Practical Steps to Boost Productivity with Louise Miller
Redefining Productivity with Louise Miller
Louise Miller is a productivity mentor, the founder of Make It Happen Club and host of the Unfrazzle podcast. She’s on a mission to change the world by helping her clients change the world, supporting them to land their ideas in reality, make a bigger impact, and be kind to themselves along the way. Connect with Louise on LinkedIn.
Get her guide: Ten Powerful Pauses for Productivity and Progress
We're drowning in a sea of doing. Waging unwinnable battles to pack more and more work into less and less time. At what cost? For what purpose? It's a direct path to overwhelm and burnout.
In our conversation today, Louise Miller offers a radically different, deeply human definition of productivity than I haven’t seen anywhere in the world. We discussed shifting how you think about productivity and how you can be productive in a way that reduces stress, allows us to focus on what truly matters, and lets us do our best work calmly.
If you are someone who loves achieving great things but feels like you sometimes sacrifice too much along the way, this episode is tailor-made for you.
[00:26] Meet Louise Miller: A New Perspective on Productivity
[01:28] Redefining Productivity: Doing What Matters
[05:46] The Treehouse Analogy
[08:42] The Neuroscience Behind Productivity
[10:03] Practical Steps to Boost Productivity
[12:11] Conclusion: Embrace a New Way of Working
If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment. It's a 30-minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down. I call it Derailed and it's a fabulous place to begin a joy-at-work redesign.
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Redefining Productivity with Louise Miller
Lucia Knight: Head down, bum up, move faster, squeeze more in, more meetings, more actions, more leading, more listening, more agendas, more milestones, more KPIs. Sound familiar? We're drowning in a sea of doing. Waging unwinnable battles to pack more and more work into less and less time. At what cost? For what purpose? It's a direct path to overwhelm and burnout, says my guest today.
Meet Louise Miller: A New Perspective on Productivity
Lucia Knight: I'm thrilled to introduce you to Louise Miller. In our conversation today, Louise offers a radically different, deeply human definition of productivity than I've seen elsewhere anywhere in the world. We discussed shifting how you think about productivity and how you do productivity in a way that reduces stress, allows us to focus on what truly matters, and lets us do our best work calmly.
I'll let you in on something. I believe so strongly in Louise's methods that after researching her for the Joy at Work podcast, I became her client. And in this conversation, I believe you'll see why. If you are someone who loves achieving great things, but feels like you sometimes sacrifice too much along the way, this episode is tailor made for you.
Let's dive in.
Redefining Productivity: Doing What Matters
Lucia Knight: Louise, what's the problem with how most people define productivity?
Louise Miller: So I think if you asked most people to define productivity, what they would say is that it's about doing more in less time, which seems on the surface of it reasonable. But to me, I find that definition quite stressful because it feels like We're just trying to cram in more and more doing. It feels like we're in this kind of constant battle with time, which we're never going to win.
Time is going to keep marching on. So this whole do more in less time thing to me implies the idea of speeding up. working harder, hustling, all of which will eventually lead you to a place of burnout and potentially running, doing all the things running in the wrong direction. So, my personal experience of that back when I was working as a team leader in an office environment in higher education many years ago, I was working myself into the ground, doing all of the things.
I was that, if you need something doing, give it to a busy person. Yeah. And eventually I had this real light bulb moment where this really clearly in my head, I just heard this voice saying, Louise, why are you always rushing to get everything done? And in that moment, I kind of realized that nobody at any point was going to tell me that I had finished and that I could now chill out and rest. And that was a real light bulb moment. It, that marked a massive shift in how I'm living my life. I won't go into that now, but what I realized eventually through all the exploration that kind of followed that moment was that this definition of productivity around doing more in less time is really damaging.
It's what led to me being signed off work with work related stress and anxiety, but because productivity is my jam and it's what I can help people with. I knew that I. really wanted to be helping people with that, but in a way that felt in integrity with me, my values, and with not leading people down a path to burnout.
So I've come up with a new definition. Do you want to hear my new definition?
Lucia Knight: I'm desperate to know it.
Louise Miller: So to me now, with all the work that I do, productivity is about doing what's important as efficiently as possible to create space for what you love. And the key in there is doing what's important. not doing all the things and creating space.
So we're not doing the doing just to do more doing. We're doing what needs to be done and what's important. So we can create some space for ourselves. And that requires us to slow down. It's all about being intentional and it's. Yeah, as I said, all about getting the right things done.
Lucia Knight: I love that definition. So help me please, because in my work, yeah, on a daily basis, And actually in my life as well, friends, et cetera, I see too many people doing exactly what you've just said, running fast, seemingly impossible workloads that they feel, they just can't slow down to even just figure out what's important.
What do you say to those people?
Louise Miller: The first thing I say is that I get it. I can completely understand why people feel that way, because that's the society and the culture that we live in, unfortunately. We're all programmed to think that we have to get everything done before we're allowed to stop and before we're allowed to rest.
From a very early age. You have to have finished your homework before you're allowed to go out and play. And in an office environment, I used to feel if there was a massive deadline and everyone was really busy and I was seen to go and get a coffee or go out for a walk, what on earth will people think?
So we've got this programming that is ingrained. Yeah, exactly. So I completely understand why people feel like they can't possibly slow down and they can't possibly take that space for themselves, but I'm going to hit you with an analogy and then I'm going to hit you with some neuroscience in a nice gentle way, not in a violent way.
The Treehouse Analogy
Louise Miller: But the analogy that I love for this is that the world of work, whatever that looks like for you is very much like. being on a bit of a journey walking through a forest, right? You're on an adventure walking through a forest and you want to desperately get to the other side because there's something amazing on the other side of the forest.
So off you go, excited on your adventure. But when you're in the forest, there are no straight lines and it's easy to get lost. And yes, there are areas of dappled sunlight where everything's lovely, it feels good, but we can also find ourselves in these areas of damp darkness where things are feeling really difficult.
And what we tend to do in those moments is keep our eyes on the ground. Because we don't want to trip over our feet. We don't want to fall over a tree root. We're trying to avoid all those muddy puddles. So we keep on walking, we keep on walking, but eventually we start to think, Hang on, that tree looks familiar.
I think I might have been here before. And we start to wonder if we're actually going in the right direction and feel like we're getting a bit lost. Panic can start to kick in. And then what do you do in that moment? Do you keep walking? Or do you take a bit of a break, take a pause? So just imagine you're in that situation and then you've taken this, you've realized you're going around in circles, you're feeling a bit panicky and you look up for a moment and you see Some cosy, twinkly lights in the distance, in the top of a tall tree.
And you see there's a treehouse up there. And you think, I'm going to go up there. So you climb up to the treehouse. And there's some lovely cosy cushions for you to sit on. So you sit down for a minute, you get your breath back. And the panic kind of gradually starts to subside. And then you can go and look out the window.
And you can look down onto the forest floor from your viewpoint up there in the trees. And you can look back and see how far you've come. So you can acknowledge all of the things you've got done. You can acknowledge the journey you've been on. You can look forward to where you're going. So you can remind yourself of what you're doing it for and what's over there.
Then you can look down onto the forest floor and start to plot out a route that's going to get you there so that when you do climb back down onto the forest floor, you're able to continue on that journey, continue on that adventure, but feeling much more purposeful, feeling like you're moving in the right direction with a bit of a plan as to how you're going to get to where you're going.
So. I think we tend to think that productivity is what happens when we're on the forest floor, putting one foot in front of the other, in action. However, what was the most productive thing that we just did in that scenario? It was taking that time to go up to the treehouse, taking that pause so that we can get our bearings, check in with ourselves, make a plan, and then move forward from there.
So, I think I hope that makes sense as a little analogy.
Lucia Knight: It makes complete sense.
Louise Miller: Yeah.
Lucia Knight: sense. I love that analogy.
Louise Miller: Yeah.
The Neuroscience Behind Productivity
Louise Miller: Shall I throw the neuroscience in as well, just in case people are still thinking, yeah, but really?
Lucia Knight: Go on. Go on. Go on.
Louise Miller: I will try to do it quickly. We all have executive function, which is the set of cognitive processes that allow us to plan, prioritize, focus our attention, and juggle multiple things at once. What I didn't realize until quite recently is that there are actually two neural pathways that underlie those systems.
We've got a hot executive function system, which is what's happening when our emotions are high and we're in the heat of the moment. And then there's the cool executive function, which is in charge when things feel calm and the stakes are a little bit lower. And it's probably not surprising to learn that most people don't make logical decisions or problem solve very well when their hot executive function is dominant. It's important that we allow space for that cool executive function to take the reins from time to time so that we can, make those good decisions. And again, if all we're doing is keeping our heads down, running around in circles, waiting for someone to tell us we're finished. You're never allowing yourself to access that cool executive function that gets you making better decisions.
Lucia Knight: Love that, I love everything that you've just said, but the thing that will stay with me forever, as well as the analogy in the Treehouse is productivity happens before you take action. That is such an important point.
Practical Steps to Boost Productivity
Lucia Knight: So what can our listeners do before taking action to help them feel more productive?
Louise Miller: Yeah, so, as we've established, when you're stuck in that frantic, fuzzled, overwhelmed loop, trying to get everything done, you're not being very productive, and actually the only way back into focus and flow is by taking a pause. So, in practical terms, that can just look like literally standing up, walking away from your desk, shifting your state in some way to calm your frazzled nervous system.
That's always got to be the starting point, is just to get yourself to a place where you're feeling calm and settled. And then from that place of pause, you get to reflect. So we can then start to look back like we just did in the treehouse. Look at where you've been, celebrate your wins, notice those moments of joy that you've been experiencing, notice the lessons, notice all of that good stuff, check in with how you're feeling and think about what you're ready for next.
And once you've taken that pause and then you've taken a moment to reflect, then you get to make a choice. So you get to choose what you're going to do next. What's your next move? What direction are you going to go in? What actions are you going to take to move you forward? And then we can take action.
So I have this thing called the progress cycle, which is pause, reflect, choose, then act, and then finish what you start and keep going around in that cycle. So, There's so many different ways of looking at this, they can, you can build that in as a kind of micro moment in your day. So once we've finished recording this conversation, you and I could both take a pause, reflect for a minute and go, now what are we going to do?
And then make a choice, which will hopefully prevent us from just reaching for our phones and doing some mindless scrolling, because we've taken the pause, we've reflected and we've made a choice. So you can do it in a really small way. in the moment, several times throughout your day.
You can also do it in a bigger way in terms of planning for your week, planning for your month, taking this pause, reflect, and then make a choice about what you're going to be working on.
And that is the thing that's going to make you productive so that when you are taking action, you're taking action on the right things.
Lucia Knight: If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment. It's a 30 minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down. I call it D Railed. It's a fabulous place to begin a joy at work redesign.
