Most of us spend our time at work trying to be productive. We generally think this means doing as much work as we can in the course of our day. And yet, at the end of the day, we end up thinking that we haven’t done enough.
Distractions at Work
We may find that we spent most of our time performing chores that don’t seem that important. Or maybe we got sucked into conversations with coworkers which took up our time. Or maybe we simply got distracted with online shopping. Either way, the result is the same: we find that we haven’t spent that much time doing the things we really want to do.
Mundane vs. Creative Tasks
Most of the time, the problem is not that we didn’t work hard enough. We probably worked really hard, but we spent our time doing things that weren’t that important to us. For example, maybe you spent your time on the day-to-day running of your business, to make sure that everything went smoothly. But maybe you didn’t spend that much time on creative projects such as developing a new product.
Creativity Is Scary
Most people postpone the creative tasks because creativity is scary. What if the new product is not as good as the old one? Or what if you think it’s good, and you launch it, but people don’t like it? Doing something new is always threatening, so we tend to keep putting it off.
Prioritizing Creativity
Let’s say you did the opposite. What if you were to tackle the creative tasks before the mundane ones? Or what if you were to alternate one mundane task with one creative task? What would this kind of day look like? At the end of the day, wouldn’t you feel a lot more satisfied with your day? Wouldn’t you feel like you had been more productive? For most people, there is a certain sense of satisfaction that comes with creativity—a satisfaction which makes them believe that their day was productive, after all.
So the next time you feel like you’re stuck in an unproductive loop, ask yourself what creative project you are ignoring and try to make some space for it during your day.