What are Mindful Productivity’s core principles? How can you surface them in your daily life and remember its main tenets. How to transform reflexions on Mindful Productivity into actionable heuristics for daily life?
The mindful productivity totem is an attempt at crystallizing personal discoveries about wisdom in life into a single visual framework.
PART I. A mental framework for a balanced life
One’s life can be schematically represented by several “potato-blocks”. Nested within this ensemble are two central pieces: work and non-work. These facets weave in the tapestry of our days and may even overlap when we're fortunate enough, blurring the lines between labor and pleasure.
The first scale to balance in our life equation is the work-life one. For some lucky ones among us, these two aspects may merge, creating a reality where work feels as fulfilling and enjoyable as play.
Framing this duo is a larger piece – 'The Playground'. And encasing them all together is the outermost layer – 'The Balance'. These two pieces are our sandbox and our keystone, respectively, to building a harmonious life.
The Playground block represents the relationship with your work. The Balance block concerns the general balance you find between the different parts of your life.
We’ll explore each blocks in details but as a starter, this simple visual may provide a sense of clarity over one’s personal balance. Where is your work/non-work relationship right now? Do you operate within a playground environment, that is, is your work also about play? What is the overall balance in your life?
Let’s dive deeper.
Section 1: The work and non-work blocks
The work potato digs into the soil of your profession, asking if it furthers personal growth, and if it's aligned with your values. The non-work potato, on the other hand, concerns the multiple facets outside professional life - leisure pursuits, relationships, personal development, and more.
Section 2: The playground block
Surrounding our work and non-work potatoes lies the playground - your space for interaction with your job. It ranges from operational concerns such as 'Am I overworked?', to tactical queries about burnout or monotony, and up to strategic musings about your career's alignment with your life's goals.
- On an operational level: Am I overworked, do I have the right tools and routines to work mindfully daily?
- On a tactical level: Am I burned out? Bored out? or even “Eroded-out” by the overly monotonous routine of a 9-5 job.
- On a strategic level: Is my career aligned with the impact I want to make in the world?
Section 3: The balance block
The largest layer, the Balance block, encapsulates this all. It symbolizes the one's flows and fluxes in life. Our day-to-day routines are a delicate dance of dynamic equilibriums and on-off switches we need to monitor and harmonize regularly.
3.1. The bathtubs (Dynamic equilibriums)
Imagine the bathtubs, or the areas in life in which you strive for the 'Goldilocks Principle' of 'just enough', like a bathtub maintaining its water level despite the inflow and drainage. These bathtubs can be your sleep quota, creativity nourishment, connections with nature, or your overall social life.
3.2 The switches
Switches highlight parameters in our lives that operate on an on-off mode, needing refilling or 'switching' occasionally for a balanced life. Picture it as designing your weekdays and weekends to balance global corporate work with locally cultivating connection with nature. It's about flipping the switch at the right moments to maintain the sweet spot between the different sides of your life.
Section 3’: Balance Presence block
Upon closer look, should (work/non-work) balance be the state you are after? Should your life be summarized to the equilibrium of those to sets of activities?
A balance in the amount of time dedicated to work & non-work activities is necessary of course but one’s Presence while doing those activities may even be more important. I think as Presence as the attention I am giving to the activities I’m at.
Rather than being hooked by past memories or stressed by future events, the quality of your daily life eventually sums up as the mindfulness you are putting into your actions.
Putting the framework to work
Now that you have your compass, let's ask ourselves: What's the current balance between your work and non-work life, what is your presence to those activities? How much do you resonate with your playground? Is there a block in your life that needs a little tilt? Let's explore these blocks deeper and find your equilibrium.
Blank worksheet
To make it actionable, you will find below a blank version of the framework as a worksheet. Here is a small cheat-sheet on how to use it:
- Top-left quadrant: Your relationship to your work on an operational, tactical and strategic level.
- Top-right quadrant: What are the key areas in your life, beyond work.
- Bottom-left quadrant: How does the nature of your work (what you do) impacts the quality of your life? Does your work influence your perspective on life?
- Bottom-right quadrant: Your non-work activities, what are your bathtubs and your switches?
Personal mindful productivity framework
Here is how I filled my version of the worksheet if it can be of help.
PART II. Everyday mindful productivity
Part I. touched upon the outlook one gets on Mindful productivity. It attempted at answering: what is my relationship to productivity. Part II. will focus on daily, practical tools to keep a balanced relationship towards productivity.
There are two major tools that can help us keep our relationship to productivity balanced: the PACT and the Plus-Minus-Next framework.
The PACT
Directly inspired by the work of Anne-Laure LeCunff. The PACT is a mindful productivity tool helping us to stay mindful of our expected achievements.
Plus-Minus-Next
Periodically sit and review your achievements.