Stop! Time to listen
To your team, your body, and your mind.
Welcome to another edition of ProductiveGrowth 🌱, weekly stories about productivity, leadership, motivation, and anything else that helps us and our teams grow and be more productive. Plus, industry news on the companies, products, and services that allow us to work less and do more.
TL;DR
So glad to have you back! Sometimes, I get so lost in the day-to-day that I run on auto mode — for me, that means selective hearing — and that makes me hit a wall.
I’m so wired to do the same things over and over again that I stop listening. Every. Single. Time.
A text from my wife to buy some milk on the way home from work doesn’t even register when I’m focused on meeting a deadline.
Inevitably, this gets me in trouble. That’s only one reason why listening has become such an important matter to me.
Today we’ll dive into some tools that can help us stop for a second and listen to our surroundings to discover what we (and the people around us) truly need.
I hope you enjoy this issue!
Steve
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EDITOR’S PICKS
🦥 Want to be more productive? Do nothing
And no, it is not some Hakuna Matata philosophy. When jumping endlessly from task to task I get stressed and burned out. Then there’s only one thing left to become more productive: leave it all and just be lazy — if only for a moment. Plus, according to Time, relaxing and habitual activities can lead to more creative insights.
👂 Are you listening to or just hearing your employees?
Everybody knows about the importance of listening to the people working with you, but not many people actually heed this advice. In this article, Mark Whitten shares three golden rules every leader should follow to connect and truly listen to their employees. Remember: Listening means buying the milk!
👻 Is it a ghost? A monster? No, it’s just that task you’ve been avoiding forever!
We’ve all been there: An important deadline looms, yet “more important” tasks just keep stealing our attention. Procrastination out of fear is a real thing, explains writer Robert Wiblin. In this post on Medium, Wiblin explains the “ugh” feeling we get when facing this type of procrastination and suggests ten surefire ways to keep it from consuming our lives.
🧠 How to make your — and your team’s — mental health a priority
If the pandemic had a twin, it would be stress. Usually, people have a hard time making their mental health a priority (I know, I’ve been there a few times), but in the middle of mass unemployment and a worldwide emergency, it’s almost impossible to give it the attention it deserves. But burnout is not a choice for me or for my team. These are some of the tools I’ve been using to give mental health the proper space in my and my team’s lives.
Quote
“If you make listening and observation your occupation, you will gain much more than you can by talk.” -Robert Baden-Powell
Question
Are you listening to others? Or even listening to yourself?
(Add to the conversation on Twitter)
DISCOVER
Meditation is as personal as a fingerprint. There are hundreds of tools on and offline to help practice it, and mindfulness apps have become more sophisticated each year. If you’re struggling with choosing the best one for you, check out this Headspace vs. Calm review, where the two most popular apps go head-to-head. See how they stack up and which is better for you.
IN THE KNOW
Industry news on the companies, products, and services that allow us to work less and do more.
Sales, IPOs, Bankruptcies, Funding and Industry Gossip
Not only the deceased come back: WeWork is trying to make their IPO happen again.
Y Combinator graduate Raycast raises $2.7M to continue aiming for quickness.
Releases
Now you can have live captions, post-meeting transcriptions and notes on Zoom with this brand new integration.
Project and Roadmap apps, part of the new set of features released by Microsoft Teams.
Job Opportunities
Calendly - San Francisco, CA -Senior People Partner
Evernote - Austin, TX; Bothell, WA; San Diego, CA - Staff Mobile Engineer - React Native
Miro - Amsterdam, NL - Video Producer
Events
Nov 11th (virtual) - Feeling Like a Fraud: Navigating Perfectionism & Impostor Syndrome as Women
Nov 18th (virtual) - Women in Leadership Zoom Event
Nov 18th (virtual) - Time Management: Managing Days in Sustainable Ways by The Amanuenses Network Pte Ltd
Nov 19th (virtual) - Product Management Live chat with Facebook’s Product Manager
What did you think of this issue?
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Edited by: Lauren Maslen.
