[illustration via Giulia Neri]
What does being productive mean to you? The idea of productiveness traces back to 1727. It predates the Industrial Revolution when the quality of being productive of 1809, turns into “rate of output per unit” in 1899.#
Literally, productivity focuses on getting the maximum production per worker or unit of machine per minute, hour, day, or week, etc. If you're curious about how culture fits into it, I wrote an article about why productivity is such a big deal.
But think about how you feel when you say to yourself, “that was a productive day!” There's a qualitative satisfaction associated with the accomplishment(s), isn't there? It may correlate with getting a lot done, but it's the nature of what you did that has meaning.
Effort without quality could equal waste. Increasingly, what we do is the product of our knowledge that turns thinking into doing. Hence a breakthrough could follow a period of 'low' productivity.
Why focus (primarily) on quality? Because we're not very good at tallying the cost of using energy and resources on one thing rather than another and internalizing the impact of making trade-offs with attention.
Quality and feeling are your allies if you're trying to learn from books.
Knowledge work: focus on depth
I don't know about you, but I learn by doing. It's something I noticed very early on thanks to my mother. She was very young when she had me, and my soon-to-be pediatrician recommended she read Montessori.
You could say Maria Montessori is my godmother. Everything I wanted to learn was within reach, including painting on the walls. That's how I learned so much early on. There's something very valuable about doing things concretely, with your hands and body.
Sir Ken Robinson (RIP) explained how imagination, creativity, and innovation are connected. Body and mind working together developed mathematics and philosophy in ancient Greece. Today, schools kill creativity. Robinson's TED Talk has 19 million views# precisely because Americans get irony and Brits are not reserved.
When you make things, you start appreciating how getting things done is so not like being busy with digital. In fact, creating is the missing link in the chain of value. Whether you want to create better or more, focus on depth is critical.
Depth = value
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
Thesis: focus on one question, task, or problem to develop the skills to transform potential into tangible results people value.
The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.
Real value and its production are critical in every industry, every company size, stage of growth, and so on. Something we often fail to consider and/or vet is the clarity of our goals — how we are going to measure them so we know how we're doing as we do the work, and the communication surrounding them, especially the feedback.
Which leads to the crux of why deep work is important to us as human beings — it provides a concrete sense of accomplishment. Work is satisfying when you see the physical manifestation of what you've done. Building things, painting, doing something physical contributes to your sense of being functional.
People being out of work is a huge crisis because work equals value and self-esteem. But it's even worse when people do have jobs and are disengaged from their work. What happens with schools and education early in life extends into adulthood.
The opposite of building is busying. Thus productivity starts with focus and clarity.
Radical honesty: the extremes
You could be in the camp of the regimented, that of the non-linear person, or anywhere in between. On one side, you change your routines, on the other you change your perspective.
Both involve decision-making.
On the routines side of things, you control for the range of possible outcomes. Imagine that along with setting the alarm clock the night before, you pick and set out breakfast, clothes, itineraries, work tools and supplies, and so on.
You also have “plan B” contingencies for rain, potential delays and unknown factors factored in. Keys go in the same place every day after use, same for umbrella, or have different ones along different routes, check coat and jackets for clean pockets if needed, especially for a client meeting. All of this as part of a routine checklist we establish ahead of time.
Routines
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
Thesis: check out the routines of 161 artists, appreciate the rituals of creators.
A solid routine fosters a well-worn groove for one’s mental energies and helps stave off the tyranny of moods.
It is a danger to wait around for an idea to occur to you. You have to find the idea.
The trick is to make time—not steal it—and produce the fiction. If the stories come, you get them written, you’re on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.
Treat this as a catalog (too few women) and you'll find your own nuggets of wisdom—those that speak to your sense of accomplishment. If you're involved in creative work, mind the gap between taste and results, as Ira Glass explains.
Finding the way through is not simply a matter of putting in the work, although that is important. It's rather counter-intuitive, but this works and scales to other aspects of life, like relationships with family and colleagues, for example.
You need to love what you do—rather than try to find something you love to do— then engage deeply with it to make it work.
Time = now
Time Warrior: How to defeat procrastination, people-pleasing, self-doubt, over-commitment, broken promises and chaos by Steve Chandler
Thesis: use a non-linear approach to deal with time. Commit to action in the present moment, choosing if the task is now or “not now.” If not now, it's either never, or placed in a time capsule with a spot on the calendar and out of the mind.
Action is the answer.
Keep your life creative and simple: what needs to be done now in these three minutes? That’s all you ever need to ask, and you’ll never have anything like procrastination bother you again.
“Stop stopping” is inspirational advice, but it needs complementing with the rigor or knowing where you're going. Close this section with Ira Glass' creative process.
When in doubt, go back to the decision. Was it sound? Is this still a desirable goal?
A year in your life
What can you learn about yourself in a year? Maybe even a more concentrated time if you spend it in another place: say Italy, where everything is much more intense. Because, wherever you go, there you are.
Now's a good moment to mention the value of sabbaticals. When taking time off work for periods of time, people often call the break a “sabbatical” even though they may be the ones paying themselves to be on leave. In that case, you take a Seigmeister.
Watch out for the stigma attached to it. Breaks are a good idea marketed poorly in mainstream conversation. They're not gaps, unfortunate interruptions, signs of trouble, pure idleness, etc. They're recovery periods for the mind.
You can be the most productive when you can invest time in a project requiring deep experiential learning, or focused on completing a project for yourself. Then, you can look back a year from now and see your plans realized.
File these under attention.
Self-experimentation
The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy by Chris Bailey
Thesis:
Useful especially to college students.
If you've read Deep Work, you'll find familiar ideas here. As for the next selection, I'm a huge fan of organizing things.
Prescription
One Year to an Organized Life: From Your Closets to Your Finances, the Week-by-Week Guide to Getting Completely Organized for Good by Regina Leeds
Thesis: get you house organized by breaking down tasks and areas, and keep it that way.
Pick this up if you enjoy a monthly approach to organizing and very prescriptive assignments. It's especially useful if you have a big house, a budget, and want to take it a little at a time. Otherwise, reach for Kondo.#
Whether you're into testing or proven methods, how you manage yourself and your attention are key. Start now and 12 months from now you'll look back and see a productive year.
The classics
They endure through time for different reasons. As a strategist who also rolls up sleeves and gets to do the work, I'm a fan of workflows. Even a little bit of structure can be liberating.
A word about the word. I'm borrowing Italo Calvino's definition of the term “classics.” He defines then as “those books that are treasured by those who have read and loved them.” Perhaps his take that “the classics are books that exert a peculiar influence” fits this section.
Key action here is: prioritize.
Open loops, closed mind
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen (original edition)
Thesis: Anything that occupies your mind is distracting you from doing the work. You can achieve stress-free productivity only when your mind is clear and your thoughts are organized.
Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because the doing of them has not been defined.
I am rather like a mosquito in a nudist camp; I know what I want to do, but I don’t know where to begin.
You are the captain of your own ship; the more you act from that perspective, the better things will go for you.
Reacting is automatic, but thinking is not.
Interestingly, one of the biggest problems with most people’s personal management systems is that they blend a few actionable things with a large amount of data and material that has value but no action attached.
Watch out for creating a system that needs an industry to explain and maintain.# If you're a control freak and have lots of open loops in your life, this method may be for you. But you need consistency to see results.
The spine of the GTD system is captured on a straightforward, one-page flowchart# you can pin over your desk and consult without having to refer back to the book.
Pruning well
The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter F. Drucker
Thesis: to be effective, you need to get the right things done.
Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge are essential resources, but only effectiveness converts them into results.
Converting a decision into action requires answering several distinct questions: Who has to know of this decision? What action has to be taken? Who is to take it? And what does the action have to be so that the people who have to do it can do it? The first and the last of these are too often overlooked—with dire results.
The focus on contribution by itself supplies the four basic requirements of effective human relations: communications; teamwork; self-development; and development of others.
People in general, and knowledge workers in particular, grow according to the demands they make on themselves. They grow according to what they consider to be achievement and attainment. If they demand little of themselves, they will remain stunted. If they demand a good deal of themselves, they will grow to giant stature—without any more effort than is expended by the nonachievers.
Drucker defines executive broadly as someone who is responsible for a contribution that materially affects the capacity of the organization to perform and to obtain results.”
The advice is evergreen: priorities matter.
I'd add that the way a company hires speaks volumes about its confidence in the product and the team to deliver for customers. Finding the right fit becomes much easier when every action, word, and behavior is coherent.
Successful companies operate as close to networks as feasible based on entity type and size. But companies have by and large not restructured to support this more natural view of business. Now is a good time to review and correct.
Also, now is a perfect time to think about what work means to you.
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