A Quibble's Guide to Productivity

Intro

It has come to my attention that most of us here in tpot have no clue how to actually be productive. Although I do not have all of the answers, I do have some. The following are some of my thoughts, specifically, those that have worked in my life. Take it or leave it.

If you are serious about wanting to make progress, you actually need to decide to be the kind of person who does. I want the best for ALL OF YOU, but crucially, I want you to want the best for you.

We start with some theory, then go into detail about my thoughts on productivity and why people don't achieve what they set out to do. We also discuss some helpful strategies I have found to fight off our pesky human nature.

Theory

You are human (presumably). One of the unique characteristics of humans is their ability to MANIPULATE THEIR ENVIRONMENT. As an added plus, we also have GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. This means we can manipulate our surroundings intelligently! We can even do it in such a way that we achieve SPECIFIC GOALS.

This begs the question: "What goals should we strive for?" I can't answer this for you, but here are a few common ones:

If you want some more info, plz consult the chart.

If you were reading closely, you have probably noticed a few LEVERS that we can pull to achieve our goals!

Sidebar: When I say "Environment" I am not strictly speaking about physical environments. I literally mean, anything that has a specific RESOURCE you want to manipulate. If you want to improve your social skills, it would not benefit you to hide in your room, you need to change your ENVIRONMENT to one that contains other people. Gyms, Bars, X the everything app, etc. If you want to acquire money, you need to trade something you are, something you know, something you have, or something you can do, to PEOPLE who already have money. Get a job, find customers, etc. If you want to grow a following, ..., I think you get the idea.

Why am I harping so much on the environment? You need to be in an area of RICH metaphorical resources to achieve your desired goals. I can't do SHIT if I don't have materials or tools to work with.

Onwards I say...

We've discussed a bit about what we can do as humans. We have also gone over some examples of what we can alter in our lives, and the importance of your environment when attempting to achieve something. Let us now work a little on the specific tactics one should employ to put all of this into practice.

Changing your tools and environment (Sharpening the axe AND actually having a tree to chop)

Environment

Some of us got lucky with our spawn points. Unfortunately, some of us didn't. I won't pretend to know what it is like to be you, or pretend to know what you are dealing with. I will just comment a bit about what I've seen happen in and around my life... This section will be somewhat FREEDOM-coded (US) so bear with me if you are not from here.

Have you ever seen someone who did a complete 180 after their LIFE CHANGING trip to Paris or London or whatever? Like, they left a reclusive hobbit and came back as a bubbling socialite full of spontaneity and life. Or the guy who leaves to go to the big city and you look them up on facebook years later and they are a three-star michelin chef or something?

This is the power of changing your physical environment (via location). They ventured out, and discovered new ideas, new RESOURCES, new patterns of thought.

Some come back and bring with them memories that influence their lives daily. Others stay, because they realize that was where they needed to be. The guy would NEVER have become a chef, much less a michelin-starred one without uprooting and moving to where the best chefs are to train under.

Some questions:

Tools

In addition to your environment, you also need to look at the tools you have at your disposal. You can spend all day long in a forest, slamming your fist against a tree but you are NEVER going to chop it down that way. The problem here is that most of the time, you guys are capable of, and accomplish chopping down a tree, but you are doing it with a rock. Like, yeah, the rock works surprisingly. And for some reason you are QUITE proficient at it. But a dude is gonna come around with an axe some day and DEMOLISH you in the annual lumberjack competition.

Just pick up the axe at your feet bro. It's right there. Yes I know the rock works but like, there is an axe...

So think about changing your tools! An example:

Most of my skills lie within the realm of computers. I worked with a shitty computer for YEARS. I would program something, and wait like 5 minutes for the shit to update on my screen. Could barely play games on the lowest settings with my GT-630, the fans were loud and constantly annoying me, compile times were insane. Then, I updated my computer and... multiple CLASSES of problems just disappeared. I was AT LEAST 2x more productive. Possibly even 3x.

Some questions:

Basically this:

"you’re trapped in a local maxima which is far inferior to the global one" - Near

but for your tools and environment.

Manipulating your environment (Execution)

We have discussed switching your environment, and switching your tools out for better ones. Now we are moving on to how to utilize your tools within an environment to yield as MUCH value per unit of time while fighting off stupid human nature.

Imagine for a moment that you are in the right place (you have the resources you need). You have all the necessary tools. And sitting on a table in front of you is a perfect list of prioritized, ordered tasks. It GUARANTEES that if you complete these tasks using the tools at your disposal you WILL achieve the result you desire. Are you confident that you can even execute on this list?

For most, we say we can, and we say we will but then we just... don't.

We look at the list and get overwhelmed. Or we question our ability to perform the tasks. Or we are too tired. Or too stressed. Or we question the fact that this is indeed a perfect list of tasks that will bring us fame and fortune.

So we need methods of execution that are resilient to human nature. The following sections describe methods that have worked for me. They are a sort of "If This Then That" loop so try to apply them as such.

Fighting human nature

Avoiding overwhelm by putting on blinders

You can prevent overwhelm with this one easy trick! Refuse to look at the whole problem at once. Look under the list of tasks and you will find a BLANK SHEET OF PAPER. You take this sheet and place it over the list. You then pull it down until it reveals ONLY THE FIRST task.

THIS IS YOUR WORLD NOW.

YOU EXIST ONLY TO PERFORM THIS TASK.

THERE IS NO GRAND PLAN, THERE IS NO SCARY PROJECT, THERE IS NO BACKLOG.

You need to fully immerse yourself in this task. Maybe another day I'll write something about focusing but for now just do this:

Side note: For some reason, forcing yourself to do only one task feels like being trapped. Humans hate feeling trapped. It makes you want to give up. You want to know how to not feel this way? You make a promise to yourself that it won't last forever. This is where time management techniques such as the "pomodoro technique" or "third time" get their power. By promising freedom, you can extract work out of yourself. (I hope politicians don't find out about this).

Avoiding learned-helplessness through testing

QUIIIIIB I can't do the thing. I'm helpless. It's too hard! Don't worry, I feel this way sometimes too. The best strategy I have found for believing in yourself and believing that YOU CAN DO THE THING, is to prove to yourself that you can. You do this by breaking down whatever the task requires into its component parts, then drilling each until you have it down. If you can perform each part, and you practice performing them together, then you can perform THE WHOLE TASK.

You can even apply this method recursively! This section is shorter than others because I have a whole article on it here!

Avoiding lethargy through momentum

You are lazy. I am lazy. I am always tired. You are always tired. If you don't have a physical reason to be tired, it's all mental bro. You gotta fight it with MOMENTUM. Momentum is achieved by accomplishment. Accomplishment is a feeling you get after FINISHING a task. You can shortcut this by keeping a short list of REALLY EASY tasks on the back-burner. You don't touch these tasks. They are sacred.

If you ever feel yourself slipping, you pull out the back-burner list and SPAM THROUGH THEM AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.

They are easy and typically PHYSICAL actions with OBVIOUS steps. If you gave these tasks to a child, they could probably get them done just as well as you could.

Examples:

Don't judge. I told you they need to be small.

Some questions:

Avoiding stress by just chilling out and trusting the process

Unfortunately in the real world, we can't guarantee that we have perfect lists. :( What we can do is SYSTEMATICALLY IMPROVE OUR BELIEF IN OUR LISTS. We do this by utterly convincing ourselves of the efficacy of our planned actions.

If you don't think you have the right tasks: go find out what other people did. I swear there are a gazillion articles out there for this. Example: When I started software contracting I had no real world experience to rely. I didn't know how to manage clients, I didn't know how to stay on track, I didn't know how to force myself to do things, when I was in charge of both deciding on and doing the tasks. So I... looked it up. LOOK AT THIS:

A little research, a little tweaks here and there, and I had an outline for how to deliver a project of a kind I had never delivered before. My confidence in what I had to do increased because others (who have SUCCESSFULLY done this before) straight up told me what they did.

If you aren't sure that you can complete a project on time: Refer to the section about avoiding learned helplessness. This stems from not believing in yourself to execute in a timely manner. This is solved by executing on similar projects in a timely manner. Prove to yourself you can do it by doing it (or a similar, slightly easier project).

This and the following subsections have essentially the same solution.

Avoiding loss of faith

See above section.

Addendum

I was going to finish this article tonight but it seems there is still half of an article left to write. I am stopping here and splitting this up into multiple articles. So... I HOPE YOU ENJOYED PART I!

It might take me a while to get to the second part, so in the meantime, try your best to apply what I have written here!

Here's some things you might see in the next article:

Some External Resources

There are legitimately hundreds of systems that others have created. One of the best I've found is Getting Things Done, or GTD.

Master Systems

Time Management