Welcome to Healthy Ish. Thanks for joining us on the Body and Soul podcast. I am Felicity Halle Now. Organizational psychologist and executive coach. Simmy Rayett wants us all to feel productivity joy. Yes, this is the name of her new book, and she is here today to discuss why you may struggle with productivity and how many tasks we should tackle each day to feel joy, to feel like we're getting stuff done. Make sure listening to our sister pod extra Healthy Ish, where she shares her five minute
formula to be more effective in your day. You can catch that one wherever you get your podcasts. Simmy, thank you for joining us today on Healthy Ish.
How are you?
I'm really good, Thank you? How are you?
Yeah, well, I'm actually very excited to talk to you because this is right up my ali, how to be more productive in your workday. It's something that every single listener and all of us want. What typically hinders people from achieving what they want in a day?
Yeah, Look, I think there's a couple of things.
One is just having.
So much to do and having a lack of clarity on what are.
The things that really.
Will move the dial and that are the most meaningful and important, so I call them the high impact task. So that lack of clarity can make it harder to prioritize your goals, prioritize what you need to get done. And then also it can make it easy to get sidetracked, and we can then spend our time being busy rather than focusing on those impactful tasks. I think the other
thing is energy and focus. So quite often, you know, if we've got limited physical energy or emotional energy, we can feel fatigued and it's so hard to stay focused and motivated. And then there's also the distractions like emails and vocals and notifications.
Worry and stress.
All these things can really hinder us from being able to achieve what we want in the day.
Well answered, And you're so right about the distraction. I mean I find it myself.
I go into Instagram and I'm like, oh, I just need to research this person, and then I'm on there for fifteen minutes and then I'm like, oh, what was I supposed to do? On he here again? It is so frustrating. You've got some different thinking patterns well three, that some of us can fall into when we put off things or procrastinate or overthink. Can you talk us through these well thinking patterns?
Yeah, So the three thinking patterns, as you said, is what I refer to is action bias, procrastination, and overthinking. So if we start with action bias, this is that tendency to really urge ourselves to take action, to do something because we feel that if we are taking action, at least we're making some kind of progress. And often that's in a response to us feeling anxious and that we need to feel busy, so we'll quickly dive into things, perhaps not planning or preparing. So a lot of people
experience action bias. The other one is procrastination, and this is essentially rooted in fear.
It's a fear of either you know we're going to fail.
We're not going to be successful, perhaps you know others are going to criticize us. So this is really about delaying what we really need to get done, so you just put it off and you kind of leave it till the last minute. And then the third one is overthinking, and this is where we essentially just think so.
Much, we analyze, and we.
Just avoid making a decision because we're so worried about making the wrong decision, we become really indecisive, and we can then stagnate in moving forward, and that over thinking can really paralyze us from taking action, making progress, and we can stay stuck. So they're the three thinking your patterns.
Is it normal to oscillate between the three or are you just one? Does one type particularly dominate someone's thinking.
It's a great question because most of us tend to have a tendency to fall into one of those three, and it's really important just to try and recognize which of those three is you because it will be your general preferred style and once you're aware of it, you can then take steps and actions to help with that.
So, yeah, tendency is to fall into one of the three.
In the beginning, you answer that we have so many things to do. I mean, you've been in this space for a while. Do you think I have to lists have got bigger?
Yeah, yeah, I really do.
I think the demands placed on us at work, in our businesses, in our home life, in our personal life is so much more. We're trying to do a lot more with less in you.
Know, quicker time and speed, and you know a lot of people don't want to let others down, so it's hard to say no or decline things.
There's a lot of new We call it the shiny syndrome, the shiny object syndrome, where we get distracted and we want to move on to the next thing we don't want to miss out. So FOMO is really apparent and clear for many people as well. So we placed a lot of demands on ourselves, and that to do list
is not getting any smaller. And the thing is, we might even knock off a few things off our list because we're actually all doing a lot of things, and then the list is still growing and growing, and at the end of the day or end of the week, you still feel dissatisfied, unfulfilled, and it can feel really overwhelming or that you're just stuck in that ongoing rout.
So you've got well a magic formulaere I call it one that spoke to me personally about how many tasks we should tackle in a day that perhaps can stop those feelings at the end of the week of not being able to get anything done or not ticking off the list. What is the magic number of tasks we should tackle per day?
From your expertise as psychologist, thanksfull.
As do look, the magic number I believe and from the research and trialing and testing the web that we've done is limiting your task to three high impact tasks a day. Now, you know some of your listeners over that you're, oh my god, I have so many more.
Yes, maybe twenty.
Yes, yes, and then completely get it, completely get it. But if in terms of planning your day, if you really focus on the three, limiting it to three core tasks, it really prevents that sense of overwhelm. It makes your day more fulfilling and achievable and a more of a focused day. And it helps in terms of your cognitive load because our brains are equipped to handle a limited number of complex.
Tasks in a day, and.
When we're committing to three high impact primary tasks, you're reducing that cognitive load and you're really increasing your chance for real success. So also, having three high impact tasks means that you can leave space for any unexpected demands or even opportunities that may come up in your day. So I know I say three. In the book, we share a way to pick and choose and help you
select what your three high impact tasks are. Think if you did that every single day after a week, you would have completed.
Fifteen high impact tasks. In a month, in.
A working week, you would have completed sixty high impact tasks.
Wow, that really sounds impressive.
That speaks to me that number seem Thank you so much for coming on healthy Ish.
Thank you so much for listening.
Well, if you do want to feel energized and me more effective in five minutes a day, grab Seem's new book. It is called a Productivity Joy. Doesn't the title just make you feel joyous?
Well? Her book is out now now.
If you do have any ideas for upcoming apps on healthy ish or Extra healthy Ish anything before Christmas, dmme at Felicity highly across social media, anything else, head to Body and soul dot com, dot you follows on socials. Grab our print edition which is out in your local Sunday paper. Thanks again for listening, and stay healthy ish