Lies - We Just Know How to be Productive - DBR 006
Manage episode 407334493 series 3562406
This is one of a set of posts on common misconceptions about productivity and work. I call them Lies About Productivity. I'll address some 'lie' and suggest a new mindset that is helpful toward being effective, not exhausted - Do Busy Right.
The Lie: It's human nature to understand how to be productive, select your most important work, and do it. This one is not a lie of commission, but a lie of omission. Very few people actually talk about the nuts and bolts of managing our own work. Therefore, you're left to your own devices, lacking sound guidance.- The problem of not actually knowing how to 'be productive'
- Knowledge work is a relatively new phenomenon, so the vast majority of people don't know how to manage knowledge work; schools haven't learned to teach it
- You have a human brain and it's behavior, habits and biases support or defeat your ability to make it do what you want it to do
- 'Every system is ideally constructed to produce the results you observe'
- There are clear principles about how human brains work
- Symptoms of believing that we just know how
- You're constantly feeling a nagging sense that "there's gotta be a better way" and "does it have to be this confusing and stressful"
- You spend a ton of time and mental energy trying to understand various 'systems'. You're actually researching solutions to the problem. But you have a full time job already
- Each new system feels like "it doesn't fit you", so you try to pick and choose components to cobble together. Actually, you have never been given a good definition of what a system should be able to do for you.
- The tactics that other people are using ('daily to-do list' and managing from your email inbox) are a constant temptation. "If you do what you see other people doing, you'll be just as broke as they are". You may even be slightly embarrassed to bring these topics up.
- You haven't been able to stick in a system long enough for habits to build and take hold
- The new mindset about productivity training
- Move away from tips and tricks to a single unified system that incorporates actual knowledge and experience on how our brains really work
- Stop focusing on managing you time and start focusing on deploying your attention (there's another whole episode on this)
- Results of the new mindset
- Your toolset works for you, rather than against you
- You stop wasting time looking for things and planning poorly
- You feel calm and confident about your work because you are actually managing it, rather than letting it manage you
- You are able to stick with it long enough to build habits
- Once you've built habits (and not until then), you're in a position to add tweaks and incorporate other areas of your life
- Tools you'll need
- A place to keep your backlog of tasks and ideas
- Features to help you manage and maintain that backlog
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