Finding the Balance Between Super Efficiency and Doing Nothing

Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to achieve more, do 100 times better and strive to be #1? Or vice versa, have you ever wanted to lie on the couch for days on end and do nothing?

Neither the first nor the second is bad, you just need to maintain a balance between the two poles! Those who have already comprehended the science of achieving the golden mean can boast of both success at work and an eventful pastime. And most importantly, they don’t feel stressed, overwhelmed, burned out, or guilty.

Want to know how to achieve this? Read on!

Why Can Being Over-productive Harm?

We all know why being lazy all the time is bad, but what’s with the other side? Efficiency is extremely trendy nowadays. It seems unspeakable if you do not make progress at work or do not achieve 100 goals per day. Trying to become more efficient by all means can lead you to depreciation of own efforts. You risk encountering burnout and even depression:

1. Stress and pressure. Piles of complex tasks to be completed in the shortest possible time will always be with you.

2. Lowering self-esteem. There will always be someone more successful. Even business people featured in Forbes lists have strong competitors. If you compare yourself with someone all the time, you will completely lose faith in own abilities.

3. Loss of touch with reality. When we focus on only one thing, for example, on an ambitious goal at work, we stop living life to the fullest and noticing everything else. All attention is paid to only one thing and consumes all your time and resource.

4. Problems in personal life. When we work 24/7, we lose connection with friends and relatives, forget about the simple pleasures in life.

These are the main reasons for feeling unhappy and completely abandoned. In the end, most people do not assess the quality of life by results at work, or millions of dollars. We need more to maintain a comfortable level of wellness.

How to Find the Balance?

As you can see, productivity that has grown to obsession is destructive. The Collabio team is here to share ways towards the golden mean between efficiency and laziness. Use this as an action plan or pick and choose the points you like best:

1. Think Forward
   Visualise your own future to check in with your goals. Are your goals should be relevant to your long-term plans. For example, if you plan to become a C-Suite manager in 5 years, you need to do more management than manual work, and even the greatest achievements as a specialist will not force directors to give you a promotion if you have never led a team or department.
   
   So dive into some introspection — where and how do you see yourself in the long run? Write down all the details. What is your job? At what level are you working? What area are you specialising? Where do you live? What have you achieved, besides working success? Write down whatever comes to mind and ask yourself questions like, “Is this what I need? Is this real?”
2. Focus on What You Love
   Intrinsic motivation comes from your interests. If you don’t enjoy your work, then very soon you will get tired of it. And the burden of responsibility will chase you until you fall into despair.
   
   Therefore, we advise you to pay attention to the activities that you enjoy and for which you already have a built-in set of skills.
3. Take Care of Yourself
   With all those work tasks, don’t forget about having some rest to replenish with energy. Pay attention to your mental and physical health, keep fit and note down how you feel about things..
   
   To keep an eye on all this, use a Wellness Tracker — a template in Collabio Spaces. You can make notes about your state and start to see where imbalances and issues lie. It is a great tool towards reaching the balance we talked about earlier. :)
4. Take Small Steps — It’s Not a Race!
   Work shouldn’t always be tedious! :) Great goals can hardly be achieved overnight. Prepare a step-by-step plan with realistic deadlines, and follow it.
   
   If you have finished a task faster than expected, don’t jump to another one planned for tomorrow. Better invest this newly appeared free time into enhancing skills — check out what educational events or courses there are on the Internet. You will have time for work later -perhaps with more professional knowledge!
5. Check In With Your Plans and Interests Regularly
   It’s okay to give up if you realise that the goal you planned in the beginning doesn’t actually fit your interests. Of course, you may suffer to reach that end but why would you? Sometimes there is a direct physical sense that this is not the right path. Rejecting intuition not only hinders success but also affects your well-being.
   Better look for team support and delegate tasks that provoke such states.
6. Focus on the Process
   A temporary lack of motivation and inspiration is normal and hardly means you need to give up. Sometimes it takes months or even years of work to see results. Of course, without visible victories, self-confidence may fade
   
   It seems that work efficiency is high, and you invest a lot of time, but there is nothing to brag about! In this case, focus on the process and accept that you will have to wait. When you get into the flow, you concentrate on the activity itself, enjoying the work. All in all, we are happy when we do what we like!