The Taco Bell Effect

Anyone remember Taco Bell’s glory days of the 59, 79, 99 cent value menu? When my husband and I were poor college students, we “hit the Bell” a few times a week because it was a perfect place for our pea sized pocketbooks. My husband always ordered three 59 cent burritos. I’d look at him every time and say “You sure you can eat all those?” and he’d say “Yes, I’m starving!” Then he’d eat two, but rarely finish the third. I’d laugh and say “I guess that is where the saying ‘your eyes are bigger than your stomach’ comes from.” Thinking you can consume more than you actually can doesn’t only apply to eating food. It relates perfectly to how much you have to do each day and believing you will actually get it all in. In honor of my college days, I call this the “Taco Bell effect.”

Fast forward 20 years, I had a child at every level of education. One in college, one in high school, one in middle school and one in elementary. I worked part time and my job required me to travel out of state a couple times a month. When I was home, a typical day consisted of dropping kids off to school, completing all the duties of running and maintaining a household (and small farm), then picking the kids up and carting them to all their extracurriculars. As if I wasn’t already getting enough exercise from my expeditious schedule, I even tried to squeeze in time to workout at the gym a few days a week! At night, eating dinner and doing homework were regularly done simultaneously, and then it was off to take baths and go to bed. Whew! It makes me tired just thinking about it. 

From the schedule I just described, would you say that I was busy, productive, or both? (Don’t worry, it’s not a trick question). There were definitely some days I crowned myself the princess of productivity, but much of the time I was busy rushing around, trying like crazy to complete everything on my daily to do list. I’d plan out my schedule in my head ahead of time, but never seemed to have enough time to accomplish everything I thought I could. I was living the “Taco Bell Effect” everyday, ordering up more than I could really eat, and then trying to stuff it all in, because after all, I’m the one that ordered it!

Busyness has gone from taking over a few minutes of each day to swallowing the day whole. It is a subculture in our society. In Yvonne Tally’s book Breaking Up with Busy, she describes busyness as a trap that keeps us dancing at double tempo and with no end to the performance. Is it wrong to be busy sometimes? No! However, it feels so much better to be productive than merely busy. When the focus is on productivity, we can learn how to avoid ordering up time fillers that are not needed for what we really want to accomplish. Intentionally focusing on productivity is a strategy you can use to reduce busyness. With a focus on productivity, we can see and celebrate small successes that often get missed because we dance so fast right by them.

Let’s get down to the foundation of productivity. Productivity starts when you create goals in your mind, write them down and let others know about them. The goals can be for a busy mom’s daily schedule, a college student’s syllabus, a teacher, a salesperson or a CEO. The key is that they are out of your head, written down and communicated to others. For example, from the moment a busy mom wakes up, she thinks about how her day will go in various theatres of her life– home (making meals, cleaning, shopping), career, self care (exercise or personal development), relationships, spirituality & more. But it’s not enough to only think about it. She must have a system in a place to help her organize, see and refer back to what she wants to accomplish. 

Daily System for Organization and Ownership

Creating a system to make the best use of your time will increase your overall productivity. Since my first semester of college in 1993, and until 2010 I used a physical day planner. When smartphones came out, I decided to use a digital calendar (google calendar), set reminders and alerts for everything. I appreciated the alerts, but sometimes I’d forget to set a notification or I’d miss a notification for something I scheduled two weeks ahead. For me, a digital planner had me in the “out of sight, out of mind” bind. So, I returned to my old friend, the Day Designer. In an age when digital is King and pen and paper seems endangered, day planners are actually making a come back. Regardless of digital or physical preference, a planner with hourly breakdown for each day is crucial to creating a complete vision for your day or week. Daily planning offers a sense of order and organization where otherwise you may feel adrift. Decide now what your system will be and try it for a month while noticing how your productivity increases. Whatever system you choose should help you avoid the Taco Bell effect of ordering up more than you can eat!