Caution About Productivity

The few words of wisdom for any aspiring ‘productivity’ master/ninja/wannabe from someone who’s been there and burned a few times in the trial by fire:

• Make sure your productivity frees you do more important things in your life, not just necessarily fill ‘more work’ into the same space of time.
• Productivity systems come and go. All of them have some compromises in their respective approach by design.
• Stick with what works when possible. Don’t be lured into the trap of continual evaluation of productivity tools and never reaping the benefits!
• Last and certainly not least… It should be enjoyable to work with. If not, what’s the point? Make it your own and make it fun!

Whenever I consider any system, these are the guidelines by which I measure them. These reflect important values that I want out of my productivity system. You should also consider how you will evaluate any system that you come across or currently use.

So you may read over that list and rules and say… That’s all well and good but what systems or methods do you use? What’s the secret method to doing what you actually do? I would ask you to think about why you are asking this question for a moment. For example, you can focus on David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology for a comprehensive lifestyle approach. You could also think smaller or more focused to solve a common problem. One such example is Inbox Zero by Merlin Mann, which is one approach to handle email overload. Now that we are this far, I would ask you: What is the actual problem that you want to solve?

I will be brutally blunt; there are as many systems and variations as there are people. You cannot and will not learn it all. Nor should you… that is the real rabbit hole of non-productivity. However, I will say that any serious amount of research will yield new ideas and possibilities for you. Do yourself a favor and do some homework on the ‘popular’ methods to get an idea of what’s out there. Once you have the requisite foundational knowledge and principles behind why they work in the first place, the most critical part afterward is learning more about yourself.

Seriously, ask yourself questions like the following:

1. How do I work?
2. How do I learn?
3. How do I remember things best?
4. What do I want to accomplish?
5. Why am I doing this?

Answering these questions will help you realize what kind of personalized system will actually benefit you and have the power to ‘stick’. Use the popular methods as building blocks to generate a good foundation; make sure to learn the guiding principles. The ideal system begins to form when you make one for yourself.