Annie:
Welcome to The Whole Assistant Podcast. I'm your host, Annie Croner. I'm a former assistant who's passionate about our profession, and I'm also a certified coach who's invested in your success. You've come to the right place if you want to know what it looks like to stand in your power and achieve success as an assistant, creating overwhelm and burnout. Now onto today's episode. So before I launch into the topic of today, which is going to be a lot of fun to talk about, it's one of my favorite topics to talk about revolves around productivity, I want to share about an upcoming free event for executive assistants. It's online. I'm calling it EA Mingle.
Annie:
EA Mingle was born from a desire to give you the opportunity to network with executive assistant, to share stories, to bond with one another. Nobody fully gets the role of executive assistant like another executive assistant. And so I wanted to give you all the opportunity to get together to network. And I've hosted these in the past and they have been hits and so I just thought, why not? I'm just going to host these throughout the summer. This June one will not be the only event. So if you happen to miss the event, which if you're listening to this as it comes out in real time, is Friday, June 14. So that's tomorrow. If you missed this event, that's okay.
Annie:
Please hop on the waitlist at the link below as well. And you can be the first to join the ones in July and August as I will be hosting more throughout the summer. And if they are a really popular, I may just carry it forward on into the fall and winter. I've just found that executive assistants love the opportunity to hang out, to get to know one another, and to share fun stories. It's going to be a fun time of bonding. So please, please join us. Okay, today we are talking all about three misguided productivity beliefs that you may have, and these beliefs will hold you back if you let them. I like to consider these beliefs myths as a lot of us are unaware that we actually think these things.
Annie:
So I just figured I would bring it into your consciousness, into your awareness today by naming them. But before I get there, I do want to start by laying the groundwork for this topic by sharing the productivity equation. So the productivity equation is a concept that I've seen around, but I don't know that anybody is sharing it the same way that I am. So the productivity equation goes like this. Productivity equals the amount of value created. So in our roles. This is the output or the end result of whatever project we're working on. So the amount of value created divided by time.
Annie:
So if the time piece is larger, then the amount produced is going to be smaller based on the value created. If you're able to create the same amount of value in less time, the amount of your productivity increases. The end result is increased productivity. So we really want to look at strategies that are going to reduce the time part of the equation and produce the same or greater value than we initially thought possible. Okay? So for the sake of this conversation today, again, productivity equals the amount of value created divided by time. So keeping this equation in mind, the first myth or the first misguided belief around productivity that we're going to talk about today is that productivity has a lot to do with how busy you are. The busier you are, the more productive you're being. That is not actually accurate or true.
Annie:
Busyness, meaning the state of doing things, which also is often accompanied with a state of anxiety or stress as an emotion behind the busyness. Busyness does not equate to value. Really think about that. Busyness does not equal value. Busyness doesn't decrease the time you spend either. Creating the value just because you're busy doesn't mean that you're being super productive. Have you ever worked your butt off and at the end of the day, not been able to recall what actually got accomplished? Not able to recall what you actually produced? That is an example of what I'm talking about here. We spend all of our time playing whack a mole, not showing up strategically for our time, not showing up strategically for our day.
Annie:
We spend our time in busyness. I'm using air quotes around busyness not to actually produce anything, not to actually consider the value that was created throughout the day or the time it took us to create that value. So busyness does not have anything to do with productivity. Productivity is literally the amount accomplished, the output, the end result, the value created divided by time. And the fact that you look busy, the fact that you are busy, the fact that you feel anxious and stressed out, does not actually mean that you are creating value and in a timely fashion. So I just want to bring some awareness to that. Productivity has nothing to do with how busy you are. Productivity only has to do with the amount of value created, or the output or end result divided by the time, the least amount of time.
Annie:
So actually, productivity often looks less busy. It often looks more strategic. It often looks like taking the time to line out your processes and then executing on those processes in a really productive and time constrained way, taking into account the amount of time to get that task done. So it often requires planning, it often requires you to show up more strategically for your time so that you aren't staying over here in the busyness, but you are producing high quality work and doing it in the most productive, time effective way. Okay, the second kind of misguided productivity belief that we're going to talk about today is that productivity has everything to do with your effort and working hard. So here's the reality. Productivity has nothing to do with effort. You can work hard all you want and not produce anything.
Annie:
You can work hard all you want and do it in a less effective, less time restrained way. Effort doesn't equal value created and working hard doesn't actually mean you are creating value. I'm gonna say that one again. Effort doesn't equal value created and working hard doesn't actually mean you are creating value. The most productive people actually implement strategies that will require less effort and make their work easier and more streamlined. Some of you are over complexifying your work, and your productivity is suffering as a result. Your brains are trying to make things harder than they actually are, and so you aren't streamlining things in the most efficient and effective ways. So pay attention.
Annie:
Are you putting a lot of effort into something? Are you working hard for something? What is the actual result of what you created? Do you feel like you are creating things in a time efficient way, or are you spinning your wheels most the time? And have you implemented strategies that will require less effort and make your work easier? All good questions to ask yourself. The last and final misguided productivity belief that a lot of us have is that productivity has all to do with how many hours you work. I've worked 60 hours this week. I've been super productive. Have you, though? Have you? Many of you think that more hours equals increased productive output. Now, more hours may mean increased output, but they aren't productive hours, because that time piece, going back to the initial equation that we had, productivity is, equals the amount of value created over time. That timepiece is increased, which means that your total productive output, the productivity, the rate of productivity has decreased. So my question to you is, how can you get the same amount of work done that took you 60 hours to do in 40 hours? And often we wear our long hours.
Annie:
We wear the effort we put towards things. We wear how busy we are as badges of honor. And so we like to buy into the idea of being busy. We like to buy into the idea of efforting or working hard. We like to buy into the idea of working harder, longer hours, and we call it being super productive, but it's actually really not probably getting under people's skin right now. Now look, you may be operating at optimal productivity in terms of your time and your energy that you put towards it, and really the value you're creating. And if you want to work longer hours, that's fine. If that's the job you have and you're fine with it, that's fine.
Annie:
My question to you is, how can you get the same amount of work done in fewer hours? Because working longer hours doesn't support the equation above for productivity. So I'm going to give an example of this. I think that many of us were raised going to school, and I was for most of my formative years, but there was a time, I think between fourth through 6th grade that I was homeschooled and I would get my schooling done in two or 3 hours a day. And my cohorts, the people that were around my same age, were going to school all day from like 08:00 a.m. to 03:00 p.m. and they were in school for hours on end. And I was able to get my schooling done in a shorter timeframe. Right now, there's a reason for that.
Annie:
We didn't have set schedule in terms of class schedules. I was able to go at my own pace, and my own pace was a lot more efficient than the school's pace was. And the reality is that a lot of us have been raised to go from working at school from like eight to three or eight to 230 to a job and working eight to five. And we fill up the time based on the hours that are allotted for it. Instead of seeing how much we can get done a shorter period of time, seeing how we can streamline things in a shorter period of time. So these are the things I want to bring your awareness to, because productivity is simply the amount of value you create over time divided by time. So really minimizing the time you spend on your tasks will increase your value proposition for your employer. It will increase your rate of productivity and really streamlining your processes so that you can show up optimally so that you can have the highest productivity rate is so much fun.
Annie:
So the question then becomes, how do we actually increase the amount of value created? The first step is to think about how to work smarter, not harder. So I'm going to share a few things that will help you do this. Templatize guys templatize everything. Templatizing is great. Create a template for those emails that you send out consistently. Create a template for requesting receipts for your executive. Create templates for your agendas and things like that. Create a template for your meeting with your executive.
Annie:
Your one on one with your executive. Templatize, templatize, templatize. Another strategy to work smarter and not harder is to automate. Automate as much of the things as you can. That's why I really appreciate Trello for task management, because I've, I can put things in in my board automatically and they're set to auto drop in my board at the same time every year or the same time every day or the same time every week. It just is automated so I know I'm not going to forget things. Systematize, systematize, systematize as much as you possibly can. Batch similar tasks together so that it takes less time for your brain to switch from task to task.
Annie:
Gamify I really like this one because this is so much fun. I would actually challenge myself when I was working as an executive assistant to get things done in a shorter timeframe and then I track my times. So say, for example, I'm working on expense reports and it took me 2 hours to get expense reports done the previous time I did them. So this time I'm going to try and get it done in an hour or an hour and a half. Gamify is so much fun and adds a bit of joy to your work too, especially if you're a competitive by nature. And I wouldn't say that I'm competitive with other people, but I'm certainly competitive with myself. So gamification for me was a strong strategy in maximizing my productive output. So that's the first thing.
Annie:
Work smarter, not harder. Stop recreating the wheel, guys. Stop it. Think about how you can create a system and then stick to that system. The second kind of strategy for increasing the amount of value created is to start trading value for money, not time. So many of us there again are used to the nine to five, that sort of thing. But if you're actually trading value for money and not time for money, that's a great way to increase the amount of value created. See if you can get more done in less time.
Annie:
How can you increase the value you bring to the table without increasing the time spent creating that value? The third strategy for increasing the amount of value created is to stop assuming that increased productivity equals increased time, effort and stress. A lot of us, we just like to be stressed. It's not that we like to be stressed, it's just that we're in the habit of being stressed. So we need to stop assuming that increased productivity equals increased time and effort and stress. Start questioning how you're doing things. This is my last strategy. Look at everything you do. Start to poke holes in the belief systems that I just laid out for you.
Annie:
Start to question yourself, yes, okay. But if I were to be able to do this thing, if I were to be able to work less hours, what would that look like? Such a better question to ask. Also, poking holes in the effort. Do I need to effort more, or is there a way that I can streamline everything? Start poking holes. Just little tiny holes in those belief systems. You don't have to change overnight. But start questioning things. Just start questioning them.
Annie:
Okay? And next week, please join us because I'll be breaking down the one question every executive assistant should consistently ask themselves. This question has the potential to revolutionize how you work, increase your productive output, and improve your overall time management. So please join us next week for that podcast episode. And until then, be intentional. Be whole. That is all for now. I help assistants apply the concepts I share on this podcast. If you're ready to take your growth deeper and you're curious whether working with me in a coaching capacity is right for you, please email me at [email protected] to schedule your complimentary discovery call.
