Forget Everything You Know About Productivity And Read This

Productivity as you know it is holding you back.

So you don’t know what productivity really is?

That’s okay because I’ve spent a long time not really understanding it myself. Now that I finally have a better sense of what it is I’m 10x more productive than I have ever been.

It would be rude of me to keep these secrets to myself so I’m going to break down productivity and give you some tips for the future.

So you think you know what productivity is? You don’t.

Productivity is commonly understood as the ability to get more work done. Unfortunately, it is not the actual and appropriate definition.

Productivity, in a true sense, is described by Charles Duhigg as the pertinent output of a person’s efforts in a particular period.

“Every choice we make in life is an experiment.”

— Charles Guhigg

The pertinent output is best described as the efforts of an individual on the right things. You can be highly productive and doing a lot of stuff at the same time resulting in a lot of output but the achieved results may be useless.

You can be only truly productive when the pertinent output is being focused on the right things and they get done in a certain period.

When you are trying to explore how to be productive, you are actually searching out the ways to achieve your targets and goals by concentrating your efforts as well as energy on what matters the most.

So productivity is getting the most important things done invariably rather than getting more things done consistently with a worthless output.

Being productive is to maintain a steady speed at the most important things, not the maximal speed at everything. Listed below are the three small changes to make in your routine to increase your productivity.

1. Kaizen Method

Kaizen is a fusion of two Japanese words; Kai means improvement, as well as change and Zen, means better, good. It depicts the concept of continuous change and improvement.

It is described as a principle that concentrates on the idea that perpetual improvement can help produce favorable outcomes. It motivates people to take baby steps towards giant goals to become more productive.

To implement this philosophy in your daily life to increase your productivity, kaizen can be split into the following major principles:

Question & Plan

Set a goal and question yourself about the possible steps to achieve it. Come up with an efficient and actionable process. Always be open to innovations.

Consult & Organize

Consult with many experts to update your wisdom and organize the events with a focus on improvements.

This where the Google University will come in handy. Google University is a theory that anything you need to know you can learn through google.

Visualize & Find Solutions

Visualize your goal and the small steps that you make. In case of failure, don’t make excuses rather focus on finding the solutions.

Ask Why & Eliminate Excess

Get to the actual cause of a situation by asking yourself “why?” at least 5 times. Evaluate each activity and eliminate unnecessary and time-consuming things.

2. Manage your Attention, Not Time

Stop focusing so much on time management. It only serves to make you anxious and stressed, compounding the situation without a solution. If you focus on time management, it will just make you more conscious of how you waste the time as there are only a fixed number of hours in a day.

So a better option to be more prolific is attention management. You have to prioritize the activities that matter the most in your life and eventually it will become secondary that how long the things take to occur.

Attention management is the art of concentrating on getting the right things done with pertinent outcomes at the right time and place. Use your most productive hours to accomplish the most important tasks.

By focusing on your attention span rather than thinking about time management you can inadvertently enter flow state. Flow state is a productivity lover’s dream when your brain and your body are deeply focused on something.

You may call it being ‘in the zone,’ essentially it’s a period where you are totally immersed in the task at hand.

Concentrate more on what is valuable and important rather than on the speed of your work. To make things easier, just choose a daily goal that wants to achieve at the end of the day and then decide a particular time you have the most energy to get the task accomplished.

Remember nothing comes easy, everything requires effort, care, and consistency.

3. Prioritize and Start Now

Make a list of all the important tasks and then arrange them in the order of priority. Shorten the list down to the three most important tasks and just focus on them. To shortlist the important tasks just exercise the following questions:

If I have to accomplish only one task today, which should it be?

Will this task make the best use of my time, energy, and creativity?

After shortlisting the most important task, focus on that until you are satisfied it’s done. Then check the priority list and select the next most important task to be finished.

This process will help achieve a greater sense of accomplishment with valuable outcomes at the end of the day. Remember that being productive does not mean multitasking at all. Rather it means the accomplishment of the right task at the right place and time.

No matter how important your task is, you have to initiate first. It’s always important to take an initiative. No matter how efficiently you plan things, you can’t get anywhere if you don’t start.

Putting something into action helps to fight the fear and hesitation. So commit to take action on the most important task on today’s list and start working.

Staying Productive In Modern Times

Productivity is the measure of growth in one’s living standards. Life is always associated with change. In the modern era, the speed of change has increased tremendously and to be prolific with this pace of worldly change is so important.

Productivity can lead to innovation and as stated by the Kaizen method being productive is always beneficial. You get to accomplish the most important tasks with more focus rather than trying to do too much at once and achieving very little.

On the other hand, it is also important to visualize what factors are preventing you from becoming more productive. Utilize your energy and attention in a systemized and efficient way to accomplish your activities. It’s necessary to remember that nothing can hold you back to be more productive, only yourself.

Final Thoughts

In a nutshell, pursue micro-level improvements in your daily life. Do not overthink or overburden yourself. Do not confine yourself to the traditional methods, always have the courage to ask and change.

Just follow the tips mentioned above to prioritize things and then use all your time and energy to get things done. This will result in continual improvements in your daily life and help you become more prolific by achieving set goals with a sense of self-confidence.

Ted is a writer/podcaster/video essayist who writes about living and earning online. Head over to his website The Other Class for more of his work.