Partner Productivity – TPW265

How can we influence our spouses, and others close to us, to be more productive, and why would we want to?

Influencing other people's productivity

This week's episode was inspired by a question asked in the TPW Facebook community about influencing family productivity. Lucy asked, “Have you talked about family productivity? How do I influence my husband’s productivity? He watches TV at night and claims he just needs to relax. I see it as wasted time.”

Others have raised similar questions with respect to kids or co-workers. We did talk a bit about raising productive kids in Episode 156, so check that out. We touch on that in this episode, but the focus is on our spouse or partner. I think a lot of this also applies to others in our lives, not just our spouses.

What’s the issue if your family members are not as productive as you are?

“One thing we can all agree on is that we are also affected when those around us are unproductive and inefficient. Whether it be a co-worker or a family member, their productivity is usually tied to our own.”

How to Help Other People Become Productive

It's important to consider what it means to you when you say a family member (or other person close to you) is not as productive as you wish them to be? Is it that they're not accomplishing enough in the sense that they aren't being their best self? Or does it mean they’re not pulling their fair share of the load or perhaps even making it harder for you to be productive in the way you want to be, by making more work for you? The attempt to influence them toward greater productivity starts with understanding why you think you need to do so.

How to effectively get what you’re looking for

* Don’t take it personally. Resist the urge to say or believe “if they cared about me, they would . . .”

Defining for someone else how they show caring or even what’s an acceptable way to show it is problematic. This is a subtle demand for proof of love, and I wonder how productive that is. I do believe love calls for action rather than just words, but people have different love languages of how they express and receive love. I recommend  The 5 Love Languages, written by Gary Chapman, to learn more about this.

Saying (or thinking) this also diminishes or dismisses the things he does do. This is something I have to remind myself if Mike doesn’t do certain things I wish he would. Rather, I have to think about all the things he does do and how hard he works. Just because he doesn't do it the way I would doesn't mean his way is wrong or that he doesn't care about me. As one writer puts it:

 “I used to take his faults personally; his dirty clothes on the floor were an affront, a symbol of how he didn’t care enough about me. But thinking of my husband as an exotic species gave me the distance I needed to consider our differences more objectively.”

What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage

* Get real about your role and manage your own thinking

So much of the difficulty surrounding another person's productivity is in our own head...