The following article is a guest post by Crisshaun Nelson-Jackson
Productivity advice is wasted on 90% of people. Why? Because while it’s true that they can often make better decisions about what to do…
Knowing WHAT to do with their time is wasted if they can’t ACTUALLY get themselves to do it when they say they will.
When I had the biggest issues with work-life harmony, it wasn’t because I didn’t know my most important tasks, 80/20 my schedule, so on and so forth…
It was because something that should’ve taken me 2 hours took me TWELVE HOURS.
Hours usually bloated with youtube videos…
Overdone research….
Revisiting entire courses to make sure ”I know what I’m doing.”
Taking ‘breaks’ from work I hadn’t started yet…
So on and so forth.
And this is true for most, to one degree or another.
Before people can become productive, they must first become autonomous.
They have to be able to govern themselves. To control how they act and when.
How to Make Your Productivity More Efficient
KD: That’s so true. Without automating your productivity, there’s no way to succeed as an entrepreneur.
Any aspiring copywriter should have a disciplined and consistent process for how they work. Can you share how you were able to automate your productivity?
CNJ: So what I’m saying here isn’t about automation, it’s about autonomy. Self-control.
KD: Oh ok, but even then, I think being able to control yourself requires some actionable process that helps with consistency. And part of that requires automation.
For example, I have to post content weekly.
That’s my metric for self-control or being autonomous. Do you have a process for how you maintain autonomy?
CNJ: Yeah.
I basically follow the science of habit formation.
Which is essentially the law of cause and effect as it applies to human behavior.
I get clear on the behavior I want to perform.
I set the context for that behavior. (When I’ll do it, where, and how)
I start performing that behavior in the way that gives me the highest likelihood of success. (Which usually means starting small)
And then I positively reinforce that behavior to make it more likely to happen in the future.
And I loop this until the behavior becomes habitual… and I systematically grow the behavior from there.
KD: That’s great! And how’s that been working for you so far? Because earlier you mentioned, it’d take you 12 hours to do 2 hours of work. How do you keep yourself from falling back to that cycle of inefficient productivity?
CNJ: It’s been great. It’s been great.
And the system itself helps prevent slides back into huge levels of inefficiency.
Or rather, it makes the slides back into inefficiency much smaller over time.
I still have bad days. But I USED to have bad MONTHS. And bad WEEKS. And I don’t have those any more.
I’m actually making my first digital product around this.
So I’m working out the best way to package it for other people’s consumption now.
KD: Congratulations on the digital product! We’re looking forward to promoting its release at The Copy Cartel.
CNJ: Sure thing.
KD: Awesome. Appreciate the insight into productivity as well.
CNJ: Very welcome dude.
Crisshaun Nelson-Jackson is a copywriter who helps Health & Wellness ecom stores scale and automate sales through email marketing. To work with him, you can contact him here at Power Copy
