so this is hard to admit, but when I first started my business, I struggled to streamline and stay on top of my business admin. They don’t cover business admin processes in the Clinical Psychology doctorate! Back then, the insights and tips in this article helped me to get on top of everything and become my best business self. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has ever struggled with productivity, so I wanted to share what I have learned with you, backed up with some hard facts from the field of Clinical Psychology.
The neuroscience behind your stress
In fast-paced executive roles, the stress caused by disorganisation and inefficient working causes your ‘threat system’ in your brain to fire up. This can happen through multiple avenues:
- the fatigue caused by spending a long time working on something whilst not achieving as much as you intended,
- the feeling of anxiety that occurs when we feel that we are behind and can’t get through what we need to,
- constant task-switching which scatters our focus.
Most importantly, when your ‘threat system’ is highly active, it takes over the rest of your brain, so your frontal lobe is not working effectively. The frontal lobe is your ‘rational brain’ that is responsible for problem solving, decision making and creativity – all attributes that you need to be online when the stress and the stakes are high.
By honing productivity and refining organisational systems, your time and energy is optimised so you can get more done in less time and feel less stressed. Now your ‘threat system’ is no longer in the driving seat, your frontal lobe is back online, and you are able to concentrate, lead with vision, focus on high-impact priorities and make important decisions with confidence.
If you want to understand the psychological barriers that are preventing your leaders and managers from thriving, we want to speak to you! Empresa Psychology’s evidence-based training upskills teams and leaders with neuroscience-backed strategies to regulate their ‘threat system’ and improve wellbeing and performance in one go. Book a free consultation today to find out more.
Identifying the problem
Despite understanding the neuroscience behind the issue, at first I was confused: I normally find it so easy to be organised and productive, what was going wrong here? You can’t solve a problem if you don’t know what it is, so step one is always to investigate the root cause of the issue. In my case, I narrowed the culprits down to two:
- Lack of clarity. At that time, I was doing something that was new to me, and I therefore did not have a clear idea of exactly the tasks I should be completing. This made it extremely difficult to organise my time in any effective way.
- When I did start to break down all the tasks and processes, there were so many that it immediately felt overwhelming. So, I did what all good humans do when they feel overwhelmed – put it off!
Those happened to be the causes of my issue, but there are so many other reasons why we might struggle with organisation and productivity. Neurodivergence, competing priorities, distractions, perfectionism, and burnout, to name a few. If you’re interested in upskilling your teams and leaders with immediately applicable strategies to reduce burnout and presenteeism, find out more on our services page.
The myth of being lazy
My strategy of putting it off unsurprisingly did not help me! Are you ever hard on yourself for procrastinating? Research from the fields of psychology and neuroscience reveal that this is actually a coping strategy – your brain’s attempt to keep you safe!
The neural pathways in your brain that oversee your response to threat (the ‘fight or flight’ response) can’t tell the difference between a physical threat and an imaginary threat. If you’re worried about an upcoming task (e.g. “I have to write an article, what if it isn’t very good!”), your ‘threat system’ kicks in and uses the same strategy it has used for hundreds of thousands of years: avoid the scary thing!
This strategy worked very well for real physical threats like dangerous forests or sabre tooth tigers, but most threats now exist in our imagination and avoidance only makes the fear worse.
Often, to identify the root of our productivity issue, we must identify the root of the procrastination. This is easier said than done because our ego often says “I’m not scared of that!”, but if you can dig a little deeper then you will be able to dive to the heart of the issue.
At the same time, being kind to yourself in these moments is essential. The procrastination is happening because your ‘threat system’ is activated. If you then respond to yourself with self-criticism, you’re compounding that ‘threat system’ activation and potentially making the problem worse.
Self-compassion is misunderstood by many, but a is superpower for those who have mastered it. Our Compassionate Leadership training supports leaders to be kind to themselves whilst drawing on strength, courage and wisdom to hold teams (and themselves) accountable and achieve excellent outcomes.
Motivation is fleeting
Before we get to the solution, I must flag up an often used but usually unhelpful strategy: “I’ll do it when I feel like it”. Rely on this approach at your peril – motivation is fleeting.
More than that, motivation actually comes out of action, not the other way around! The primary psychological treatment for depression is called ‘behavioural activation’. It is a straightforward approach: schedule small but meaningful tasks and do them at their scheduled time whether you feel like it or not. At first, it feels hard, but gradually motivation starts to grow. “Action then satisfaction” as a client of mine said many years ago. The good news is that this approach works for productivity and motivation in general, not just for individuals experiencing depression.
The practical solution
The wisdom behind the practical solution to my productivity problem was in part contained in a phrase I’ve heard over and over again on consultation calls with successful leaders and executives: “If it isn’t scheduled in my calendar, it doesn’t happen”. I’ve heard this applied to lunch, walks, self-care, admin, everything.
The core principle here is that consistency beats motivation every time. And if you put in a very clear structure, then the consistency becomes a lot easier. One of the secrets to building and maintaining a habit is to make it as easy as possible for yourself because unfortunately unlimited ‘willpower’ is also a myth!
In reality this took me several months, many iterations and a lot of help from a variety of sources. When I cracked it, this is what it looked like:
- Create a very clear and detailed process – break down all the tasks and sub-tasks. This gave me clarity. It also meant that once I had a process to follow, my brain could go into auto-pilot, which is where it wants to be, removing a lot of cognitive effort associated with working out what I should be doing next.
- Schedule everything. I booked in “meetings” with myself with set agendas. I reduced the overwhelm by scheduling sub-sections of tasks across several weeks, thus setting myself realistic and specific goals (remember SMART goals?). This works because the actions themselves become automated and my brain is less likely to get in its own way by over-thinking. If my calendar says ‘Call Jess’ on Monday at 3pm, then I just pick up the phone and do the task because it is 3pm. Even if I’m nervous about speaking to Jess, I can more easily override the resulting urge to procrastinate.
The psychological cherry on top
Want to make these strategies even more effective? Alongside mastering self-compassion, here are two psychology-approved add-on techniques that worked for me:
Bonus tip #1 – find your “why”. Values-based action is very good for our wellbeing and also supports motivation. For me, this was about going deeper than just the financial elements of starting a business and asking “what is my real purpose and meaning that drives me to do this?”. Keep that front and centre in your mind (or on a post-it note) so that when you’re feeling unmotivated you can reconnect to this.
Bonus tip #2 – add on an accountability tool. This one comes from behavioural psychology and will look different for everyone. It could be a reward, for example if you hit all your goals consistently for a month you can book a spa day. Or it could be a penalty, for example if you don’t hit at least 85% of your goals you have to give money away to a cause you actively dislike. Whatever you choose, the idea has to have a powerful enough impact to encourage you to get on with the task you’re trying to put off!
Found this interesting?
If you enjoyed reading this article, I’d love to speak with you! I’m inspired by finding out exactly what leaders and businesses are struggling with, and offering tailored, evidence-based techniques and strategies to help them achieve excellence without compromising wellbeing. In this article, I’ve described how I applied this to myself, now let’s talk about how I can help you. Head to our homepage now to book a free consultation call!
