Set an upper limit
🏷️ Categories: Continuous improvement, Motivation
Apparently, upper limits do not exist, or we do not want them to exist.
No one puts a ceiling on their efforts.
Productivity is often sold as if it were a race to make every last second of the day productive, as if the goal of life were to instrumentalize time to maximize production. If you accept the idea, you are putting work before everything else. The result is obvious: stress, fatigue and, over time, increasingly poor performance, leading to burnout.
The reason is simple: we are not machines.
Yet many people approach their goals with that idea in mind.
A salesperson would say: “I need to make at least 10 sales”.
A writer would say, “I need to write 500 words a day minimum.”
An athlete would say, “I must train 3 days a week minimum.”
They only set themselves the down limits, the desirable minimum, but this mentality has an implicit statement, “If you can do more, why aren't you doing it?” So you fall into the trap of working your tail off to avoid the regret of “having been wasting time” when you could have been working harder and longer hours. That's the idea behind the hateful phrase “while you're resting, someone else is working harder at the very thing you want.”
The person who judges your efforts most cruelly is you.
What if we added an upper limit to avoid that toxic productivity?
“I will make 10 sales today as a minimum and 20 as a maximum.”
“I will write 500 words a day minimum and 1000 words a day maximum.”
“I will train 3 days a week minimum and 5 days a week maximum.”
If you don't set limits for yourself, your health will set them for you when you can't do it anymore.
The region of sustainable productivity
Having an upper and lower limit is essential in any long-term goal.
The lower limit pushes us forward, and the upper limit protects us from our terrible self-demand. This balance, the green region, is the secret to steady and satisfying progress, where we achieve satisfactory results by leveraging our abilities in a sustainable way. It is what is known as the “production possibility frontier,” that is, the maximum to which we can aspire with the available resources (Sickles & Zelenyuk, 2019).
Let's take writing as an example.
I have been writing for 8 months. I started at low frequency, my lower limit was 1 letter per week. As I got into the habit of writing, I increased the frequency until I found a sustainable break-even point where I am satisfied with my results and allow myself to lead a balanced life. In my case, the sustainable growth region is around 1 letter every 2 days.
Yes, my lower limit moved me to write and not to rest on my laurels, but it was the upper limit that made the difference. Without that limit, I would try to squeeze every last second of my time to write as much as I could in an endless race.
And that's not healthy, not sustainable, not satisfying.
I must write at a pace that allows me to keep the other crucial aspects of my life in good shape. There are days when I have been able to write a lot more, but if I had wanted to write at all costs I would have ended up exhausted, or worse, neglecting my rest, sports or time with family and friends.
Instead, I set an upper limit.
Expanding the sustainable growth region
You can expand the region of sustainable growth in a balanced way, see.
By setting yourself an affordable lower and upper limit at the start of a new project you are facilitating the creation of the habit. Once you have the habit, simply develop your skills and you can expand your production without affecting the vital balance you had. In other words, put in the same effort, but with greater results.
Notice, I'm not talking about putting in more effort, but about putting in the same effort and achieving more.
It is not a matter of writing more hours, but of avoiding creative blocks.
It is not a matter of writing more hours, but of being less perfectionist.
It is not a matter of writing more hours, but of reducing distractions.
It's not a matter of putting in more hours, but of putting in better effort.
It is by eliminating these small losses that you expand your region of growth; you achieve more using the same resources (Krugman, 2004). If you only have 1 hour of writing per day to lead a balanced life, get into the habit of writing and expand your limits in a sustainable way by perfecting the technique.
I spend the same amount of time as I did at the beginning, but I write more. My point.
For big gains, avoid tiny losses.
✍️ Your turn: Have you ever experienced burnout or hurt your body because of your exaggerated standards?
💭 Quote of the day: “Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a new opportunity” Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project.
We've reached the limit for today - see you soon with lots of energy! 👋
References 📚
Sickles, R. C., & Zelenyuk, V. (2019). Measurement of Productivity and Efficiency. Cambridge University Press.
Krugman, P. R. (2004). International Economics: Theory and Policy.
When I wrote my first novel, I used the two hours my infant spent napping to write. It worked well. I didn't place minimums or maximums. Just work on the next part of the story until the creativity runs out or the baby wakes up. Usually it was the creativity and energy first. Whew! Enough!
This is a good post and when managing a team it is also important not to burn them or exhaust them. The idea is sustained excellent output rather than unsustainable incredible output followed by bad output.
Really enjoyed how you made this argument