How I Got Interested In Productivity
I wouldn't call myself the most prolific expert in productivity.
However, I have spent years reading and learning about getting things done effectively. In my own life, I have probably spent more than 867 hours improving my workflows.
I'm not a fan of complicated systems like GTD. Cal Newport's "Deep Work" approach is more my style.
"I hope whatever you're doing you are stopping now and then and not doing it at all." — Ram Dass
Here's how I first got interested in productivity:
For the longest time, I thought I was accomplishing quite a lot. Then, about two years ago, I began working with a business coach who was able to pinpoint ways in which I was wasting time and procrastinating.
One stormy summer evening in South Florida I was in my room, on a Zoom call with the coach who at the time was on an island in Thailand.
He shared with me that he had given up on music as a hobby in order to pursue his goal to gain freedom. To get his business up and running he had to sacrifice a lot of pleasant activities.
He told me to remove all games from my iPhone, stop watching YouTube and Netflix for entertainment, and drop a number of superfluous but dopamine-inducing things that didn't help me advance toward my goals.
It's a very delicate balance between achieving results and spending recreational time.
You must be tuned in to the sense of where you're simply procrastinating versus recharging.
So my goal over the next year is:
Recognize when I do things that don't matter and stop doing them.
I don't want to learn yet another technique to be more productive.
What's important is to never lose sight of where your time goes and make a judgment about whether or not was spent wisely. After all, it's the only resource we cannot make more of.
