Productivity Habits

My primary professional focus is supporting lawyers to develop competencies in Legal Project Management and Legal Process Improvement, and my primary personal focus is productivity. I’ve read extensively on the subject of productivity and also worked with thousands of lawyers to develop competencies and new skills to change their ways of working. Often these two areas overlap, and I have worked with many lawyers to improve their personal productivity by synthesising the disciplines of LPM and LPI with the tools and habits of productivity. I’ve distilled all of my experience and research into a snapshot of the most common productivity habits.

10 habits of highly productive people

1. Be disciplined about the basics

2. Maintain a healthy body and positive mind

3. Ruthlessly prioritise

4. Focus on what is important, remove the unimportant

5. Allocate time for the important things

6. Use every minute

7. Allocate time for rest and rejuvenation

8. Get in the zone and stay in the zone

9. Create the right environment

10. Good enough is good enough

Productivity Foundations

Habits 1 and 2 are foundational habits, these underpin your ability to apply the tools and mindsets applied in the other habits.

Be disciplined about the basics?– this refers to the daily routines that keep your mind and body in peak condition. These are the core routines that are performed automatically without thinking, the routines that are rarely forgone – only given up deliberately and due to extenuating circumstances.

Maintain a healthy body and positive mind?– it is widely understood that in order to deliver our best performance, we need to be in peak condition, both mentally and physically. This is all about sleep quality, optimum nutrition, physical fitness, and good mental health.

Habit Audit – Review, Select and Replace

One of my favourite experts in the area of productivity and habits is James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, Cornerstone, 2019. I’ve subscribed to James’ articles for many years and the core premise of his books is that many 1% improvements will compound to have an exponentially positive impact on performance.

Atomic Habits focuses on Four Laws of Behaviour Change and considers how to use these to create positive habits and how to use the inverse to avoid negative habits –

· Cue - Make it obvious.

· Craving - Make it attractive.

· Response - Make it easy.

· Reward - Make it satisfying.

Atomic Habits by James Clear, Cornerstone, 2019, ISBN. 1-8479-4183-4

Chapter 4 of Atomic Habits suggests using a Habit Scorecard to evaluate the quality of your current habits by listing every micro habit that you undertake on a normal day and then evaluating them on the basis of – positive (good), negative (bad), or neutral. This brings a level of consciousness to the habits that make up your day.

I like to take this concept a few steps further by critically reviewing all the habits and removing the ones that don’t contribute to our goals, doing more of the habits that support our goals, and introducing new positive habits to strengthen our foundations of good health and a positive mindset. Here are the steps that I work through when conducting my own Habit Audit and when supporting clients through the process.

Undertaking a Habit Audit

1. Pre-work– Mind mapping of broad goals in major life areas – Work, Health, Friends & Family, Leisure Activities, Home, etc.

2. List all the micro habits making up a normal workday

3. Review and categorise as positive, negative, or neutral

4. Remove the negative habits or reduce and reframe them

5. Select new habits to support your work and life goals

6. Include new positive habits ensuring room for rest and rejuvenation

7. Optional – create a Habit Tracker to reinforce achievement

8. Repeat regularly to refine and improve

Tiny changes make a big difference…habits are the compound interest of self-improvement…if you can get 1% better each day, you’ll end up with results that are 37 times better after one year” James Clear

CASE STUDY – Awareness and changing daily habits

A few years ago, I was working with a Development Team Leader who had just started working from home with COVID restrictions, as had the entire team. At that time, he lived with a flatmate in a small two-bedroom apartment where his workstation was set up in his bedroom. He is amazing, extremely dedicated, productive, and diligent. One of the best developers I have ever worked with.

And then I noticed that he was starting to look extremely scruffy and fatigued during the multiple Zoom meetings that we were having each day. I asked him how he was going, and he confessed that he has often found himself sitting and working from 7 am to 11 pm with just the necessary breaks for food and personal hygiene. I suggested that he would need to find ways to make time for exercise and asked him about his normal routine. Prior to the pandemic, he had worked out at the gym every morning before work doing cardio and weight training and played football with his mates most weekends. Since he started working from home, he had been for a few runs but nothing structured or regular, as he didn’t buy weight equipment for home before it sold out.

I asked him to think about a new routine for his daily exercise and to make a commitment to me by emailing it to me so that I could ask him about it specifically each day when we catch up. Indeed, I introduced a short wellbeing update from all team members in our daily stand-up meetings so that I could check in on everyone. Here is his email about this new workout routine…

Subject: Workout Routine

Hi T,

Needed to test it was doable before sending through…

Before work: 15 minutes of stretching/yoga.

After work:

Monday – Full body workout at park – body weight + Resistance bands

Tuesday – Running or Football or Golf

Wednesday – Full body workout at park – body weight + Resistance bands

Thursday – Running or Football or Golf

Friday – Full body workout at park – body weight + Resistance bands

I may swap before and after works to keep things interesting…

Ok cheers!

I was then able to hold him accountable for this each day and because he knew I was going to ask, he started doing more self-care and exercise than he had been. It gradually increased to a point that he was achieving his daily routine with a few small tweaks, and he ended up reversing his morning and afternoon sessions. He also took a few opportunities to play golf in the afternoons and then come home and keep working.

Sometimes we need a wake-up call, and then someone to hold us accountable for our new habits. Perhaps you can find an accountability buddy – this would be a close work colleague or a friend. It’s all about a small step and then compounding the benefits by building on progress.

Find out more…

If you want to know more about James Clear and his book Atomic Habits and when you buy the book, you get lots of free bonuses. He also has lots of great articles on his website https://jamesclear.com/articles . I especially like the ones on Focus and Habits.

My aim is to inspire you to transform your working life and achieve great things and I look forward to joining you on your journey!