Here’s How You Can Be Productive Even When You Don’t Want To

5 min readFeb 4, 2022

Many of us moan and groan as we get up on Monday morning. Some people are hesitant to leave their homes, no matter how beautiful a new work week starts. The hesitation stems from a desire for fulfillment and disdain for productivity.

Productivity is about working smarter and not harder. It means maximizing the output for the effort and time spent. Nevertheless, the road to productivity can be challenging. Being productive is all about taking action, remaining focused, and being strategic. When performed improperly, the effort involved might lead to fatigue and even melancholy. We are unproductive and dissatisfied as a result of failure and stagnation.

I believe it is human nature to avoid having things done every now and again. But when you hate being productive, that’s a problem. How do you deal with it? Here is a blueprint to help you become productive when you don’t want to.

Accept your unproductivity and let go

Do not beat yourself up when you find yourself struggling with being productive. The first thing you need to do is to accept your condition and stop the negative feeling. If you allow negativity to take hold of your mind, things would only get worse. Self-judgment simply makes things worse.You’ll be even more unproductive, which might lead to more misery for you and you’ll despise it more. Once you realize your shortcomings, let go of them and start fresh.

Take a break

If you are having difficulty completing a task, take a break from it. Sometimes your mind needs to rest or work on the problem you’re having in the background. During your break, you can relax your mind or maybe look for ways to work from a higher vantage point. This will give you an overall picture of what you’re trying to accomplish and you’ll be able to find a better way to handle it.

It may seem counterintuitive, but taking a break from a problem may be the most beneficial thing you can do, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. If you don’t take a break, you may be frustrated and this will in turn lead to unproductivity.

Look out for procrastination triggers

Procrastination is a productivity killer. When a task is confusing, uninteresting, unstructured, tough, or lacking in personal significance or subjective benefits, we procrastinate. You can overcome procrastination by reversing these triggers, and get more done. For instance, if you find the task boring, you can make some plan to make it more fun and enjoyable. If you find the task or project challenging, you can break it down into smaller chunks and set some deadlines to accomplish them. When you deal with these procrastination triggers, you can become more productive.

Prioritize the important things

Not everything is important. No matter how much you try to do everything at once, you might not be able to have a great result. You should prioritize things in a place of importance. Many people who struggle with being productive find themselves with ‘tens’ of things they want to do but get overwhelmed. Learn to focus on the vital things and work on other trivial things later. This makes your effort worthwhile.

Turn off distractions

Distractions can make you lose focus on the important things. This could come in the form of in-person interruptions, notifications, emails, social media, or texts. You get exhausted from a constant context switching of tasks. Fatigue can make you dislike productivity. Some people can make use of productivity apps to support them in dealing with distractions.

Schedule to maintain focus

You can effectively work on a task without losing concentration if you schedule your day. You can succeed in what you do by doing the following:

You should not overcomplicate a task
Set a timer for a task
You should leave distractions behind and enter a productive zone.
Make use of a clock to monitor your progress. Pressure makes you become more productive. With a time scheduled for a task, we have a feeling of urgency. When you have completed the time allotted to a task, take a short break and get re-energized.

Don’t focus on what you hate

Focusing on what you dislike in a job or task would not make you perform better. Let go of the negativity surrounding a situation and find other reasons to complete a task. Negativity could affect everyone’s performance if you are working in a team. Give no room to things you hate if you want to be productive in a task.

Develop and complete your attainable goals

We often hear people say they hate their jobs for obvious reasons. Sometimes, they are victims of circumstances and would not want to be productive. The best decision you can make in such a situation is to create your set of goals to make your work-life balance more meaningful to you. Those goals you set should align with your workplace initiatives.

Expand you skill set

Try taking a certification class or online course to help expand your professional development. A little productive distraction like this makes you better at doing tasks. When you have a new skill, it can open doors to different career opportunities. You can add value through learning, which is a good way to boost your productivity. When you learn more, you get new knowledge which you can apply at work and in your everyday life. Try searching for opportunities to grow or gain skills if your daily tasks bore you.

Become an early riser

People who wake up late often struggle to meet targets and become productive. Successful people rise early and tend to be more productive than those who wake up late. When you become an early riser, you have an opportunity to improve your performance at work. You have enough time to get tasks prioritized before others begin their day when you rise early.

Originally published at https://sabinegedeon.com on January 24, 2022.