"More productive, for what...?"
Published by Kristina & Breanne,
Posted by Breanne Smedley |
This week, I decided to get back into bullet journaling.
I took a break for a few months to try out the Full Focus Planner from Michael Hyatt.
Which I really liked, but didn’t give me as much freedom and flexibility as the blank pages of a bullet journal allow.
So, I started the process this week of setting it up.
Planning my days by 30 minute increments.
Time blocks to do deep work.
Places to track my daily habits.
Meal plans and grocery lists organized by area of the store.
Areas to write out my Dream Statement, Impossible Goal, and Affirmations.
Brain dumps.
And scheduling to ensure everything gets "calendared."
It’s a process, and I’m a little obsessed with it.
Why, though? I asked myself the other day.
Why do I feel the need to ensure everything is planned out and scheduled?
The answer, conveniently, came to me in a podcast with Micheal Hyatt himself.
As a fellow Enneagram 3, I related with him when he said,
"Productivity is not the end, it’s the means to an end."
Meaning, we have to know what the end goal is.
Up until this point, my end goal was just to be more productive so that I could be more productive!
Like a shark that needs to keep swimming to keep breathing, as Michael said, I was using productivity and the time saved to just pile more things on.
Yikes. Gut check!
Instead, he offered up this as the end game:
Freedom.
Productivity should lead to freedom, not MORE busyness.
Specifically...
The freedom to focus on what really matters.
In my family.
My relationships.
In my career.
Business.
To not be pulled by the fluff.
The freedom to be fully present.
To allow myself to be immersed in what I’m doing and who I’m with.
Not distracted by my to-do list or my phone.
Not rushing to another thing.
The freedom to be spontaneous.
The ability to stop what I’m doing to visit with a friend.
To have freedom in my day to be able to stop and take a call from the grandparents, and not worry that I’m missing what I could be working on.
To create memories for my family.
The freedom to do absolutely nothing.
To not feel guilty for resting.
To view "doing nothing" as something that is just as important as accomplishing the tasks for the day.
This is what I want the end goal of productivity to be.
The bullet journaling.
The scheduling.
The time blocking.
All to create memorable scenes for my life, for my family.
And to experience freedom.
Not to become more busy.
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