The One About Productivity and Balance

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:00:14]:
You’re listening to the Keith Blakemore-Noble Radio Show. Interesting chats with interesting people about interesting things – and no adverts. Here’s your host, Keith Blakemore-Noble. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome welcome, welcome. Welcome to another episode. Great to have you with us. Thank you so much for joining me.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:00:40]:

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:00:40]:
I genuinely always appreciate when you take time out of your busy day to join me on these things. This is a solo episode. It’s an odd numbered one. So it’s a solo episode. It’s you and me and today we’re looking, we’re exploring how we can master productivity and balance. That’s what we’ve got lined up for today. Do remember you can find this, find this podcast on great many platforms. Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, Spotify, YouTube.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:01:12]:
Give us a like a share a subscribe a comment review. Remember if you add any of these things to your favourite podcast platforms, give me a review on there a like subscribe on there. It all helps to boost the numbers, boost the algorithms. Yes, we’re in. The algorithms seem to rule the world days. Share it far and wide with, with anyone who you think might be interested. So today, as I said, we’re taking a look at mastering productivity and balance. Now over the next 20, 25 minutes or so, we’re going to explore some key, some key themes within, within this topic, the topic itself.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:01:54]:
I’ve actually taken this from one of the monthly topics that we explored for an entire month in the Mindset Mastery Movement. We dived into this over the course of a month, multiple different modules exploring it in all sorts of depth and detail. I thought it would be nice, interesting, useful if we did like just a really high level overview of just some of the key points. And that’s what we’re looking at today. Hopefully you’ll find it interesting. Do let me know, do let me know what you think of it. Is this the sort of thing that you enjoy? So let’s dive in. I mean productivity imbalance, it affects all of us.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:02:36]:
It really does. How can we be truly productive without burning out? And it’s not about doing more and more and more because that leads just to burnout. Absolutely does. It’s about doing what matters and doing it with presence and with balance, keeping ourselves in balance. So we’re going to look at some, some tips and some tools and some, some ideas on how we can maintain productivity and balance. And the first thing that I’d like or first thing for us to look at is to busyness. Let’s challenge the myth of busyness. Busy doesn’t always mean effective.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:03:20]:
Just because you’re really, really busy at something doesn’t mean you’re being effective. Doesn’t mean you’re being productive. True productivity is purposeful, it’s not frantic. And I’m sure we can all think of times where we’ve been working really hard, busy, busy, busy, busy really hard, doing lots and lots and lots of stuff. But when we look at it, is that actually productive for us? Are we actually working on things which move us forward or are we just busy, just working so that we appear busy. And it’s almost a skill that people sometimes learn in employment is make sure you always look busy. If the boss sees you doing nothing, oh, be in trouble, make sure you’re always looking busy. And we carry that over into all aspects of our lives, whether it’s where employment, whether we’re self employed, any aspects of our life.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:04:17]:
We strive to look busy. But are we actually being busy? I remember many years ago when I first got into employment working at, working at Thorny MI Electronics, the radar division and lots of electronic design and so on going on. This is back in the late 80s, so very computer design was much, much, much less used those days. And I remember hearing a great example of one, one guy there, he was brilliant, it would all go on in his head. Give him a problem and he would sort of sit there and in these days you could smoke. So you’d be there with his pipe, like two or three days would go by and just be there. Appearing to not be doing anything. Looks the exact opposite of busy.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:05:13]:
And then after enough time had passed and he’d, he’d had enough time to think it all through, grab a bit of paper and a pen, draw this beautiful complex circuit diagram and pass it over to whoever had given them the problem. They would take it away, they’d make it up and sure enough, worked usually pretty much first time did exactly what was asked of him. He was being incredibly productive. Even though he didn’t appear to be busy. He wasn’t creating screeds of paper sat there because he was just thinking it through. He was being incredibly productive, even though he didn’t necessarily look busy. So when you’re working away, frantically working away, just ask yourself, pause for a moment and ask yourself, am I being productive or am I just being busy? Am I being productive or am I just being busy? Where is your time going? Ask yourself where your time is going and is that time aligned with what truly matters, whether it’s at work, whether it’s in personal life? Whatever. How are you spending your time and is it in alignment with what really matters to you? Great thing you can do is run a, do a time audit.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:06:34]:
Now these can be a pain in the neck when you’re actually doing it, but so worth it. The results you get can really be really, really helpful. Just to give you a really, really brief overview of what you would do. Get your sheet of paper, break it down into maybe half hour steps. Some people break it down into quarter hour steps. Whatever works for you. Set your little timer going for every half hour, every quarter hour, whatever. When the timer goes off, just note down what you’re doing at that point and then get back to whatever you were doing.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:07:06]:
Don’t justify it, don’t change what you’re doing because you’re recording all these things. Be brutally honest, just write down exactly what it is you’re doing. Do that for a week and then at the end of the week just have a look through what you were actually doing. How much that was productive, how much of it was just messing around, how much of it was appearing busy for the sake of being of appearing busy. And I think that the first step to improving something is to record it, to measure it can be a great way to finding out how actually productive we are with our time. Which leads us on to kind of the second thing that I wanted to briefly share with you. Our time and our energy. These are our two greatest resources.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:07:57]:
We’ve got time, we’ve got energy, our two greatest resources. And we waste them so much. We waste them so much. First, let’s take a look at time management. And some of this will come out from that time audit that you do to see what you’re doing. Are you being busy, how are you being productive? But also it’s how we manage our time, how we make sure we have time to do the things we need to do, how often. And I know I’ve fallen afoul of this when I started self employment, I know many, many people do not managing your time properly. Good friend of mine, he found he was mismanaging his time, making sure he’s always available for clients, always available for all this work.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:08:57]:
Invoices piling up that he hadn’t processed and issued because he didn’t have time for them. Or people find they just don’t have time to do the important to do important stuff for themselves like the bookkeeping or managing their mailbox or whatever it is because they never have time. Block time out. Block time out. In your diary, make sure these are the things you book in first and then let people book client calls or what meetings or whatever it is, book them around it. Make sure you carve out the time for the things which are important. And that includes taking breaks. That includes perhaps reading, perhaps you decide, you know what, I’m going to spend half an hour each day just reading, reading a book, reading a report, reading something that’s relevant to what I’m doing.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:09:50]:
So I learn a bit more. Block these things out, block all those out first. Then fit everything else around it, because if you don’t, all the other stuff will fill up and you’ll have no time for these things. So work out what’s the really important stuff you have to do. Block timeout for it and do it. Another thing is we’re gonna have huge number of tasks. Oh, my word. I look at my to do list, I got far too much stuff to do, not enough time to do it.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:10:21]:
Great ways to prioritise tasks. What you can do. Get a sheet of paper, cut it, draw lines to break it into four, four quadrants. And just categorise all your tasks accordingly. Are they important and urgent? Are they important but not urgent? Are they unimportant? Urgent, Unimportant, not urgent. So you then take all of your tasks, categorise them into this. Now, if something is important and it’s urgent, it’s probably going to be the first things that you work on, right? Because it has to be done and it has to be done now. Has to be done.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:11:14]:
Has to be done now. Next, have a look at the things of which are important but not urgent. And have a look at the things which are urgent but not important. Now, if it’s urgent and not important, have a look. Do I need to do this now? It’s basically do it now or bin it off because it’s not important. But if it’s going to be done, it has to be done now. If it’s. But I could bin it off, I could decide, I haven’t got time, bin it off because it’s not important.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:11:45]:
Then look at the stuff which is important but not urgent. Work your way through that before it becomes urgent. Then and only then, if you have time left, resources left, look at the stuff which is not urgent and not important. If you find you’ve got far too much to do, the not important, not urgent side of things, that’s the quadrant you can just get rid of completely because they’re not important and they’re not urgent. Doesn’t matter if they’re not done Suddenly there’s no rush to them. They can be got rid of because, hey, they’re not important, they’re not urgent. Clear them out so that you can then focus on the things which are urgent and important. Sounds simple, sounds dark.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:12:39]:
It can be so liberating when you take your burgeoning list of tasks and suddenly realise, hey, this one task is urgent and important. This half dozen tasks, they’re not urgent, they’re not important. Maybe I can give them to someone else. Maybe we can just cancel them. These ones are urgent. These ones are important, but not urgent. Let’s get them done fairly quickly. These ones are urgent, but not important.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:13:04]:
Let’s make a judgment call. Do them, don’t do them. Depends what time we’ve got. Can be so liberating, it can really remove the stress of being overloaded with time. It’s all about using your time wisely. Time and energy are two greatest resources, but like any resource, they are limited, they are finite. So time blocking, prioritising, high, high, urgent, highly important, high urgency tasks. Looking for the ones which are less urgent so you don’t get bogged down in doing those can all be good ways of helping to balance your time.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:13:46]:
And then we’ve got energy. That’s our other great resource looking at management because you know you could be managing your time beautifully, but if your energy is off, everything’s out of balance. Everything’s out of balance. So for your energy, we need to look at managing our energy and energy management involves recognising and optimising various types of energy that we’re using. Our physical energy, our emotional energy, our mental energy, if you’re that way inclined, your spiritual energy, if any of those are out of balance or run dry, you’re running on empty. For those, everything’s out of kilter. Because these energies fuel our daily activities. And energy can fluctuate throughout the day based on many factors.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:14:37]:
How tired, our sleep, how well we’re eating, what stress we’re under, all of these things, our emotions. Our emotions can have a huge impact on our energy and, and how we manage our energy. If we’re feeling really stressed or we’re feeling really upset about something, that can have massive negative impact on our productivity. On the other hand, the emotions, if we’re feeling really excited and invigorated and yes, let’s do this, because this thing, I absolutely love this. This is really important. I love doing it. Wow, so much energy. You can really dive in and get so much done.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:15:21]:
So something for you to quickly check out of all the different Energy zones we got physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. How are you doing with each of those zones? Which ones are you nicely topped up on? Which ones are a bit depleted right now? So check to see which of those energy zones are depleted for you. And this isn’t a one time thing. Do it each day, do it as and when you’re about to start new things. Do it whenever feels right. Have a check in which energy zone is depleted for you and what can you do to recharge it this week, this month or today? How can you top up that energy zone which is depleted? Maybe you need to prioritise sleep. Maybe you need to make sure you are getting Your proper full 8 hours or however many you need of high quality uninterrupted sleep. Maybe, maybe it’s your nutrition, maybe you find what you’re eating, you then get an energy slump after your lunch, whatever.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:16:36]:
So maybe you need to better manage that the foods you’re eating, what you’re eating when you’re eating it. And look for foods which release the energy slowly so it sustains you over time. Your emotions, how are you doing emotionally? Are you in emotional turmoil? Are you got lots of negative energy emotions? Are you got lots of positive energy emotions which you can bring into what’s going on. Physical, physically, how are you doing physically includes physical activity. Physical exercise also includes just how are you doing physically? What can you do to improve all of these things? So quick, self check, self check, check in which zone is most depleted for you right now and what can you do to recharge it? Give it an immediate boost. Recharge it over the week and if necessary, give it that little bit more attention so it doesn’t deplete so much as you go forward in the future. Now excuse me, sorry about that. Let us take a look at goals.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:17:53]:
Goals which actually matter. It’s all about productivity, about balance. Goals are a great, great way of making sure you get stuff done. But make sure your goal meaningful. Don’t just make them urgent because something’s urgent. Make the goal meaningful. Because when goals align with our values, when goals align with what’s important to us, when goals are backed up by a strong why we know why we’re doing them and that why aligns with what we want to do and aligns with our values, aligns with what’s important, all of that helps to create motivation, which is what gets us going. So with goals, you’ve probably come across the smart formula for goals.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:18:52]:
Make it specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timed, keep Your goals, simple. Make it specific. So rather than, I don’t know if it’s, if it’s a, I want to make more money, I want to make more money this year. What does that even mean? You find a penny on the floor, pick it up, yeah, you’ve made more money. Goal achieved. No. How do you know? Make your goal specific. How will you know that you’ve achieved it? What tells you you’ve achieved it? Make it specific.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:19:24]:
I want to, I want to generate this amount of income this year or I want to achieve, or I want whatever, I want to be on holiday to this destination this time. Make it really specific. Make it really specific. Make it really measurable so that you can tell what the goal is and that you know that you’ve achieved it. Make sure it’s something that’s realistic, realistically achievable. Make sure it’s something that you can achieve realistically. For example, if I said, you know what, next month I’m going to run a marathon, sub three hours, I’m going to do a sub three hour marathon next month. Completely unachievable for me.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:20:06]:
I mean, I’m not in shape, I don’t run. It’s not a sort of goal I would want to do, but if I created that goal, it would not be achievable for me. On the other hand, friend of mine who’s always doing marathons and triathlons and all these sorts of things, and if they said, you know what I’m going to aim, I do marathons in 3 hours, 10 minutes, next marathon I’m going to do, it’s going to be sub three hours. It’s going to be the sub three hours. I’m going to do that within six months. It’s achievable for them. It’s a stretch, but it’s achievable. And also make them timed, make them timed.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:20:49]:
Put a time on the goal. And the time is not next week or next month. Yeah, I’m going to achieve this by next month. Because next month never comes right, 30 30th of April. I’m going to achieve this by next month. The following day is the first of May, but your goal is still for next month. Next month, Next month. Give it a specific date, time and date.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:21:13]:
If, if applicable, make it timed, measurable, specific, so you know exactly what you’re achieving and then make sure it is fully aligned with your values. Because if it’s not, it’s going to be very difficult to achieve that goal. So a little task for you think of one goal. Think of a goal that you’re working on now, just one goal, one goal that you’re working on right now. And just check how aligned is it with your values. Once you’ve done that, I’d invite you to maybe reword the goal in smart format. So make sure it is specific, it’s measurable all the time, all these, all these good things. And make sure it’s in alignment with your values.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:22:03]:
And if it’s not, what you need to adjust, change, reframe, tweak, refine to bring that goal in alignment with your values. All of this will really help to make that goal much more achievable and it will help to increase your productivity and also keep things in balance as well. Couple more quick things for us to look at on this. Hopefully you’re enjoying this. Let me know what you think of it. Send me a message, pop a comment where you’re finding this. Let us know what you think. Do remember, please, as I said before, do remember, give us a like Share, subscribe, give us a review on your favourite platform.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:22:47]:
All of this helps to, to grow the show and get more and more people around the world to, to see it, to benefit from it, and to grow themselves as a result. So mindfulness and boundaries, really important things here. Mindfulness, I mean, being present is not a luxury. It is in fact a very powerful tool. Mindful productivity. That means we make fewer mistakes when we’re mindful because we’re really focusing just in the here and now on what we’re doing. Mindful in the present, much less likely to make mistakes than if we’re daydreaming about the future or reminiscing about the past. Fewer mistakes, greater clarity, better decisions.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:23:44]:
So when you’re about to start a task, bring yourself into the present, become fully present with what you’re about to do. And a great way you can do that is pause for one minute, pause for 60 seconds, and just focus on your breathing for 60 seconds. As you breathe in, breathe out, do that for a minute. Maybe set a timer so you don’t even have to focus on the time. Set a timer on your watch or your phone or whatever and just focus all your attention on your breath, just for that minute, letting everything else go. Just focus on the sensations, the sounds of your breath. Notice where you can feel your muscles moving as you’re breathing. Just focus everything on your breath to bring yourself into the present.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:24:41]:
Do that for 60 seconds. Do that for one minute at the start of a task, really Helps to disconnect from all the other stuff that’s going on. Brings you present, keeps you mindful. Just keep the task itself in mind as you’re working through it. If you find your mind starting to wander off onto other things, just notice, you can notice it was wandering onto other things, let it go. Bring your attention back to the task. If necessary, pause and have that 60 second reset again. And boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:25:18]:
One of the most productive things you can do is to say one single word, two letter word no. When we’re working on stuff it’s so common that people will ask us to do other things, this, do that, do or whatever, say no, get good at saying no. And remember no is a complete sentence. You don’t have to justify what you’re saying. Could you just, look, could you just do this task for me? No, you don’t have to justify it, you don’t have to explain, just no, I cannot do this for you at the moment I’m working on this. Sometimes it feels uncomfortable, but still feels a lot less uncomfortable than having a breakdown because you’re overloaded, because you say yes to everything. Practice saying no and sticking to it. And again, remember, you don’t have to justify, you don’t have to explain, you can just say no.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:26:22]:
Final thing to touch on is just self care and kind of that boundary of saying no leads us into self care. Because remember you are not a machine, you are a whole human being and one which requires self care. Self care is not the only opposite of productivity. Self care sustains productivity. Think of a machine, think of a car or a bike or any machine, complex machine. You need to have it serviced regularly, you need to look after it, you need to make sure everything is in spec, you need to make sure things aren’t getting worn out. Give it a tune up, top it up, all these things. You need to do that to keep the machine running in good condition.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:27:10]:
We need the same ourselves, we need self care. If we don’t look after ourselves, we start to fall to bits and we’re of no use to anybody, especially not to ourselves. So take some time out for self care. Now what does real, absolute, real, genuine, proper self care, what does that look like for you? The kind of self care which actually refreshes you, recharges you. And that’s what I’m going to leave you on with this. What really reinvigorates you, refreshes you, recharges you. What can you do more of that really tops you back up again because when you do more of what really inspires you, what really refreshes you, that self care that enables you to be so much more productive. So that’s where I’m going to finish up with this question for you.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:28:17]:
Which, which idea, which, which, which aspect of what we covered today really stands out for you? Which, which ones you’re going to use? Which one stood out for you most? That’s what I wanted to cover in this. As I said, this all came from the Mindset Mastery Movement where we spend a month looking at maintaining productivity and balance. We look at a different topic every month. If you want to find out more, go to KeithBN.link/MMM Mindset mastery movement KeithBN.link/MMM Find out more there. But either way, hopefully you’ve taken something from this.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:28:59]:
I’d love to know what, what is the one thing you’ve taken from this? Do let me know. Send me an email, send me a message, pop a comment below. Wherever you’re seeing this, share the one tip which has stood out for you and make sure you take action. That is it for this episode. Again, remember, give us a like a comment, share, subscribe, catch us on all the main podcast platforms and I will catch you in another episode very soon. Until then, take care, look after yourself. Bye for now. You’ve been listening to the Keith Blakemore-Noble Radio Show.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:29:58]:
To find out more, visit keithblakemornoble.com.