Productivity 4.0 - NeoStrategy - Page 2

Before we go into PRODUCTIVITY, lets first understand how to know your STRENGTHS. There are some psychometric tests to find out natural traits/strengths. Gallup assessment is one of the most scientific and detailed assessment that is available. While most other assessments give some kinds of “traits”, Gallup assessment gives very detailed 34 different strengths spectrum. We will cover about STRENGTHS in detail in a separate course. To make it simple, let us assume you know your STRENGTHS scientifically or unconsciously. And pick some STRENGTHS names like Problem Solving, Ideation, Learning, Communication, etc. Assume that you have these STRENGTHS. Now how does PRODUCTIVITY works with respect to STRENGTHS?. When you invest consciously in your STRENGTHS the returns will come in multi folds..min 10x return. First of all, how many of us know really our STRENGTHS. Even if you know, do you really invest in your STRENGTHS? Most probably, no, almost certainly, you would focus on WEAKNESS areas to improve. So in this case what would be the STRENGTHS productivity when you are not investing and using your STRENGTHS. Very less, right?.

To improve STRENGTHS PRODUCTIVITY – 1) you need to first know your STRENGTHS scientifically 2) then invest and focus on your STRENGTHS systematically. BOOSTER for STRENGTHS PRODUCTIVITY is only one thing – continuously invest in strengths. Will discuss about BLOCKER in next lesson.

We have completed LIFE PRODUCTIVITY and MIND PRODUCTIVITY lessons so far. Lets move to our NEO concept of “STRENGTHS PRODUCTIVITY”. This is a very new concept and we are trying to develop it.  STRENGTHS itself is a relatively new concept. We will be creating a separate course on STRENGTHS and it is a vast subject.

From the context of this course – what are STRENGTHS? If you ask this question you would get an answer which would be mixed with role (delivery, management, operations, etc) and/or with skill (comes with repetition). These are not STRENGTHS. Actually STRENGTHS are natural feelings, thoughts and capabilities. What are the some of the symptoms of STRENGTHS – when you operating with STRENGTHS you are motivated, focused/in the zone and happy state. Where as when you operate with WEAKNESS you will be stressed out, distracted and unmotivated. But unfortunately in our culture we have been told and programmed to focus on WEAKNESS areas and improve them and ignore our natural STRENGTHS or take them for granted.  But times are changing. We need to be smart to focus on our STRENGTHS while managing WEAKNESS areas. What is STRENGTHS PRODUCTIVITY? It simply means how well you are using your natural STRENGTHS.

Even though you may have good LIFE & MIND productivity, you need to be able to leverage your nature given STRENGTHS otherwise your creation purpose will be lost/diluted. Hence the important of STRENGTHS PRODUCTIVITY.

Thats all for the introduction. More in the coming lessons.

We had started MIND PRODUCTIVITY with an introduction and then we discussed about the 4 BLOCKERS & 4 BOOSTERS. Just to refresh your memory and recap, below are those BLOCKERS & BOOSTERS.                                                                                      

Mind productivity is the most delicate and it needs more conscious effort to improve esp in the current distracted & hyper competitive world. My attempt here is to give you a framework and an idea on what can pull down your mind productivity and what can significantly enhance it. These BLOCKERS and BOOSTERS are not fixed. But these covers majority area. You can build your own BLOCKERS & BOOSTERS for your mind !!.

Now you know what is mind productivity, what blocks and what enhances the productivity. What to do next then?. First – go back and read all mind productivity lessons from the beginning. So that you can fully appreciate the power of it. Second – Do a simple math to understand where you stand with your current mind productivity. For this all you have to do is – put some approximate % numbers to your 4 BOOSTERS. Lets say each BOOSTER weightage is 25% and the total 4*25% comes to 100%. Against to those numbers put your current score (based on your current understanding). For e.g Mindfulness 15% against 25%. Like this..basically you need to come with a total % out total % of 100.  This simple math will given you an idea on how is your Mind Productivity and accordingly you can work your way up improve the %.  Lower the % means your BLOCKERS are more active. Watch out !!.

Mind productivity can be a huge competitive advantage for you while everyone else is getting distracted !!.

Next we will be moving to STRENGTHS PRODUCTIVITY. Very interesting concept – Neo Concept !!.

Whole crux of “Mind Productivity” is to be able to do DEEP WORK.  All the BOOSTERS like Mindfulness,Positive emotions and Healthy body would facilitate DEEP WORK. What is DEEP WORK and why DEEP WORK?

Even though the concept of “DEEP WORK” is old and people kind of knew about it, CAL NEWPORT is the one who brought this concept into limelight at the right distracted world !!. CAL NEWPORT is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. We discussed earlier about different MIND PRODUCTIVITY BLOCKERS like Multi Tasking and Distractibility. Deep work is the antidote for these BLOCKERS. Why it is so important in the current age and beyond? This is the era of specialisation and end of general & peripheral work. One end we have high distractibility and on other end only specialisation gets rewarded. For peripheral subject google is the source. Any one can talk or do basic stuff by known things from google. What differentiates is the “depth” of a subject. Out of thousands and millions only few gets attention. Those are the ones who does  DEEP WORK. Period.

Few examples – When you are building a product, you need go deep into all aspects of vertically and that is how your provide valuable product to your clients. When you are building subjects matter expertise the more deep you get in the more you get valued.

Basic difference is about touching subjects peripheral vs going deep. Deep work will be your most secret competitive advantage. id you understand it and use it well !!. For this you need to train your brain to be able to focus longer periods vertically deep. DEEP WORK book is a good read for you to to understand this subject deeply.

DEEP WORK is the DIFFERENTIATOR – for individuals and enterprises !!. Measure your current DEEP WORK capacity and improve from there…

Our third MIND PRODUCTIVITY BOOSTER is – POSITIVE EMOTIONS.  As per positivepsychologyprogram.com  there are around 26 positive emotions !!.  List goes like below.

1. Joy
2. Gratitude
3. Serenity 
4. Interest
5. Hope
6. Pride 
7. Amusement 
8. Inspiration
9. Awe
10. Elevation
11. Altruism 
12. Satisfaction 
13. Relief 
14. Affection
15. Cheerfulness
16. Surprise (the good kind!)
17. Confidence
18. Admiration 
19. Enthusiasm
20. Eagerness
21. Euphoria
22. Contentment
23. Enjoyment
24. Optimism 
25. Love
26. Happiness

How many of these emotions  do you experience on regular basis? Or how many of these emotions  have you consciously experienced?. Aim here is not to confuse with list of all positive emotions but just let you know many positive emotions you might be leaving on the table without experiencing them on regular basis and the impact on mind productivity.

Positive emotions are fundamental for mind productivity. When we are at our happiness state most creativity and deep work is possible. May be if you want to appreciate the impact of positive emotions on mind productivity look at how much unproductive you can be with negative emotions.

Cultivate positive emotions consciously and improve mind productivity !!.

Moving on to the second MIND BOOSTER – HEALTHY BODY, it is well known about the strong link between mind and body. If you want to improve mind productivity then there are two major ways – one is working on directly Mind (Mindfulness, Deep work, etc) and other way is keeping healthy and vibrant body. Easiest path is second one (relatively).

How body is linked with mind?. When body is in motion/moving it produces powerful and positive neurotransmitters in the brain like serotonin and dopamine. These neurotransmitters puts your mind in most high performing state. Better your physical body is better the production of these neurotransmitters.

Dopamine helps in both better motivation and focus. And Serotonin helps in mood and memory. How to get these neurotransmitters produced in the brain? Simple solution is – Physical Exercise. Hundreds of books and concepts have been developed on why physical exercise is important. While they are mainly focused on physical health benefits, I am trying to highlight here the real productivity gain you will get through physical fitness.  Your mind productivity gain % through physical fitness depends upon your brain’s natural production levels of Dopamine and Serotonin. For some, without exercise ,day productivity would be almost negative and for some people they can manage it without exercise also. But whatever may be the case you will definitely see good improvement. Do you have any experiences after exercise you see sudden surge of motivation and hyper focus?. Basically your brain got loaded with Dopamine !!.

Use the most easiest BOOSTER of Mind PRODUCTIVITY – Keep moving and get more productivity !!

We are done with the MIND BLOCKERS. Lets start with our first MIND BOOSTER – Mindfulness.

If there is one thing that is cure for ALL – that would be “Mindfulness”. For the time being you can interchangeably use meditation & mindfulness even though there is a difference. That’s not the focus here anyway.

If you type mindfulness in google news, you will see some thing like…

“Mindfulness can increase executive presence”..

“Mindfulness can increase productivity and creativity”..

“Mindfulness can reduce stress/anxiety”… etc

And in the opposite way almost all damages and issues happens due to lack of mindfulness !!.

Why suddenly so much focus on mindfulness? Two main reasons in my view. 1 ) As we saw in previous lessons there is a huge problem with attention span and distractibility 2) Now mindfulness is scientifically proved to be beneficial. It is an interesting dichotomy between mindfulness and distractibility. More people needed to be mindfulness but more are getting distracted. And finally science and spirituality (once upon a time) are merging to solve complex problems that human minds are facing.

So, how mindfulness is a Mind BOOSTER?. Obvious. Mindfulness can bring multiple benefits and substantially increases mind productivity. Mindfulness is key for deep work and for every other aspect of life. But the problem with mindfulness it is so simple that human mind gets bored to be mindful. Hence it requires lot of practice and patience. But if you can conquer this one then you can almost certain to get maximum life productivity, mind productivity and task productivity also.

How to practice mindfulness is an elementary question. There are tons of apps and courses on internet. Don’t ignore mindfulness just because it is free and easy to start !!.

Be Mindful.

Multi tasking is good or bad?. Long back one of my manager told me that I am very good at multi tasking. I thought it was praise and it was. But it won’t be a praise any more once you really understand what is the problem with multi tasking. Just to be clear I am not talking about Multiple Roles we play in our life, which is fine as long as when you play one at a time.

What happens when you multi task? You focus on multiple of tasks/things at a time. Wrong..Your brain cannot focus on multiple things at a time (except Sub Conscious mind – which can do multiple functions at a time). What it does is pay attention to one task and switch back to another task with some intervals. So basically your brain tries to switch between the tasks. What is the problem with this?. It should ok right?. Actually not OK because of multiple reasons.

• One is ,whenever you switch tasks there is some thing called “Switching Cost” – it basically takes time to come back to the last state of the first task. This means you end up spending more time (2X or 3X) to reach to its last state.
• Second problem is you are not going deep into either tasks. But “Deep Work” is essential to good performance. We will talk about this under MIND BOOSTERS.
• Third problem is you are making your brain very inefficient and damaging as well

Read the Stanford research about the dangers of Multi Tasking = > Multi Tasking Dangers

Multiple tasking is a major problem for many people..I do have the problem..It creates an illusion as if we doing great job but actually the output would be very minimal and damaging.

Multi tasking is a MYTH..Hope you got it !!

What is the most commonly heard word nowadays? ..Very easy ..STRESS.. When people refer to STRESS it is an umbrella of negative emotions. Some people can’t even name the exact negative emotion underneath it. It could be fear ( of any kind), competition, ego hurt, worry, etc. What happens when you experience any negative emotion? Would you be able to focus on your pursuit? Forget focusing ..you will go down psychologically and physically ( some times). But the trick here is you are present physically but mind is in the downward spiral. So most often we are there but not there. And the recovery time to come back to normal state could take 2X or 3X times depending upon individual’s emotional recovery capacity. This is very much invisible to the ‘other’ person. Only you would know what the real productivity lost has been.

If negative emotions are normal pattern (mostly) for you then it is all the way more damaging. So you need to really pay attention to the kind of emotions you experience on an average week. Analyse the triggers for your negative emotions and go to the root of it and see if it can eliminated or at least managed. Negative emotions not only impacts on MIND Productivity but also the LIFE productivity depending upon the severity of these emotions.  For this reason, I have included Negative emotions in both LIFE & MIND productivity areas.

For a week, take a log of negative emotions and the corresponding impact on the productivity. It impacts almost all areas and costs a lot.