Trade addictions for healthy habits
Building a healthy relationship with productivity, micromanagement and motivation
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
Addictions come in many shapes and sizes. Obsessing over a task, a workout, Instagram notifications, or even counting calories in meals are some ways addictive behavior can creep into our lives.
Some of these habits are better than others, but as you may know, any excessive or abusive behavior is bad for you — body, mind and soul.
In this issue, I chose different articles that portray addictions in the workplace. You may find some of these addictions relevant to your daily life, and if so, I hope you find the corresponding tips and tricks useful. Love to hear your opinions and comments.
Happy Sunday,
Steve.
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EDITOR’S PICKS
📋Are you addicted to productivity?
Having a personal scorecard, a long to-do list, and planning one task ahead of time, is how the mind of a ‘productivity junkie’ works. Just like any other addiction, all they do in their lives revolves around it. The thing is, while addictions are bad for you, society tends to reward this one. But working more than 60 hours a week and seeking “inbox zero” every day, is not sustainable long-term. This BBC article shares the medical perspective behind this type of addiction, including personal stories from self-proclaimed ‘‘Productivity Junkies,” along with a few tips on how to heal yourself.
🍎Can you turn addictive behaviors into healthy habits?
Leaders and addicts tend to have some things in common (high energy, passionate, driven, etc.) But great leaders are the ones who know how to turn their needs into healthy habits. According to this article from Steemit, “A leader is obsessed with healthy behavior that helps in the long run, while the addict just took a wrong path and got addicted to unhealthy behavior.”
📧Watch out! Micromanaging can be an addiction too!
Being a manager is no easy job. Your results are no longer measured by how well you are performing but by how well you are getting your team to perform. So the fear kicks in, you need to be on top of everything. You start to micromanage, and you “become the bottleneck in your team’s work. Worse, you stifle creativity, independent thinking, and motivation,” according to Russ Martin. Beware, this behavior can be highly addictive In this article, Martin shares four ways to overcome this dangerous habit.
🙈Calm down, motivation junkie.
Seeking constant motivation does not necessarily mean you are disengaged. Sometimes, it’s quite the opposite. I’ve been there, getting close to a deadline, completely engaged with a project, wanting it to be perfect. So I seek other sources of motivation outside of myself. Rachel Anne Williams says, “I’ve never been more fired up. I’ve never been more motivated (...) And yet I am still addicted to motivation porn.” In this article, she shares one simple but powerful tip, to manage motivation junkie tendencies.
1 Quote
“We're not in this life just to work, we're in it to live.”― Cecelia Ahern, The Gift
1 Question
What kinds of boundaries do you set yourself to achieve work-life balance?
DISCOVER
While addictive behavior is not necessarily something to foster, many people with addictive-type personalities agree that the only way to overcome an addiction is to replace it with a better/healthier one. Fabulous App allows you to track healthy habits and gives you constant challenges and motivation for you to keep going. According to Nat from Rags to Niches, this app is extremely helpful for “People that need that daily push, encouragement and also, being part of a team”. Read the full review here.
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
Salesforce, a global cloud computing company that develops CRM solutions and provides business software, announced their interest in buying Slack, the corporate chat company, making the stock price go up.
The rise in popularity of Friday, a Portland startup that develops tools to help organize remote teams, led to securing $2.1 million in funding in a seed round by Bessemer Venture Partners.
Releases
MyMind, an AI-powered app that works as a brain extension, developed new features for the iOS app that include: a new navigational structure and a native note field.
Job Opportunities
Airtable - San Francisco and Mountain View, CA - Backend Engineer
Tray.io - London, UK - Sales Development Representative
Sift - Detroit, US - VP of Product Marketing
Events
Dec 2nd - 4th (virtual) - Stretch: Leadership and Management Conference
Dec 5th-8th (virtual) 2020 Winter Leadership Workshop by Council of Scientific Society Presidents
Dec 10th (virtual) - How to develop and assess the ‘behaviors’ of your apprentices, by Strategic Development Network
Dec 10th (virtual) - Microsoft Teams: Management & Ownership, by CompNow Training
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Edited by: Lauren Maslen.
👋 See you next week.
