What the hell is productivity coaching? And how would it benefit me?

After 3 months of being a life coach on X, I realised there was one question that left people scratching their heads. Relationship coaching, health coaching, mental clarity coaching, lifestyle and wellness coaching, business and financial coaching - okay we get it! But what the hell is productivity coaching??

Let me tell you what it is NOT. It is not a method to turn you into a machine that works 24 × 7. You are not a robot that work constantly, never relaxes, never watches Netflix, never enjoys delicious food and never takes a vacation. Productivity coaching is not a way to take away all the rest and relaxation in your life, rather it is quite the opposite.

Productivity coaching is meant to ease the stress you’re experiencing. We help you organise, manage time, and get some work-life balance. So yes, you can excel in your careers and celebrate anniversaries of deep relationships that you’re cultivating at the same time.

You might have come across self help books yelling at you, using ‘shame’ to make you pull your act together and get working. While that method is effective to some extent, it can do more harm than good for some clients who are already vulnerable. So coaches do not use judgement or shame to transform you into who you want to be.

To put simply, productivity coaching is a method of designing systems suitable for your life, environment and priorities, that help you take care of your work and responsibilities in an effective manner.

What’s my icing on top of this cake? I help you look inward. Why look inward? To identify and approach your habits and limiting beliefs that are holding you back from accomplishing what you want. This not only helps you with you work, it helps you grow and evolve as a person you will be proud of - align your career goals with your core values.

The coaching sessions are fun and playful, it’s like chit chatting over a cup of coffee. What’s the upside? You get to see immediate results. You don’t have to wait 3 months to see the impact of what you are putting in.

When you google “how to boost my productivity levels”, it throws a generic response at you - manage your energy and time, make to-do lists, cut down your distractions, batch tasks, prioritise healthy habits, take breaks. But this advice is not specific to you case, to your environment, to your life goals. An aspiring entrepreneur trying to develop her business with plans to quit her 9-5 will have completely different goals than a woman trying to juggle between her corporate job and her romantic relationship.

Coaching helps you uncover what YOU need and want. We are not in the business of giving you any ‘advice’. We are in the business of helping you see what works you and creating systems so that you can effectively implement it.

Now as promised, I’ll share 3 quick, no-BS productivity tips that have helped me balance this business with my job:

1) First and foremost, you need to stop context switching. In simple words, quit multitasking. My generation (Gen Z) might multitask and flaunt their ability to work effectively with 100 tabs open on the laptop, trust me, we are lying to ourselves. Our brains are not structured to multitask and switch context (barring some rare exceptions). We need to batch creative tasks and technical tasks separately in order to perform them well. Imagine you’re in a writing zone, typing down a thought provoking piece when you suddenly get reminded that you have to respond to an email so you switch tabs. So does your brain. Unlike you, it cannot go into the creative mode with a simple click.

So block time to makes calls, return emails, schedule meetings, and creative work.

2) Find out that time period when you are at your peak, when you tend to give your best. See how your own circadian rhythm works, when do you feel the most energetic?Take care of your highest priorities during that time. If your peak energy period is morning and your priority is health , make sure you wake up on time and hit the gym. If your priority is writing a book, ideate and type in a few pages before the world wakes up.

You will get the hang of it in 3-5 days and start seeing the results.

3) Organise your time like you organise things in different boxes before the moving day. Reserve different time periods for work, family, responsibilities and relationships that are truly important to you. Sometimes, you can spread yourself too thin and end up feeling drained out of energy, exhausted all the time. Learn to say no.

Time is a resource that belongs to you. You have time for everything that you really want to do. You have control, remember that! If you “don’t have time” for something, it is simply not a priority.

That’s it for now. I’ll catch you again soon. For more on lifestyle, productivity and mental clarity, follow @pranotihere on X.

For all the ladies here, if you’re curious about what productivity coaching looks like and wish to give it a shot, go ahead and book a trial discovery call with me here.