Easily the best habit I’ve ever
started was to use a productivity system. The idea is simple: organizing
all the stuff you need to do (and how you’re going to do it) prevents a
lot of internal struggle to get things done.
There’s a ton of systems out there. Some are elaborate, like Getting Things Done.
Others are dead-simple, such as simply using a prioritized daily to-do
list. Some require software. Many you can do with just pen and paper.
Being successful with a system long-term is hard. Here are just a few common problems:
You have no idea which system to pick, or when you do pick something
you constantly second-guess yourself that you’re “doing it right.”
You get a burst of enthusiasm each time you try it, are productive
for about two weeks, then you start to slack off and eventually abandon
it.
The system never seems to “fit right” for your life, yet you’re
convinced the problem is that you don’t know how to work within it.
The system you’ve chosen feels like a slowly constricting prison
you’ve made for yourself, choking off your will to do meaningful work
and turning you into a robot.
These problems can be avoided, but it takes a little thinking about
what the point of having a system is and what it can and cannot do for
you.
Why Use a System at All?
Ultimately, everybody has a system for productivity. There are really only three different kinds:
The system of other people. You simply respond to
the pressures put on you by colleagues, clients, bosses or family
members. Big deadline tomorrow? I guess you’re working late on it.
The system of feelings and moods. Feeling creative
today? You might get a lot of work done. Does that thing that seemed
interesting before now seem dull? I guess you’re not working on it. At
its best, this can be fun and spontaneous. At its worst it can be
soul-crushing to see you never make more than fleeting progress on
anything with an ounce of frustration.
A system of your own design. In this case, you
create guidelines for yourself that structure your efforts. Moods and
outside pressures still matter, but they’re no longer the only guiding
factor about what to work on, how much and how often.
Building the habit of a productivity system is about self-consciously
creating a buffer between you and temporary emotions or external
agents. You still need to respond to deadlines and listen to your
emotions, but those aren’t the only things you heed when planning your
day.
If your system is going to be liberating rather than suffocating, however, you need to follow a few guidelines:
Rule #1 – Your system needs to fit your work (not the other way around).
Any system is designed using certain assumptions about your work. If those assumptions are wrong, the system may backfire.
Take Weekly/Daily Goals,
the system I use most often. The idea is that you have two lists, a
weekly to-do list and a daily to-do list. The latter is intended to be
fixed—you decide what to work on that day and hold it constant, even if
you finish early.
This system works well when you have a bunch of concrete tasks you
need to finish that you might procrastinate on, but if you just sat down
and did them all in a burst of focus you could probably get them done
easily. The goal here is to use the potential reward of a workday
finished early to get things done in an effective manner.
This system doesn’t work as well if your tasks are ambiguous and
open-ended. It struggles more when your day is mostly meetings occurring
at fixed times on your calendar. If your daily goals list just contains
one task, “Work on X.” then it isn’t even functioning as a productivity
system at all.
Therefore, before you get started with a system, it’s important to
ask what the assumptions are that underpin it. What does your work need
to look like for this to be effective?
Rule #2 – The system should counterbalance your worst tendencies.
The guiding philosophy behind Getting Things Done is that,
without writing down what needs doing, we’re liable to forget. Although
the system aims at more than this, the key tendency it’s trying to
counteract is simply forgetting what you need to do. Fixed-schedule productivity
counterbalances the tendency to constantly work overtime, having your
office hours bleed into your home life. You’re answering emails at
midnight, but at the same time, you’re exhausted in the evening and not
as sharp when at work.
Maintaining deep work
hours suggests the problem is mostly distraction, particularly from
tasks that feel like work but aren’t your main source of value.
The Most Important Task
method works when you have a few hard tasks that you need to prioritze.
It assumes you’ll end up working on convenient, easy tasks, rather than
those that really matter. Quadrant systems that focus on important tasks over merely urgent ones, are another tool for prioritizing.
Breaking your day into Pomodoro chunks
assumes the problem is that the work feels too large to get started, so
you procrastinate. Small chunks with mandatory breaks focus your
attention on the next mile marker and not the entire marathon.
These tendencies need not be mutually exclusive. You could, for
instance, combine deep work hours with Pomodoro chunks or the Most
Important Task method. What matters is that these systems are balancing
the problems you’re actually facing. A sales person investing in deep
work hours probably doesn’t make sense.
Rule #3 – The system needs a way of dealing with exceptions.
Every system, no matter how complicated, will create situations where it no longer makes sense to follow the guidelines it sets.
What’s needed, then, is a way of handling exceptions to the rules
without making so many ad-hoc adjustments that the original system is
rendered meaningless. Unfortunately, there’s no way to create a list of
such meta-rules since if there were, they could simply be included into
the original system.
For instance—let’s say you’re a writer. You have a bunch of tasks on
your plate for the day, but all of a sudden you get a really good idea
for an essay. You should probably start writing now or you’ll lose your
train of thought. What should you do?
There’s no “correct” answer to this situation. For some people,
getting enough good ideas for writing may be the major problem in their
work. For them, it makes sense to put on hold lower priority work to
start writing as soon as inspiration calls. For others, they may waste
days chasing ideas rather than doing the boring stuff that needs doing.
In this sense, the “correct” answer is to develop self-awareness.
Does this exception to the basic rules I’ve set for myself buffer
against an unproductive tendency or support it? If this exception is
made into a new rule, would it strengthen or defeat the system I’m
trying to create?
This may sound finicky, but I’d argue that true success with systems
involves making numerous such slight exceptions which become a part of
the system themselves. To use a system means not only to follow its
basic guidelines, but develop a skill of handling exceptions to the
system that make it more useful, not less.
Rule #4 – A good productivity system shouldn’t “feel” productive.
Okay, this one requires some explanation. In short, the problem with
aiming to “feel” productive rather than “being” productive is twofold:
Feelings are defined by relative contrast, not absolute measurement.
You feel productive when you’re getting more work done than normal. But
if you’re successful with a productivity habit, what’s “normal” should
shift. Relying on feeling productive then creates an inescapable
treadmill where if you’re not constantly doing better than what feels
normal, you feel like a failure.
Feeling of productivity is often tied to a feeling of exertion.
This leads to expending a lot of effort in the beginning with a new
system, getting a lot done, and then being disappointed when you can’t
sustain that.
A good productivity system should, when working properly, feel like
nothing at all. It should just be an invisible part of your routine. If
it is conspicuous, it’s probably not a habit yet, or it’s creating
friction with parts of your life in ways that it shouldn’t.
If you don’t feel more productive, how do you judge your
productivity? The obvious answer is that you should get more work done
with the system than without it. But even this can be misleading because
in the short-term it’s always possible to just work really hard and
burn yourself out.
The better, long-term answer for evaluating your system ought to be
that when you look back at the last quarter, year or decade with the
system, you’ve been making a lot of meaningful accomplishments. If this
is happening, then how the system feels on a weekly or daily level is
totally irrelevant.
Rule #5 – If your work changes, your system should too.
For some, work will be consistent enough to not need major changes.
You simply stick to the same system and you’ll get the results you want.
For me, I’ve found that as what I’m trying to do changes dramatically, I often need very different approaches to work on things:
In college, I often relied on Weekly/Daily Goals. My work was mostly
a set of fairly concrete and predictable tasks that needed to be
finished to stay on top of things.
During the MIT Challenge,
the tasks themselves were larger and more ambiguous. My daily goals
would have looked like, “Work on class problems all day.” Setting fixed
working hours made more sense here, so I could focus when I needed to,
but still give myself time to relax.
During the Year Without English,
I had core tasks I set hours for, just as with the MIT Challenge. But I
also had dedicated habits for doing small tasks like flashcards or
listening to podcasts outside of my normal working rhythms. This helped
me capture spare moments in the day.
When writing my book,
deep work hours were essential. I still had other work, so I kept to-do
lists for those. But setting aside the entire morning for research and
writing meant I could get a lot done. Putting this first also kept me
from procrastinating by using my other work as an excuse to keep from
doing hard research/writing.
When I had to promote my book,
my daily schedule looked like Swiss cheese, with up to five podcasts
per day. A calendar-driven approach, where I scheduled my tasks made
more sense here otherwise it would be hard to decide when was the best
time to work on things.
Some features of my system rarely change. I almost always have a
calendar and daily to-do list, for instance. But adjusting to a new
system when I have different types of projects has been more successful
for me than stubbornly trying to fit everything into a single system.
Rule #6 – Always measure against your baseline (not somebody else’s).
If you’re ever evaluating a productivity system, the right
measurement to make is “am I getting more done than I was a
week/month/year ago?” If you’re, instead, asking yourself, “how close am
I to being perfectly productive?” or worse, “how productive am I
compared to so-and-so?” you’re going to have a bad time.
The tyranny of ideal productivity is a major problem. I’ve worked
with students in my courses whom set up a project successfully and were
making consistent progress towards it. When I asked them how they’re
doing, however, they complained that they still didn’t think they’re
productive enough.
But how much is enough?
There’s certainly being insufficiently productive for your current
goals or environment. If I were falling behind in my classes or failing
to reach my deadlines, that might be cause for reflection.
On the other hand, there’s a perverse tendency to judge yourself
against some ideal benchmark. Comparing yourself against a theoretical
possibility, rather than your own past results. If you get more done
than you were getting done before, the system is successful. That you’re
not able to work for sixteen hours without break cannot be viewed as a
failure.
Rule #7 – A system cannot give your work meaning or motivation.
A system can only shape and direct the motivations you already have, it cannot give you ones you don’t already possess.
Work that feels miserable to you doesn’t magically become exciting
with the right productivity system. At best, it becomes an endurable
chore.
Many failures of productivity are, at their root, deeper problems of
meaning and mission in life. If you’re spending your days at a job you
hate, if you’re studying a major you were coerced into rather than
freely chose, if your dream job has become a nightmare, then no
productivity system can fix this.
Productivity systems work better the more natural enthusiasm you
have. They work like a lens, magnifying and directing the diffuse energy
you already possess. The people, therefore, that tend to succeed with
productivity systems already have a meaning and drive for their work.
They have ambitions and recognize that getting things done efficiently
is necessary for reaching them.
In 1850, French economist Claude-Frédéric Bastiat published his famous essay, “Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas”
or, “What is seen and what is unseen.” In it, he argues against the
“bad economist” who looks only to the initial effect of actions taken,
and not their further consequences.
Bastiat uses the example of a broken shop window. To repair the
window, the shop owner has to hire a glass maker. Now the glass maker
has money, and can use it to buy further things. Thus, the economy has
improved, has it not?
But this only notes the seen, the money spent and glass maker
employed, and not the unseen, what could have been bought with the money
instead. A bad economist reasons from the seen and argues that we ought
to break windows to stimulate the economy. The wise economist knows
that breaking things makes people worse off.
That breaking windows is counterproductive is hardly surprising. Yet,
in our working lives, many of us are exactly the bad economists Bastiat
warned against. We focus on being visibly productive, often subtly
undermining the unseen ability to do important work.
Consider the person who stays late at the office every night, to show
everyone what a “team player” he is. Except, this causes him to sleep
less which makes him sluggish. He misses time spent with colleagues, who
would have recommended him for projects and promotions. He never has
time to think, and thus fails to think of brilliant ideas that would
propel him forward. Despite his drudgery, his lack of progress only
convinces him that he has failed to work hard enough.
Today, I’d like to consider Bastiat’s question as it applies to our
work. What are the unseen factors that influence our productivity so
that something that looks lazy actually gets results?
1. Actually getting enough sleep.
Listen to this article
Productivity enthusiasts fetishize waking up early. Waking up at 7am
isn’t enough. You need to wake up at 6, 5 or even 4:30 in the morning.
We all vary in our natural sleeping set-point, so early-rising might
be right for some. But for many others it’s forcing us into an unnatural
rhythm that naturally leads to less sleep.
Sleeping is the quintessential example of a productive activity that
looks lazy. Not only does sleep consolidate memory, enhance cognition
and improve your mood, but its absence is disastrous. Failing to get
sufficient sleep, many of us believe we’ve “adapted” but the truth is
our cognitive performance continues to decline.
Sleeping well leads to working better.
2. Taking long walks just to think.
Another consequence of prioritizing the seen over the unseen in our
work is that we devalue time spent just thinking. Since its not obvious
to outsiders what we’re thinking about, it’s often the case that those
staring off into space or “taking a break” are seen as slackers.
In truth, long walks just to think are one of the most productive
things you can do. Albert Einstein, in dreaming up the ideas behind
general relativity did much of his thinking in long walks.
Had he been forced to constantly publish mediocre papers instead, to
give the appearance of productivity, our entire understanding of the
universe would be impoverished for it.
3. Chatting with colleagues about work.
Watercooler gossip is a tell-tale sign of slacking. Except when it isn’t.
In the Enigma of Reason,
researchers Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, argue that humans did not
evolve to reason well about things in isolation. Our faculties of
deduction, logic and insight were developed to win arguments, not to
determine the truth.
What this implies, however, is that when you only think about
problems on your own, it’s much harder to arrive at the correct
solution. Faced with a “sounding board” you leverage your faculties of
reason in the way they were designed. As a result, many insights that
seem unreachable in isolation are obvious in interaction.
Of course, like all unseen productivity enhancements, this one gets a
bad rap because socializing is often not about making productive
breakthroughs. Still, setting up time to chat about hard problems with
colleagues is rarely a waste.
4. Taking a nap.
Sleep is important. Particularly so in the night when you can enter deeper phases of sleep that enable memory consolidation.
That being so, our lives don’t always permit perfect sleep. Sometimes
we’ll find ourselves struggling to stay awake during work, barely
making any progress. In those cases, taking a nap should be seen as a
productive hack, not wasteful sloth.
A difficulty with taking midday naps is that you oversleep and feel
groggy after (not to mention wasting time). Thus, if you’re in a
position where napping is an option, you can use the spoon trick.
This involves napping with a spoon in your hand raised off the ground.
When you slip too deeply into sleep, your muscles will relax, the spoon
will drop and the clatter will wake you up.
Coffee naps,
where you combine a short nap with a pre-nap coffee can also extend
your wakefulness. The combination works especially well because
adenosine, which makes you feel sleepy, is removed from receptors
following a nap, and the freed receptors can then be “plugged” by
caffeine, keeping you awake.
5. Say “No” to most opportunities and tasks.
“If you want something done, give it to a busy person.” Or, so the
old saying goes. I actually think this saying conceals a hidden meaning.
Busy people are those who have the hardest time saying no to those who
make demands on their time. That’s why they’re busy.
I like the approach Nobel-laureate Richard Feynman took.
Physics is hard work. As Feynman admits, “To do high, real good physics
work you do need absolutely solid lengths of time.” His solution to
avoid people interrupting him with busy-work? Tell them he’s lazy and
irresponsible:
“I have invented another myth for myself—that I’m irresponsible. I
tell everybody, I don’t do anything. If anybody asks me to be on a
committee to take care of admissions, no, I’m irresponsible.”
Productivity doesn’t mean doing the most, but getting the most from what you have done.
6. Taking regular vacations.
“If you love what you do, every day is a vacation.” Nice in theory,
lousy in practice. Even if you love your job, taking space from the work
you do and having your mind elsewhere is essential to break out of the
habit patterns that keep you stuck in your work.
In a discussion on travel
between journalist Ezra Klein and economist Tyler Cowen, Klein remarked
that he often feels exhausted from travel. Cowen responded that he is
able to travel so much, because he treats travel with the seriousness
most people apply to work. Instead of expecting it to be leisure, he
sees it as an opportunity to expand his knowledge.
I agree with Cowen. Travel is not the only way to broaden your mind,
but regularly going somewhere new—physically or mentally—is essential to
avoid getting stuck in stale habits. Your routines eventually prevent
you from discovering creative new solutions. Seeing and discovering new
things is essential to prevent becoming inflexible in your thoughts and
actions.
7. Stop doing work you hate.
It’s sometimes the most diligent and productive who end up
accomplishing the least. That’s because their tolerance for drudgery
prevents them from quitting on work that’s unrewarding.
Nearly all people who have accomplished something of value did work
that was meaningful and enjoyable to them. No, perhaps not all the time
or without effort, but grinding for years at fundamentally unsatisfying
work is rarely the recipe for greatness.
To really do work you love, sometimes you need to stop doing work you hate.
These are just my suggestions. Do you have any thoughts on habits or
activities that seem lazy but are actually productive? Which would you
add to my list? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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