The Only Productivity Advice You Need

How to actually get more done

There are countless hacks that supposedly improve our productivity. Cold showers, meditating, journaling, writing to-do lists, and so on. The paradox is that while all of these things help, they may actually harm our productivity. Let me explain why.

What matters at the end of the day?

Let’s assume you are a writer who publishes his articles on Medium and earns his money with it. At the end of the day, how do you judge how successful or productive you were? By how long you meditated? By whether you took a cold shower? By how long you wrote?

Probably by none of these things. You will be able to judge your success of this day only in a few weeks when you know how much you have earned with your work of the day.

That is the only thing that matters. Your results. The numbers.

I think that focusing on the wrong things, such as how hard and how long you can work is a big problem with the hustle culture.

Opportunity Cost

Of course, you have to work hard if you want to become successful, but if working long and hard is the main focus, something is probably wrong. Instead of blindly throwing yourself into the work, it might make more sense to take a step back and consider if what you are doing is the most effective thing you could be doing. Just because something is productive doesn’t mean you should do it. If you could be doing something more productive in that time, you probably should. You should always think about the opportunity cost of your work. We all have only 24 hours a day and the time you spend working on one thing you can’t spend working on another.

A personal example:

I’ve written a few articles about my earnings on Medium and haven’t earned much from any of them. Maybe $20 total with about 10 articles, I guess.

I have invested a lot of time and been productive. I even took a cold shower beforehand, meditated, and hustled for hours. Still, hardly any results. I was productive but other things would have been much more productive. Apparently, I just chose the wrong topic.

But I also made over $800 with one article about a random statistic. All I had to do was take numbers and write a few lines about it. It took me less than an hour. Just because I chose a topic that attracted readers. From that, I learned to think about what I’m writing about and how likely I am to succeed with it, instead of just writing and hustling as much as possible.

Work smarter, not harder

Taking a break might be more productive than continuing to work

This sounds counterintuitive. Let me explain. After a few hours, our concentration and creativity wane. This is why working extremely long might not necessarily be the best way to maximize our output. I myself notice this very much when writing.

Funnily enough, the best ideas for articles came to me not when I was actively looking for them at my desk, but when I was out walking. Not the hustle, but the break was really productive.

Remember: It’s not about feeling productive. It’s about actually being productive.

Thanks for reading!

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