How to Overcome Initial Inertia & Become More Productive

Becoming more productive is one of the most sought after skills or bases of knowledge in the modern world right now. 

Most, if not all professionals want to find ways to become better at what they do, or do it faster, or more effectively. 

And if they’re not in that category, everyone else is trying to find a way to spark their productivity and start creating that initial momentum in their life and their business.

I was one of those people, myself.

I wasn’t born productive, and my parent’s didn’t reinforce that belief system into my being when I was a kid.

Thus, it took me many years into my adult life to finally figure out that I needed to work on my productivity.

And it was a very uncomfortable experience, because my habits were so engrained and I had developed many routines that fed into my creature comforts.

And just before I gave up all hope, I learned about this concept of “initial inertia” and why it’s the biggest obstacle to creativity.

So much so, in fact, that if you can overcome that initial inertia, you’re almost guaranteed to maintain your productivity.

This concept reminded me of another idea that I teach all of my financial services clients.

In the world of financial services, there are Variable accounts (represented by the Red Line in the image below) that will vary in the returns that they offer the account holder, and there are Indexed accounts (the Blue Line) that lock in your gains and protect you from crashes.

If we move all the dollar amounts and just look at the two lines for what they are, we can see that the Red Line is all over the place, and the Blue Line has a steady growth over time.

If you look at the Blue Line from 1998-2003, you’ll see that the gains that it received were locked in and it never went below it’s initial point. 

The first two years represent the push, and the following 3 years represent the maintaining. 

This is how I view productivity and overcoming initial inertia. 

Instead of looking at it as dollar amounts, if we look at it as energy input, we can see that the first two years represent a substantial input of energy. 

This could be you building up your first skill set. 

Once you learn that skill, you’ll most likely carry with you for the rest of your life. 

This means your value will never go below that point. 

Maybe it’s not a skill… maybe it’s your first passive income stream. 

Let’s say that it takes you a couple of years to set up your first passive income stream, and you never go below that point again…

… how would that feel?

I hope your response is something positive and exciting. 

The key with overcoming initial inertia is to understand that you’re working towards your first milestone, and if you plan properly, you’ll never fall below that point again. 

As the old saying goes, it’s much easier to maintain momentum than it is to create momentum. 

Therefore, your job is to create your first stream of momentum. 

Your job is to just get to that first level. 

Once you’re there, you can look at the next level. And then the next, and the next. 

Productivity comes in all shapes and sizes.