Creativity & Productivity
What We Got Wrong About Creativity and Productivity
How can we get on track again? I introduce five root causes for decayed creativity and declined productivity.
Introduction
Millions of people suffer from creativity and productivity issues. It affects their physical and mental health. Therefore, they keep searching and investing. Finding sustainable solutions to problems takes time and effort.
However, sometimes we look for them in the wrong places and never see the solution. It is not only a waste of time, and unhealthy but also might kill our dreams.
Unless we identify and solve the root causes, they will keep bothering us even if we address the symptoms. Unless we handgrip these five issues, creativity and productivity might suffer.
Over the years, I read a lot about creativity and productivity and shared my perspectives on them in various posts. Of course, we all want to be more creative and productive naturally. However, most of the content I consumed seemed to touch the surface and missed the points preventing creativity and productivity.
When I experienced disliked some tasks or not enjoying them at all, I noticed that I was experiencing one or more of these five issues that I want to introduce in this post. Some of them are also interrelated.
The purpose of this post is to introduce five root causes that adversely affected my creativity and productivity. They were not only my issues. I also observed them in other people in my circles. When I reviewed my situation, I found out that one or more of these offenders adversely affected my creativity and productivity.
They are procrastination, distractions, severe burnout, wrong direction, and ineffective tools. In my opinion, if we understand these five points and address them quickly, most of our creativity and productivity problems can be resolved.
Moreover, if we are not terminally ill or experiencing extreme hardships in life, fixing these five issues might put us on the right track. Here are the five root causes of declining creativity and productivity.
1 — Unbearable Procrastination
Procrastination is a killer of creativity and of productivity. It is the manifestation of the conflict between our reptilian brain and the thinking brain. This conflict creates a dilemma.
One part of the brain aims to survive another to thrive. When thriving is perceived as a threat to survival, we experience this conflict manifesting as severe procrastination.
Procrastination became the #1 root cause of achieving my goals. My creativity and productivity suffered from untreated procrastination in my younger years.
When I reviewed my situation, I noticed that my procrastination was related to starting or completing tasks that were too broad in scope or too difficult to achieve. For example, when I aimed to write a best-selling book in my field, I procrastinated. But if I wanted to write a short article, I was able to start this specific task quickly as I knew I could finish it shortly and add value to my mission.
To start creativity, I just created a sentence on a blank page and then drafted an outline. As soon as I began in small steps, my attitude changed. The energy started flowing. More sentences came out of nowhere. I noticed that action generated more actions. Creating momentum for the task at hand has proven to be helpful.
Contrasting traditional advice, I aimed to start with easy things to get the dopamine running in the hungry brain. This approach worked for me each time. Self-help gurus recommend “eating the frog the first thing in the morning”. It is a great idea in the right context.
This might work for high achievers, but it can be a challenge if we are disgusted to eat a frog. Some love it with no hesitation. I love eating my proverbial frog first thing in the morning after rewiring my brain with many life hacks over the years. But it was not possible in my younger years. It required a transition period. This period might be shorter for some and longer for others.
Emotional disturbance sometimes may cause delays in starting or completing a task. Low self-esteem is a fitting example of emotional disturbance. I struggled to move the needle when the emotional disturbance took place.
Perfection has been a perfect procrastination tool. After understanding how effective perfection could be in causing procrastination, I refrained from it. The solution was a pragmatic approach. Focusing on iterative progress using the minimally viable product concept, I managed my creativity and productivity better.
I defined my goals quickly, made them easier in small chunks, and turned them into some fun to start with. Instead of delaying a plan to the next day, I attempted a small piece of the goals and finished it on the day I intended.
Leaving something doable today to tomorrow can make it more difficult to complete for various reasons. For example, the tasks might lose their importance. Or we might get distracted. Or new tasks can bury them in our growing lists. Therefore, I keep a backlog list for lower priority items. Learning effective backlog management has been a valuable skill for me.
2 — Uninterrupted Distractions
Life is full of distractions. Everything has the potential to distract us. I used to get easily distracted when I had many goals and gigantic to-do lists. After a while, not completing my to-do list at the end of the day created significant stress.
Accumulated stress affected my physical and mental health. My self-confidence was dramatically reduced. When many minor distractions happen, the brain cannot focus and pay attention.
Focus and attention are critical for creativity, sustaining motivation, and remaining productive. Meditation and mindfulness helped me to improve my focus and concentration. These simple tools are ideal for preparing us and dealing with distractions.
We have internal and external distractions. External ones are easier to handle. For example, in my case, my phone and the Internet on my laptop were two major sources of interruptions. Whenever a message came to my phone or laptop, I got side-tracked by them. The untrained brain loves instant gratification as it is usually hungry for a dopamine boost.
I eliminated distractions significantly via simple and preparatory tactics such as turning off the phone, closing web browsers on my laptop, and making everything ready before starting. However, social media tools are incredibly captivating by design; hence they cause unnecessary distractions from the tasks at hand. Thus, we need to watch out for social media use to prevent distractive addiction.
Another effective way to deal with distraction was scheduling a short time for a specific period and refraining from doing any other tasks during this particular period. This focused approach helped me to go into the flow state easily and quickly.
Time passes very quickly when we are in a flow state. The task at hand looks like a game. I know gamification is helpful to trick the brain. The brain loves fun and reward all the time. Consequently, seeing tasks as a game can trick the brain.
Here are nine distractions that I had to deal with. One of my solutions was to take an intermittent media fast. Social Media Fast Was The Best Decision For My Mental Health And Well-Being: How to overcome addictive and non-serving behavior.
3 — Disproportionate Burnout
In my earlier years, I did not understand the feeling of burnout. My stress was at a chronic level. To achieve something tangible, I added fuel to the fire day by day, hour by hour, and even minute by minute. The to-do list was like a life-or-death matter.
Being a workaholic is not fun. I thought that unless I did something every moment, I would not be able to produce any results. I disregarded breaks, so my stress got worse and worse due to the accumulation of trivial tasks. I forgot the astronomical cost of losing health on creativity and productivity.
Our body and brain have limited energy. They require replenishing. Experiencing mental and physical exhaustion can adversely affect creativity and productivity. We need multiple breaks each day.
After I started taking scheduled breaks every hour intentionally and consistently, I noticed a significant reduction in my stress. When stress goes down, creativity and productivity increase. We cannot eliminate stress totally. And we shouldn’t either, as we need a little stress hormone to keep us energetic for creating ideas and producing desired results.
Burnout can be caused by several other lifestyle factors such as nutrition, sleep quality, exercise, and even spiritual needs. Some of these points might require medical attention or intervention. Burnout is a serious health issue.
In addition to stress and anxiety, fear also might cause burnout. For example, fear of failure made my situation worse. When I couldn’t complete my to-do list, I feared that I might fail my job or studies.
In my case, unnecessary stress and anxiety from perfection and being a workaholic were major causes of my burnout. Fixing stress, anxiety, and fear is essential for increasing and maintaining creativity and productivity.
4 — Driving in the Wrong Path or Direction
This might look like a no-brainer to some, but there may be times when we work so hard but cannot achieve our primary goals. The struggling problem might be our wrong path or incorrect direction. Some of us might be heading in the wrong direction with high speed and a lot of petrol. The speed and energy do not matter when we are on the wrong road or moving in the wrong direction. We need a U-turn as soon as possible to reach our destination.
In my case, instead of stopping briefly and checking my map for assurance, I was driving 110 km per hour, the speed limit in my country, in the wrong direction. So, naturally, it was impossible to reach my target. I either changed my target or the direction I was driving to as a solution. This turned to be a lifestyle and philosophical matter for me.
For example, writing in a demanding genre might not be your strength. Or trying to appeal to the wrong audience in your writing genre could indicate being on the wrong path. When we are in the middle of a situation, we usually lose control. Or our brains create more blind spots.
When I understood this universal principle using this driving metaphor, the penny dropped. Just stopping shortly and looking at the map for my direction increased my creativity and productivity drastically. This is an exciting example of achieving more by doing less, as I learned from Mr. Wise.
5 — Using Wrong or Inefficient Tools
Tools are critical to complete our tasks timely and efficiently. Different tasks require different tools. It took me a while to understand the importance of the right tools in completing tasks effectively. When we use the wrong tools, physical or mental, creativity and productivity will suffer.
Wrong tools usually can be easier to notice, but identifying inefficient tools could be problematic to take longer to detect. Identifying both and addressing tools issues can significantly increase creativity and productivity.
For example, we need a spoon to drink our soup. Using a fork or a knife would not work. These are good examples of wrong tools. We need a computer to write an article. A mobile phone can slow us down. Or we need a writing platform to share our essays. Writing in social media will not help us reach our goals. These are examples of inefficient tools.
In addition, as understood even in ancient times, sharpening our tools is necessary to complete our tasks on time with less effort.
Final Words
Without understanding and solving the root causes of issues, they will keep occurring or coming back in different shapes and forms even if we address the symptoms. This is the case for creativity and productivity.
When I addressed these five major root causes adversely affecting my creativity and productivity, I experienced significant improvement. But, more importantly, being aware of these root causes also helped me prevent them from occurring.
There are, of course, many creativity and productivity hacks that we all can use to increase our capabilities in these two important topics. However, without addressing the root causes, those hacks might not work or may work inefficiently.
A simple question such as whether what we are doing now aligns with our mission and values can be helpful. Such questions can bring us in the right direction in our destination. Doing the right things at the right times is a crucial success factor for productivity. In addition, creating more unnecessary items will not make us productive.
It might sound paradoxical, but simplicity is vital in solving complex problems. Creativity and productivity are significant problems for millions of people. Unfortunately, some of us look for the answers in the wrong places.
One of the critical questions to ask regularly is whether we enjoy what we do to maintain our creativity and productivity. If we are not enjoying what we are doing, we might be experiencing one or more of these five issues in our lives.
The sense of making continuous progress gave me pleasure and helped me experience mastery at certain tasks. Moreover, ownership of a goal, mainly being proud of the process and outcome, always energized me.
In addition, I changed my self-talk from “I have to do this” to “I am enjoying this”. Rewiring my brain with this minor language trick paid dividends in increasing my creativity and productivity in a constant flow state.
Thank you for reading my perspectives.
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