The other day I came across a popular article on productivity. It ranked high in the search engines and thousands upon thousands of people were reading it. To be honest, the article wasn’t anything special. It had a good title and it listed out a couple of things that could make you more productive. But, at the end of the article, it talked about ‘loosing connections’ with people who distract you. When people use the word ‘loose’ instead of ‘lose’ my blood boils. I’ve seen it on a few professional signs offline and countless articles online. It’s a small thing that can take up my thoughts in a big way and make me really unproductive.
It’s All Small Stuff
That popular book called Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson says ‘It’s all small stuff!’
I’ve come to learn that, for the most part, there is nothing that is so big you can’t get over it and get back to your life and being productive in it.
You may need to change a few things here and there, but despite what pops up in your life, you can always find a way to keeping working on what you want to achieve.
Perhaps a coma or a big physical or mental illness may derail you from being productive in life. But, for the most part, we tend to lose our focus over things that are not going to impact our lives in the long run.
To be honest, not much is going to impact us negatively.
We are amazing beings with the ability to think and create from those thoughts. That makes us superheroes in a sense. We can overcome problems and fight bad situations in life by harnessing our thoughts.
For instance, let’s say you make a million dollars and then lose it all with bad financial decisions. It’s not the end of the road. If you were able to create a million dollars in the first place, then you have the ability to create another million dollars, and, with your newfound experience, keep it! So, if you can avoid focusing on what happened, get back to thinking about how you will make your million again, and then start taking action on those thoughts, you are golden.
Sweating Small Stuff Can Go On And On And On
This tip is important to managing your attention. The fact is that sweating one thing can lead you down a road of sweating one thing after another. This is because one negative thought often leads to another and before long you have a list of stuff that is stressing you out and affecting your productivity.
If you can’t get your attention off the small stuff, then you could spend more than just a few hours or a day not being productive. Years, or worse, your entire life could be wasted on focusing on the wrong thing.
For instance, I have a friend who wanted to start a YouTube channel. He is an excellent guitar player, and he wanted to make excellent guitar videos. But, when he saw other people getting millions of views simply by playing air guitar, while his well put together videos weren’t even reaching 100 views, he couldn’t stop focusing on it. It took him a year to find the right thoughts that got him back on track and making YouTube videos.
I know some people who never even bothered trying again.
This is why you need to let go of things and move on. Keep focused on what is in your control and don’t sweat the stuff that isn’t in your control. You do not want to give anything out of your control years of your productivity!
Action Trumps Everything
Action trumps everything is an affirmation that will help you see everything in a new light. If something isn’t in your control, let it go. But, if something is in your control, you can take action, and reduce your worry, stress, and anxiety to almost nothing.
Taking action makes you feel like you are at least trying to overcome issues and pursue the life you want. Even if things don’t work out the way you expect, it feels much better to say that you tried to fix or do something than it does to sit around and sweat the small stuff.
For instance, when I read that popular post with the word ‘loose’ instead of ‘lose’, I took action and got busy working on my blogs. I didn’t sit around and ponder their success. I didn’t sit around and complain about how I felt like I was putting in more work than them. I just got busy working. I realized that it’s in my nature to work hard and pay attention to finer details, and then I got busy doing that!
My friend realized that he was beyond air guitar and whether or not he got the views, he wanted to put his best self out there, and so that’s what he did.
Bottom Line
If you want to be productive, you can’t sweat the small stuff because there is always small stuff that comes up to sweat! You need to get past it and get on with your life.
