How to Feel Productive Without Being Productive
Most people are interested in doing something. But maybe this is not the case. Maybe you just want to feel productive, productive, or hardworking without actually doing something. You can’t just start doing it. You need to plan first, and you need to plan planning first.
Get hung up on tools
What do you need to do? Well, check your to-do list. You have a to-do app, right? In theory, you can effectively manage your tasks with a notepad and pen. But you don’t always have them at your fingertips and your phone is always close at hand, so you have to handle your cases on your phone, so you should download the mobile to-do app, so you have to learn mobile cases first. Programs.
There are literally countless 4+ rated case managers in the iOS and Android play stores; Google Play stops at 250 . How do you know that one of them is not 10% more efficient than your current application? One of them has location reminders. One has calendar integration. One has tactile feedback. One has a particularly nice blue checkmark icon.
While you’re in the app store, update all of your apps. Please update the apps that support these apps. Update apps you don’t use, but someday you can so that when you use them you don’t have to spend all that time updating them. Go to your computer, update these applications too. Download the to-do desktop app that syncs with your mobile to-do app. Sign in to Dropbox to set up your sync file. Sign in to Google to receive a confirmation email from Dropbox. Sign in to 1Password to get your Google password. Log into Twitter if you ever want to tweet about your business.
Download a minimalistic writing app. Download yet another full screen minimalistic writing app. Download another minimalist writing app with a wider screen. What is the most productive font? Customize the font. Customize sounds. Adjust the brightness. Switch to Mac. Switch to Windows. Switch to Linux. Install Windows on Mac for applications that don’t work on Linux.
Check your workplace. Does this sound like one of our favorite jobs ? Why not? Why do you only have one monitor? With two, you could do twice as much. Why only two? Research monitors. You want to buy only the best. Read Amazon reviews. Read independent reviews. Cross-reference them. Order your monitor. Do not use your computer until you purchase a new monitor. You don’t want to exhaust yourself with low-quality single-monitor work.
While you’re at it, buy a new computer desk. Do not use your computer until you have purchased a new computer desk. Maybe you need a new computer.
Okay, you’re off the grid. You’re offline. Let’s try this pen and notebook anyway. You have a new pen and a new notebook , right? And the pages are separated by a grid because it seems more accurate? And they are yellow because you read somewhere that it is easier to remember what you wrote on yellow paper? Is your notebook waterproof, coil-top, perforated, fits in a pocket, has a pocket of its own, big enough to encourage big ideas, and light enough to throw in a bag, with enough pages left to keep you from running away?
Fantasy! Now discard the pen and take the rollerball . Throw away the rollerball and grab the gel pen. Throw away the gel pen and take a pen with a narrower tip. Too narrow! Become wider again. Okay. We’re ready to get down to business. We are ready to choose a logging system.
Obsession with systems
You will never be truly productive if you don’t have a good system. You’ve heard good reviews about bullet logging . Lifehacker says, “Take what works for you and forget about the rest,” but you really want to do it right. You want to be as productive and productive as possible. You want to get an A in productivity. Learn all about the bullet magazine. Replace your notebook and pen with the notebook and pen that are best suited for journaling.
Now switch to the Getting Things Done system .
You’re ready to get started! 1 day! You have so much energy! But what will you do on Day 2 when you run out of energy? How will you maintain your work habit? Do what Jerry Seinfeld does, grab a wall calendar and give an X every day that you stick to your good habit, and try not to interrupt the streak. Switch from X to colored lines . Change all colors to more productive ones.
Explore the 43 folder system. Explore the Inbox Zero system. Learn the method of action. Learn Agile. Learn Kanban . Invent your own system . Skip the part of every Lifehacker article that says you can’t get too hung up on the system to the detriment of your work. How can you get hung up on the good?
Learn the technique of Tomato . Take more breaks. Read about task switching. Take fewer breaks. What’s the best Pomodoro timer? Try this . Try this . Try this . Try this . Try this . Try this . Try this . Try this . Try this . Try this . Try this . Try this . Confuse options with commitment.
Wait. November is National Novel Writing Month. This is the perfect productivity system. Until then, don’t do any work. If you are not reading this on November 2nd, in which case you should probably wait until next year.
Wait for permission to do creative work
If you are doing something creative like writing or painting, coding or making music, don’t start until you’ve read a few books on how to write or paint, code or make music. Listen to podcasts. Read podcast recommended books. Read articles about books and books recommended in these articles. Read the article on how to read a book productively . Read this article on how to pretend you’re reading a book . Read the article about not reading articles . Read a book about reading articles, not reading articles .
Go to class. Pay money to learn how to do something for free. Money will make you productive. A well-designed website will keep you productive. Advertisements from famous people will keep you productive.
Don’t get creative until you’ve read every book, listened to every podcast, and completed every class. All the people you look up to have done poorly before they did good, but think how much better their job could be if they spent that time reading books, listening to podcasts, and attending classes. They could only start with a good job at 60.
Consume a constant stream of data
Measure your progress. Track your word count. Keep track of your representatives. Track your results. A good start. Now track your typing speed. Keep track of your breakfast. Track toilet breaks. Quantify everything. Quantify things that you never thought of. Buy devices to unlock new opportunities for quantification. Download device tracking apps. Make spreadsheets. Draw up documents. Fill out your notebook. Determine how much you value. Don’t do any work if you can’t quantify it.
Turn on all your notifications. Include icons. Include banners. Turn on alerts. Enable dashboards. Turn on the counters for incoming messages. Turn on the physical light you have equipped so that it will light up whenever something happens. Submit your Google Alerts to iCal. Submit your iCal alerts to Google. Submit all your alerts to IFTTT, save them all to an Evernote file and email yourself.
Stay on top of your favorite content. Stay up to date with content you might like. Stay on top of news that no one likes as a warning.
Change your desktop wallpaper. Change again. Download an app that automatically changes your wallpaper. Download the mobile version of the application. Buy a phone case that matches your mobile wallpaper app. Buy a new app.
Say yes to everything
Tackle all of your side projects at once, instead of choosing the one that is most important to you. Give them all the same meaning. Work on each one until you get tired of it, and then move on to the next. Unless you reach a point where someone else has to contribute. Then don’t work on anything while you wait for this outside contribution.
Exception: If you have a manageable project that can grow, keep it in your head. Don’t get your ideas down to paper. Let them metastasize. Polish them to make them perfect. Feed them to grow. Ignore limited resources. Tell people about your big idea and that it will be more important than anything you’ve done before. Tell people that your big idea is better than real things other people have created. Get everyone excited about your big idea, so whenever they see you they ask how it is progressing and you can tell them that you didn’t really work on it, but you worked to make the idea even more. large-scale.
When someone asks you to start another project, say yes to anything that worries you. Say yes to anything that doesn’t bother you, but may worry you in the future. Say yes to anything that sounds awful because it might open the door for another project that you care about.
Add whatever you want to do to your to-do list, but don’t delete anything. You once wanted to do this, so until you do, constantly remind yourself that you didn’t. Set deadlines for each task. Skip the deadlines, but reschedule the task to next week until you have a total of 100 tasks that you regularly reschedule to the next week. Don’t let the wall of unfinished tasks get in the way of adding new tasks. Bigger tasks. Tasks that will be even better than other tasks.
Set tasks about managing your tasks. Create projects about managing your projects. Blog about writing about productivity. Go to a few workshops. Pay for your workouts. Do whatever is meant to be a support system, but turn it into a thing, make management the only thing you do, so you never have to face those really daunting challenges and get things done.