The productivity issue: how to get more done in less time

As discussed in a previous article (Ratcliffe, 2019), utilising habits can be a powerful motivation for good and enables us to turn on our internal autopilot. By making desired habits more obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying, we can encourage healthier or more productive routines. For example, if you keep your gym clothes handy near your desk and reward yourself with a healthy drink afterwards, you make it easier and more rewarding to go to the gym, which makes you more likely to do so. In this sense, positive habits allow us to keep up the pace of our lives and work.

However, habits can also have a negative impact on our lives. For example, they can destroy our attention span. In today's connected world, we receive a constant barrage of instant notifications, in addition to physical interruptions, which fragment our train of thought. You get an email from your manager, so you stop doing what you are doing to read it, so that you can respond quickly. You receive a notification that a friend has posted a picture of you on a social media site, so you stop what you are doing to view it and review any associated comments or likes. This steady stream of daily interruptions prevents us from getting one thing done properly.