How to Increase Your Productivity Without Raising Stress Levels

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 273. So often we are told to work smarter, not harder, but I've just thought to myself that sometimes we don't know how to work without that feeling of hard. And I'm gonna share with you in this episode 5 strategies to get more done without that feeling of stress. I hope you really enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed creating it for you. Let's go listen to the episode together now. Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:41]:
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 and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full 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. Hello, my friends. I am so glad to be here with you today. I would like to share with you a few thoughts about how to Increase your productivity without increasing your stress level. You know that that is my vibe.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:35]:
I'm about doing more and feeling more yourself without stress. Actually, part of the way to do that is actually to say that stress is no longer welcome. It's not an assumed part of your daily life, and it's actually something to be avoided. And I think so often we attach productivity with increased stress, and that seems to put an upper limit on our productivity. And I just wanna blow that away. I just want you to completely change your mindset, your attitude, your belief systems about productivity if that happens to be the way that you've been thinking. We're going to change the mindset from everything is difficult, hard, and draining to the mindset of everything is happening for me. I can do this.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:35]:
This is going to be simple, strategic, and successful. And as you can hear just from my comparison of the two different mindsets, We wanna side with the latter one. We want to side with the part of us that already knows we're gonna get through this, that already knows that we're gonna enjoy feeling successful and accomplished and done with the project. And we already know that there's a better way through. So let's go through the thoughts that I have for you today about increasing your productivity without increasing your stress. The first strategy that I'm going to share with you is that you want to learn how to resist your resistance. I'm going to say that again. Learn how to resist your resistance.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:24]:
I was listening to my coach's podcast. His name is James Wedmore and his podcast is Mind Your Business. And in his most recent episode, he spoke about something called Kitlin's Law. It's K-I-T-L-I-N apostrophe S Law. Kitlin's Law. And that law states that when you write down your goals, you essentially increase the chances that you're going to make it through that goal. The habit of writing something down basically helps you to get clearer about what you're struggling with, and then it eases your way through to the end. So I'm gonna suggest that you use that today.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:15]:
Whatever big project you have, whatever big sense of your need for procrastinating on something today, write it down. First, write your goal. What is the end result that you wanna see? Why is this important to you? That alone should help to kind of free up your energy to say, oh, that really is important. Oh, I am really clear about where I'm going. If that doesn't help you to feel better about moving forward, I want you to write down another thing. I want you to write down what is your resistance? What is blocking you from moving forward? Is it a self-esteem issue? Is it a scheduling issue? Is it an anxiety issue? Is it you need more information type of issue? Is it that it's nothing in particular, but you didn't eat lunch and you feel hungry kind of issue, whatever it is, write the resistance down. So again, you have more clarity and you have more ownership of what is going on so that you can move through it. And the last thing I would love for you to write down is what will be your next action step.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:25]:
Simple as day, write anything that comes to mind. Oftentimes your first thought is your best thought. And make it small but specific and doable. So those are the ideas. The first thing is you're gonna write down your goal. What are you intending to do? The second thing is you're gonna write down what your resistance is and what it looks like and how it's affecting you. And third, you're gonna write down what you're gonna take as an action step. What are you gonna do despite your resistance, in spite of your resistance? And then you will have blown through your resistance.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:01]:
You will have resisted your resistance. When you think about it, all resistance is, is a block to your productivity. So you just wanna sweep it away, the faster the better. No big deal. You're just gonna say, that was no big deal to get through this resistance. I'm on my way again. So enjoy that process of resisting your resistance. I love pen and paper for all things, including goal accomplishment.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:29]:
So get on that train if you haven't been on that train with me in the past. The second strategy that I have for you is to start getting away from thinking that your time is a constraint on your ability to act. I will explain. Oftentimes we forget that things are just going to get done and we worry about how they're not gonna get done. And I myself have done this for, I would say, years at a time in my life. And of course, I've coached hundreds, if not thousands of people away from this kind of thinking. When we think we don't have enough time, we're just dribbling away our time, the time that we could be using for strategizing, for problem solving, for writing, for creating, for getting the answers to what we need, for putting the next step forward. So whenever you find yourself worrying about how little time you have, I want you to convert that into something that is productive because thinking about time is pretty much never productive because all we have is time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:38]:
How are you using the time that you actually have? Write down some thoughts about that. That will be productive. Thinking about how little time you have is not productive. The third strategy I have to share with you is you want to always remember to have a balance between your process and your progress. Again, you want to have a balance between your process and your progress. I will just spontaneously give you the example of creating these podcast episodes for you. If I thought too long about what is the content going to be for any particular podcast episode, this podcast would not be happening. I would not be posting one podcast episode a week because I would just be stuck in my head.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:33]:
I would be stuck trying to perfect the content. I would be stuck feeling anxious about was the content good enough for your ears? And it just would not be a happy process. So what I've been able to do over the past 6 years of this podcast is to decide I have a simple process. I'm gonna get a kernel of a thought of an idea to start with. I'm going to fill out that kernel of a thought of an idea with maybe 5 or 6 supplemental thoughts, things to back up that kernel idea. And then I'm gonna press record and I'm gonna go. But that pressing record and going with delivering and recording this podcast is the progress. The process is thinking about what the kernel is, what the supplemental thoughts are.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:25]:
But the real progress starts when I press record. This podcast does not happen without my taking action, without my pressing that button that sometimes seems scary, but most of the times is not. And these two components go together. When we overload ourselves with process, we just are overloaded. We're doing a lot of efforting, but we're not enjoying the results. Every time I press the record button here, I open the door to my feeling joyful, to my feeling like, oh, I'm done for the week. To my feeling like, oh, I've shared what I know with my audience, to feeling like, oh, I've crossed this task off my own to-do list. I've kept my word to myself that I'm going to do a podcast episode every week.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:16]:
So enjoy your process of thinking how beautiful your work is going to be, but then press the button. Do whatever you need to do. If it's pressing a button, for many of you it will be, press publish, press record, press send, whatever it is for you, get into action so that you're always in balance. So you're never feeling like you need to run and hide from your own work. So you never feel like procrastination is the smart idea for you because it basically never is. The fourth strategy I have for you is to know that you can heal your self-doubt through productivity. Productivity and getting things done is a wonderful way to just prove to yourself over and over again that you are capable of new things, that you are capable of growth, that you are capable of handling challenges, that you are capable of learning new things that you didn't think you were capable of. Before.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:23]:
So if you're ever stuck, in quotes, stuck, choosing between delaying and procrastinating and staying the same and growing and learning and doing something slightly different from your old routine, I'm going to ask that you choose the latter. Choose the part of you that is oriented towards expanding and having fun and growing because each time you do that, your self-doubt heals a little bit more. And I think that's wonderful. I think that's part of growing up, it's part of aging, it's part of being human to know what we're made of. Both the failures and the successful parts, they're both parts of us. So we really don't need to hide that part of us that is so afraid of failure, that is so afraid that we're not good enough because we really are. Let's just embrace the reality that you are good enough, that you are more than good enough. You're wonderful.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:26]:
So let's get rid of that self-doubt and open the road to more exploration and expansion and the real you, which is a very powerful, capable you. The last strategy that I have for you today is I would love for you to fall in love with yourself. Any negative feelings that are floating around, they are part of you, but they don't have to be the loudest part of you. So many of my clients, mention when we're doing coaching or I'm teaching a little something, they mention that they do a lot of yelling at themselves, whether it's for clutter or for unfinished projects or for going too slowly. That nasty voice comes in and says, oh, how come you didn't do that yet? Why is this still unfinished? How come you haven't learned how to declutter yet? And I wanna say those negative voices have had their time in our lives. Those negative voices have helped to motivate us in the past. They really have. But they've also caused us to feel less than ourselves.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:31]:
They've caused us to feel like we don't have it together yet. And I wanna suggest that we're old enough, whatever age you are right now listening to this episode, we're old enough to say, Goodbye. Goodbye to that negative voice. Goodbye to feeling badly at every turn. It's just too much of a time waste. It's too much negativity. It's too much unreality because our reality is we are good enough. If that helps you to get through, write it down.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:04]:
Use that pen and paper technique. Write to yourself, I am good enough. 4 words. That will change your productivity. 4 words that will prevent you from yelling at yourself yet again. 4 words that will help you to keep standing when you feel like, oh, you know what, now's my time to bow out. And I think we need those 4 words and we need to teach our loved ones those 4 words too, because why wouldn't we wanna feel good enough? It really helps with productivity. And it really helps to keep the stress away.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:41]:
When we are talking negatively to ourselves, and we will, I can't help you to eliminate that because we probably don't need to eliminate that. But if the negative voice starts to chirp again, just take that as a cue about what is going on rather than some sort of instruction that you need to go hide and be less than again, because you're not. Needing to hide, and you're not less than anything or anyone or anybody. So love yourself. Fall in love with yourself in a big way, gigantically, with big hugs, big pats on your back, big treats for yourself. Whatever makes you feel yourself, go get you those things and tell yourself, I am good enough. I hope you enjoyed this episode. It was a lot of fun.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:33]:
To share these strategies with you. If you'd like a free download to help you keep these strategies right next to you, should you choose to think about procrastinating soon, I want you to go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/rocket. Again, it's maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/rocket because your productivity is about to skyrocket. I will see you next week, same place, same time, Thursdays on the Make Time for Success Podcast. Have a wonderful week. Bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success Podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:19]:
You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.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 Procrastination 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. Talk to you soon.