Ways “Slow Productivity” Benefits Business Owners

Some people like to go, go, go a million miles an hour. That’s great when you’re intentional about it! But if you feel like you’re running on an infinite hamster wheel and it’s stressing you out, maybe a different approach will work better. 

Maybe instead of trying to spin a hundred plates in the air using technology, you remove some of the plates you really don’t need to be spinning. Less tech and fewer plates might set you free for bigger and bolder opportunities.

Sometimes going analog is better for you and your business, even if it’s slower, compared to relying on tech to keep your speed up with the Joneses. January 23 is National Handwriting Day. Do you handwrite anymore?

If you type everything, you’re missing out. Writing creates a hand-brain connection you can’t get from typing and has been shown to help you remember things better than if you type your notes. 

Also, you don’t need a screen to write, so you can journal at the end of the day before you go to sleep. Get all the things hanging out in your head on paper, with no blue screens to keep you awake, and see how much easier it is to sleep at night.

Going analog, and/or slowing down, can benefit some aspects of your business.

Some tech is bad for your brain and therefore won’t help you be more productive…

Notice I said some tech, not all tech. Because there are a lot of apps that can help you work more effectively.

You might or might not remember the Rolodex. That was the customer relationship management (CRM) system available in the late last century. It was set up alphabetically, and you had a little sheet of paper for each contact. 

You could write the person’s phone number down and their physical address. Or you might tape the person’s business card (if they had one). You could reshuffle them as needed to keep the list in alphabetical order.

That’s a lot of work. Your CRM app (if you’re an entrepreneur and don’t have one yet, go get one) sorts your contacts for you and you can run reports, such as who you haven’t spoken to in the last few months. 

You can put contacts in different categories, attach your meeting notes, send emails that will be recorded in your CRM, generate birthday or special day notifications, and a whole host of other things that are impossible with a Rolodex. So clearly the software is more productive than going analog for contact management.

However, that’s not true for all technology.

There’s literally almost nothing productive about social media. Each platform is designed by the engineers to tap into the same reward systems of the brain that addictions do, so that you’ll stay on the platform longer and they can make more money through selling ads.

Having said that, I do use LinkedIn for my business. I think in the 2020s at least if you own a business you have to be on a social media platform for prospects to find you. Social media is a tool to bring prospects to you and hopefully allow them to build trust in you. But it’s not productive to spend a lot of time on there. 

If you have an online commerce business and you automate the process from when a prospect clicks on your offer on social media all the way through checkout and shipping, that can be productive since it frees you up for other things. However, service-based businesses don’t typically work that way.

And if you really don’t want to be productive, load social media on your phone and allow all notifications. You’ll be so busy with your phone vibrating or flashing or chirping or whatever that you’ll have exactly zero time left over for anything else!

Smart phones can often be a hindrance when you’re trying to work effectively. Any notifications you have enabled will interrupt you and you’ll lose focus on what you were doing previously. Fine if you were attending to an email, horrible if you were trying to focus. Fewer notifications will make you feel less stressed as well.

Phones are also a hurdle when you want to sleep at night. Although the evidence that blue light disrupts sleep is a bit more mixed than we previously thought, you’re still not helping yourself when you look at your phone before you go to bed. 

If there’s a problem, what are you going to do about it? Nothing, and stressing about it will prevent you from falling asleep. There’s nothing on social media more important than sleep, especially if you want to be productive at work, so there’s no point in scrolling before bed either.

So many people tell me they want to read but they don’t have time. Sure you do. Put the phone down and pick up a book. Even better if you do this in the hour before bed. (Though you might not want to read a thriller or other book you’re having a hard time putting down!)

…Even if the app is supposed to improve your productivity

I often find that clients are either under-organized or over-organized. Either they have a lot of notebooks, browser tabs, digital files, etc., or they have a system that takes their people way too long to wade through. Sure, there are file folders and Gantt charts and Kanban boards, but it’s hard for employees to find the documents and tools they need to use.

Organizing files, apps, etc. is great - don’t get me wrong, I’m never going to recommend that you not do it! But you do have to understand the processes you and your employees go through and whether they’re spending too much time trying to access their work instead of working.

In other words, don’t get so sucked into the allure of technology that you forget it needs to be usable and to make everything more accessible to you and your staff, not less accessible.

I know there are some time management apps out there, and there may be some companies and some industries where that’s useful. Or you might need to spot-check how long a task should take, so you can help yourself or staff members allocate their time in a smart way.

However, asking your people to input how much time they spend on different tasks can easily lead to people spending more time on tracking and less on working. It may seem faster to track time using tech, but it results in fewer accomplishments.

“Slow productivity” helps your brain be more effective and recover better

The human brain didn’t evolve for the technology we have in the 21st century. The vast majority of our time as Homo sapiens was spent hanging out with the tribe, or scavenging, hunting, and gathering food. We did a lot of physical exercise, and we spent quite a bit of time outside.

Back then human brains didn’t need to focus for hours and hours at a time. You probably wanted to be focused while you and your pals were out hunting for food, but that was in short bursts and not a long duration of sustained concentration.

And mostly you did one thing at a time, because that was all that was necessary. After you got enough food, you could relax with your tribe. There was no reason to try to combine hunting with, say, making cave art. There was enough time to accomplish the important things like making shelter and getting food and still enjoy family and friends.

Your eyes were adapted to look over longer distances and natural scenes. You didn’t spend a lot of time looking at anything super close to your face, the way we now do with screens. Our brains adapted for the natural world, not what the past few centuries have brought us.

If you’ve ever trained for a triathlon or marathon, or you’re a serious weightlifter, then you’re probably familiar with the term active recovery. Those are days when you don’t go hard or long. You might crosstrain, or walk instead of run. But you don’t just sit in a chair and binge on streaming shows. Your body needs some downtime, but not to be “turned off” completely.

Your brain never shuts off, because when it does, you’re dead. But consciousness is shut down every night to allow your body and mind to do some repair work, encode learning, flush out waste, and a bunch of other tasks that can’t be done when you’re awake and take 7 to 8 hours to complete.

When you think about what you do during the day, your brain is doing a lot. Making decisions, strategizing, dealing with numbers, and other difficult concepts that other animals don’t. Your brain needs some rest, but like your body when you’re training, it needs active recovery – not passively watching streaming shows all the time.

What’s active recovery for your brain? Things like hobbies, making art, playing an instrument. Talking to friends and family. Maybe participating in a sport or taking dance lessons. No screens, no social media.

Working for long hours every day is counterproductive. Your brain is not a machine or a computer. It’s complex – much more complex than computers are – and it needs care in order to function. 

You’ll have an easier time focusing and making good decisions if you give your brain active recovery the night before.

You’ll also have an easier time doing one task at a time rather than trying to do three things at once. It may feel slower, but your brain finds it a lot easier to handle. That gives it more juice to make wise business decisions.

Recap (tl;dr)

Tech can both help and hurt when it comes to productivity, so you need to think carefully about what you’re using and how you’re using it. Our brains evolved in a non-tech environment, and paying attention to your brain’s needs will help you improve productivity.

Want to be more productive as a business owner? Schedule a free call with me if you’d like some help powering up your firm’s productivity.