“Time management” and “productivity” are hot topics in the world of self-help.
If the amount of time we have is a jar, productivity has to be more than cramming more things into your life jar. It’s really about deciding what to allow into your jar in the first place.
Here are 14 barriers to working with peace, joy, and calm:
-
The “ought” self voice (from within or without) – this is the voice in our head that says you should be doing this, or you ought to do that. It might be wrong, but we often don’t question it. It’s often condemning, and it is very often wrong. The task is to question the assumptions.
-
The myth of multi-tasking – multi-tasking is inefficient and proven to be wasteful
-
Not understanding pace, priority, and rhythms
-
Chasing the Jones’s Dream – chasing dollars, titles, or shiny stuff (not the real, authentic stuff)
-
Not prioritizing rest, recovery, and rejuvenation
-
Not saying “no” enough
-
Not prioritizing Thinking Time – just being in reactionary mode all the time
-
The 9-5 trap – similar to the disintegrated life, it’s creating a false silo between “work” and “life”
-
Disintegrated Lives – being one person at work and another at home and another at church is a recipe for anxiety, or building silos between work and life as if the two were separate categories
-
Email Sitting – sitting in front of a computer waiting for emails to come through feels like productivity but it’s just an avoidance mechanism
-
Fear of Man – being too worried about getting everyone’s approval. Finding your identity in your work, vs. something deeper or higher. Is it possible that fear of man might just be another form of narcissism? This is why employees engage in what’s been called “Productivity Theatre”
-
Thinking we are God – taking it all on our shoulders when our shoulders weren’t meant for that
-
Unhealthy fear of failure – this is just another form of self-preservation and being in the trap of perfectionism
-
Not Thinking in Systems – e.g., writing an email 10 times that could have been written once and saved as a template, creating systems and processes is one of the best antidotes to busywork
Which barriers resonate most deeply with where you are at right now?
