7 Surprising Productivity Traps to Avoid in Midlife

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 244. I've been thinking a lot lately about how sometimes we need to shift the way we do things to match who we are and to match the season of life we are in. You're going to hear in this episode 7 productivity traps that I believe many people see stay in because they've just been doing the same habits all these years and I just thought we should discuss some of them, review them, so you might get to decide for yourself which ones you want to keep and which ones you want to discard. Because it might be time for a refresh. Let's go listen to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:54]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:18]:
And accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:24]:
Power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. Hi there.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:38]:
So today we're going to talk about midlife productivity traps. This topic has been something I've been thinking about for the past couple of weeks. I've been creating a lot more social media content lately. If you're not following me on Instagram and or TikTok, you can certainly do that by going to procrastination coach on either or both platforms. And you can notice that I've been talking about midlife productivity recently quite a bit and I have realized in creating a lot of content and trying to find what are the most important spots of information that I can pass on to people, I noticed that there was a theme, there was a theme of things that we do in midlife that we have just been in the habit of doing for decades prior to getting to midlife that really don't serve us in midlife and beyond because our bodies change, because our sense of time and our abilities change, because our needs change, and because life changes too. So I thought we would talk about seven of these traps, things that we are in the habit of doing that maybe we can shift in midlife so that we can actually make things easier for ourselves. We can have a more fun time while getting things done and we can just craft A productivity style that really suits us now that we have the authority and the proper age to do so. All right, the first productivity trap is multitasking.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:29]:
And this is something that I myself really love to do. I actually love having my hands in lots of different projects at the same time. But I myself have found that in midlife, the only way to actually get a lot done is to do things one at a time. And I think maybe when we're younger and it kind of works, you have a lot of energy, you might even have excess energy. But in midlife, you really have to focus carefully, focus diligently, focus on purpose, on one thing at a time, and really work towards your priority. Because oftentimes people are asking for your time the rest of the time. So instead of having your hands in lots of different projects all at once, I'm going to recommend that if you're in midlife or after midlife, in the older years, that you decide, no more of this being here, there, and everywhere. We're just going to decide it's okay and even wise to focus on one thing at a time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:38]:
I think you're going to find that you finish your tasks in a more simplified, kind of straightforward way. And when you do that, you end up, of course, celebrating the results that you get more often. So I just want to help you to feel better about your rate of progress and what you're actually producing. So remember, try to stay away from multitasking too much. All right? Trap number two for productivity in midlife is always pushing through. It's basically this idea that it doesn't matter how tired I am, I have to get this done. It's this feeling like your body and your energy doesn't matter. And I think in midlife, it really does.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:25]:
We need to protect our bodily integrity, our bodily health, and we have to definitely protect and nurture our store of energy so we can no longer run around thinking that we have endless energy and. And keep pushing through to the point where we're making ourselves sick, we're making ourselves exhausted, we are making mistakes, things like that. So I'm going to suggest that even if this kind of strategy of pushing through worked when you were younger, that you may now want to slow the process down a tiny bit so that you actually make sure that you succeed, so that you don't sacrifice your body in order to get any one particular result. Because I'm going to say in midlife and beyond, it's really not worth it. It's not worth the cost. All right, Trap number Three is ignoring your energy cycles. That means that you're pushing through and likely ignoring when you're in a high productivity phase and when you're in a low productivity phase. I myself have long known my productivity cycle across the day because as many of you know, I'm a psychologist.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:51]:
And when I was seeing clients day in and day out, throughout the day, I would notice very much at around 1:30, 2:30 in the afternoon, I would experience a real dip in my energy. So I decided to schedule myself for a lunch break, a walk around outside my office, when I had my office in Manhattan. And I decided I wouldn't be serving myself or any client that was scheduled in that hour because the dip would just be pretty dramatic. I would need to take a break. I would need that rest. And I think that holds in midlife as well. We can't, I think, go around saying, like, oh, yes, I'm going to get everything done, even when you know you're in a low energy phase, right? Or when you haven't slept well the night before, or if you've got a cold coming on. You really just have to abide by your body's rhythms and also trust that you're going to be able to get to it when the next cycle of high energy returns.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:02]:
I think sometimes the reason why we push through and we end up misaligning ourselves is out of the fear that we're not going to return to the same energy or to the same project even, and we're going to let things fall through the cracks. But I think, you know, in midlife we're all adults, we have responsibilities. We are people of integrity. So it's okay to say, I'm going to set this aside to respect my bodily cycle of energy. And I think midlife is this wonderful period where we get to say, you know what, I get to work this way now. I'm old enough, I trust myself, I get things done, and not everything has to get done on the spot. And. And that's a really wonderful productivity hack and productivity trick that you can use in midlife.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:57]:
All right? Trap number four is something that we can do at any age, and that is doing the mistake of over committing. That means your schedule's already full. That means you're saying yes even though you don't feel like it. That means you're saying yes even when you don't have the energy or the bandwidth to follow through. And you know that taking on this extra work or doing this extra favor for someone is going to put you over the proverbial edge. So in midlife, we have to learn how to say yes and no, really. Specifically, we have to be true to ourselves in midlife, because life is precious. Our time is precious in midlife, our energy is precious in midlife.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:46]:
And when we say yes indiscriminately, I think we get ourselves in trouble, honestly. And I think we cause sometimes tension with other people because they're thinking we said yes, we were on board, but all of a sudden we're not acting as if we're on board with the project. So in order to save everybody mountain of stress, just decide, if I feel it's a hell yes, I will say hell yes. But if it's not a hell yes, I'm going to say no. And I'm going to practice being okay saying no. Because many people grow up, go into their 30s, 40s, and 50s, never feeling really safe saying no. And I'm going to say, if you're in your 30s, 40s, and 50s, it's a great time to learn how to get comfortable saying no and deciding that you are safe, representing your best interests, representing and protecting your energy. It really will work out for everyone in the best way when you say yes and no properly in negotiations about how you're going to use your time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:01]:
Now, trap number five is a little bit different than the other ones I've mentioned. It's letting your emotional drains linger. Now, what does that mean? That means you're hanging on to emotional baggage. Things like resentment, things like guilt, things like anger towards people over things that might have happened a month ago or maybe even a year ago, where you're having these feelings that are from the past, but they're kind of interrupting your flow of feelings and your concentration, oftentimes in the present moment. And I think, again, midlife productivity is so valuable that we should protect it by clearing away any emotional baggage that we have by making amends with people, by apologizing to people if we need to, by addressing the resentment however we can. Right. We might need professional support or to talk it over with someone before we actually do this. But this is very, very doable.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:16]:
And the payoffs for getting rid of your emotional baggage are huge. Huge, Huge. Huge. Better than any schooling, I would say. It's when you have a clear Runway for your own thoughts, for your feelings, for your ideas to come through. It's amazing. And emotional baggage can really interrupt the flow of all that because you're thinking about the past. And when you think about the past, you oftentimes block your view of what's possible in the present moment and in your beautiful future.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:49]:
So get rid of the past baggage. It will all be okay. And it's oftentimes so worth it to just clear the decks, right? Clear the decks so that you can feel great about yourself and your relationships in the present moment. Productivity trap number six is caring too much about what everyone else thinks. Not only about what everyone else thinks, about what you're doing and your productivity and your choices, just what everyone else thinks in general. I think that when we put our focus on what other people are thinking all the time, we're actually depriving ourselves from focusing on ourselves, from focusing on developing our creativity, our genius, our getting things done ability, our well being and our health, our sense of flow and our sense of peace. So if you find yourself steeped in gossip all the time, or wondering what your neighbor is doing, or comparing yourself to Tom, Dick and Harry all the time, I'm gonna suggest that you think about this for a little bit. Think about, is this just an old habit that is carried through into your 30s, 40s and 50s and beyond, or is it something that you feel like you can't do? Because I'm gonna challenge that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:16]:
I'm gonna help you take a look at that and have you analyze that. How much time are you spending thinking about what other people are doing? You might find a missing hour or two for yourself that you can reclaim. Precious time that you can reclaim to get more rest, to get more exercise, to journal a bit, to complete that decluttering project, to find a new recipe to enjoy, to call an old friend that you've lost track of. All these things are really beautiful things that you can do when you decide you're not going to care so much about what everyone else is thinking. The last productivity trap that I have for you is neglecting rest and recovery in midlife. Really, it is true. Our bodies are going through lots of cycles of change. Physical change, emotional change, sometimes environmental change, right? Doing labor in a different way, taking care of parents, taking care of children, taking care of job responsibilities, taking care of the home, thinking about what's going on in society.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:28]:
It's all a lot of labor. And sometimes we sacrifice our rest, our sleep, our peaceful mind moments because we're thinking we need to tend to everything all the time, all at once. And that is a recipe for straight up overwhelm, straight up burnout, straight up feeling like you're not keeping up with everybody else. Straight up wondering if you can keep up even with your own wishes. So I'm going to emphasize the importance of rest here. Learn how to get to bed at a proper hour where you can get seven to eight hours of sleep. I know it's really complicated, but for so many of us to do that. But it is such a worthy goal because when you hit that seven to eight hours, you get that body detoxification, you get the full sleep.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:26]:
You get your brain processing what it needs to, storing things in memory, creating dreams to guide you forward, literal dreams to guide you forward and to give you messages about what you need to pay attention to, to what you need to let go of, what you can try going forward. It's all a beautiful process that happens when we sleep. And by the way, our nighttime sleep is not our only opportunity for rest. Rest can happen in any hour of the day too. It can happen when we're sipping a cup of tea, when we're petting our animals, when we're just taking a walk around the block. So allow yourself to be productive and to aim for great productivity, but also to know that that involves lots of different components in midlife, like self respect, like not pushing through all the time, like not multitasking like a maniac, like not avoiding rest. Because rest can be so beautiful and healing and peaceful and fun when we are doing things in midlife. So I hope you've enjoyed these comments, these reflections, these pieces of advice.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:42]:
And I hope that you try to get rid of some of these traps in your life starting today. Because there's no time like the present moment. Review what is relevant to you. Decide which changes are important for you, and decide you're the boss. Remember I say this often. You're the boss. You get to decide. You get to experiment.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:07]:
You get to improve the things you need to improve. And then come back and see me next week again on the Make Time for Success podcast. I will be here with another episode. I will be here rooting you on and supporting you in everything you do. If you'd like a free Download about the 7 productivity traps you need to avoid in midlife, go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/traps Again maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/traps and I will share that document with you and we'll stay in touch regardless. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next week. Bye.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:57]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also Visit our website maketime4successpodcast.com for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastinate Coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to, and let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:37]:
Talk to you soon.