This Productivity Tip Will Make Your Relationships More Interesting
How to use Design Thinking to supercharge your productivity (part 4)
Design Thinking is a creative problem-solving approach that helps you understand people’s needs, think creatively, and produce innovative ideas. It’s like putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, exploring a problem from different angles, trying out new ideas, and learning as you go.
In this fourth article of five, we will explore another key principle and how you can apply it to make yourself more productive.
On to today’s article!
I’m the daughter of a winemaker.
When people ask me if I enjoy crushing grapes with my feet, I laugh in their faces.
There are only a handful of places on Earth where people still crush grapes in this way.
Besides, as romantic as it might sound to some, would you really want to drink something that somebody has crushed with their feet?
No, me neither.
Why am I telling you this?
Because inefficiencies occur at work, when people assume that there is only one way to do something.
And inefficiencies mean more unnecessary tasks on your to-do list.
Having to rework what you’ve done because you’ve come across a better way of doing it halfway through a task, is a waste you can avoid.
If you always complete your work a certain way, you may be inadvertently crushing the grapes with your feet, instead of using the hi-tech machinery that can save you days of effort.
So, how do you know if you are the feet grape crusher, or the hi-tech machinist?
Before you begin working on anything, you should look at the problem from different angles.
What does this mean?
Very simply, it is the art of considering other perspectives, not just of other people, but also gleaming best practice from other aspects of the world we live in.
With my clients I often explore what they can learn from companies outside of their industry, their favourite sports teams, or even nature around us.
If you’re an investor, you can learn as much from orchestra conductors and honeybees, as you can from Warren Buffett.
You just have to look hard enough.
Why is this important for productivity?
There’s a great quote by David Foster Wallace that helps explain this:
“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
We are living blindly.
In the lifestyles we lead today, it’s common to:
Favour ideas that confirm your existing beliefs, instead of exploring all the options available to you.
Stick to habits without questioning whether they’re still useful, instead of challenging them.
Be unable to adapt or pivot and end up falling behind, instead of keeping your skills sharp and at the leading edge of your industry.
See your motivation drop because there’s no variety or fresh challenges, instead of always feeling eager to go.
Work hard on the things that don’t move the needle, instead of taking small life changing steps each day.
When you want to work with numbers, you use a spreadsheet.
When you want to write words, you use a word processor.
It’s the same thing with getting stuff done.
When you want to be productive, you use the right tools.
By understanding the wider world landscape, you’ll be more innovative in your approach to doing the tasks, which can save you hours of time.
For example, this mindset will help you tell the difference between when you need to choose a well facilitated workshop with sixty people, over sixty ordinary 1:1 meetings.
When you choose the right tool for the job (in this example, bringing together the right people, with the right information and in the right environment) it takes less time overall to complete the task or solve the challenge, which will save you hours of time.
Not only that, but by broadening your skillset and learning about topics that you wouldn’t normally read about, you become more interesting too.
A bonus not just for your productivity, but also your love life!
Unless you explore all approaches to the challenge you’re facing, you may miss creative or innovative ideas that could save time, reduce effort, or improve your results.
Selda, sign me up! I want to get more done AND be more interesting! But how?
Read and listen widely.
A variety of topics gives your mind lots of rich input which helps you with the next point:
Practice lateral thinking.
By learning to connect random topics together you can explore things that are outside of your normal ‘field of vision.’ I.e. if you are an accountant, read about Formula One, what can you learn from how Red Bull conducts their pit stops, which might be useful in how you process a clients’ accounts?
Involve diverse people or put yourself in other peoples’ shoes.
In the last article, I talked about avoiding “perspective blindness”, a term coined by Matthew Syed, where if you put people of similar backgrounds together, you’re likely to get similar thoughts, leading to a lack of diverse thinking and a ‘samey’ output.
Consider emotional, socio-economic, and other environmental factors.
For the same reason that Houston airport once moved its baggage belt further away from the arrival terminal, to reduce the expectation of long wait times, it’s important to consider other behavioural aspects to how you do things. A persons’ perception of what is occurring, can massively impact the way they feel about it.
Observe life.
Live your life and take notes on what you notice. What similarities can you draw from what you’re observing to the work you’re doing?
The takeaway
You may be inadvertently making your life more difficult by choosing the wrong tools for the tasks on your to-do list.
But you won’t know this until you look at the problem from different angles, and gather alternative ideas that challenge your thinking.
We can learn something from every situation, person, and thing that we encounter.
When we apply that knowledge to the work that we do, we can create a flywheel of innovation that leads to a fun and fulfilling week in the office.
I don’t about you, but that’s the kind of week that I prefer to look forward to on a Sunday night.
How about you?
What have you read recently that might spark an interesting idea about how you get things done?
Have a great week.
-Selda
P.S. If you’d like to learn more about how to build a life you love, here are a few ways I can help you:
Personal guidance and coaching to find more hours each day:
Double your productivity and do more of what matters to you:
🚀Supercharge Your Productivity: Take the stress out of your week and juggle all of your jobs without working yourself to death
⚖️7 Proven Strategies to a Better Work Life Balance: Spend less time at work and more time on the things you really want to do
Nicely written, short and concise, thanks for sharing, Selda.
Great points, Selda! I have always believed that the process is more important than just looking at the goal. Loved hearing your article. Let;s stay connected.