Intro

I’ve been productivity geek for 20 years now. A geek and straight A right student from the time I slid out from the womb - I always loved organizing things and naturally developed a hobby around productivity tools.
As I’ve journeyed from A student to professional over the past ; I’ve gone through the whole dance of planners, diaries, to-do apps, frameworks, etc. across various phases of life. Here’s are my lessons hot takes on productivity followed by attempt to create a coherent perspective from it all.

Hot takes

Most common advice is focused on tools, this is the wrong level of the problem for 90% of people If you stumble into productivity and self-help parts of YouTube (or even a bookshop), you’ll find that people point to a certain tool as THE WAY to get organised. Use Evernote, Notion, Obsidian, blah blah, … no no on go back to “good ol mindful pen and paper”. This is the wrong level of the problem for 90% of people. Because it assumes that everything else leading up to the tools is sorted out - which is usually not the case . If you’re a student struggling to grasp a subject because you didn’t attend lectures or read the textbooks, better note-taking might not help. If you’re a professional stuck on project - changing your mailing app mostly won’t do anything.

This advice is seductive because you can immediately apply it - it feels like Mario eating a mushroom and instantly becoming Super Mario! This is an illusion. 90% of people will do fine using the default note-taking and to-do app their phone or PC came with. The things that matters more are factors like motivation, discipline and focus . Diagnosing, understanding and fixing your actual problem is a process full of uncertainty and (potentially painful) reflection.

At some point you have to decide focus on the output and forget about the tools. No tool is perfect and you can make most tools work. It’s the habits and workflows that you build around the tool that matter much more. Whatever we call productivity advice is actually a backward projection from success; and seeking productivity reflects a desire to be successful.
Here success can be many things; being the smartest kid in class, or the wealthiest child in the family or having lots of followers. The desire for productivity is a veiled desire for success. People haven’t admitted it to themselves or are afraid/ashamed of saying it publicly. But anyone chasing productivity has an image of who they want to be/become. Example, People report a complete flip in life priorities once they become parents. Things like work, titles, career, etc. that they chased for decades suddenly melt away . Why? Because having a child completely upturns what gives meaning to their life. Their definition of success changes from becoming Vice President to raising a child well.

A personal turning point for me was experiencing burnout while working at a startup. The burnout caused me re-evaluate my life priorities and detach my identity from work. So what is your image of success that makes you want to be productive in a domain? Is that image of success something you chose yourself? Or are you chasing out of societal validation? The process to be productive changes completely when you start with questioning your identity and values. The productivity industry preys on knowledge workers intellectuals like the beauty industry preys on women Today there is a recognition and understanding that the beauty industry creates artificial scarcity of “beauty” by narrowing down the definition of female beauty through artificial standards and fake examples. The same happens with productivity. Sadly these are just ex post facto rationalisations. We have a tendency to mythologise people (and their choices). These articles feed that hunger. People who don’t feel good about their station in life are vulnerable to any hock of shit that can improve their life . Young people who haven’t seen how things work are especially vulnerable to this. I was once young people. And I have fallen for this, obsessing whether I should wake up at 4 AM to become like Tim Cook.

Task scheduling is a intellectually satisfying luxury When I was in business school, we had an ultra-packed schedule. We had lectures, assignments, quizzes, group project, alumni visits, career mentoring sessions, club meeting, parties, blah blah . You want I didn’t have time for? Taking in the serenity of life and setting up my todolist. We would fight tooth and nail to get in the asssignments of the day and maybe make some prep for whatever assignments, etc. were due tomorrow . My harsh realisation was my cool task planning during peacetime was just a way of entertaining myself because I didn’t have HARD pressing issues in life to handle.

Your best productivity hacks is health (and sleep) Good sleep is correlated with a longer life. So by sleeping more you can have more time … to be productive … and sleep more :D Anyone who’s worked more than few years understands that you can only stretch yourself so much until it becomes counterproductive and results in burnout.

Productivity advice assumes you are person with infinite willpower who never feels hungry, sad, horny, etc.

It also assumes your attention doesn’t wander. But for the few of us; we are all distracted by Reddit, TikTok, TV, whatever. It took me a long time to realise that most people aren’t working 8 hours day. Between scrolling through mindlessly, meetings, etc. there’s a lot of activity and filler work that … isn’t quite work.

Macro/geo/other factors affect productivity more than your note-taking app or your reading speed

Things that affect productivity but don’t count classic productivity

• Being healthy
• Being well read & educated
• Having safety - economic/physical/
• Being in harmony
• Your salary and job security
• What you choose to work on Somebody chooses to go work in finance vs technology in 2008, who do you think has a better career. Whatever flaws you have, people have done great things with those same flaws. RELAX You’re not a morning person who - oops you’re doomed to a life of failure. Sorry those are the rules. Actually, now. People have studied the habits of great artists and authors. Half of them are night-owls, the other half are early birds. Your preferences are not a character flaw. Hemingway was a drunk, Einstein a smoker, and Euler was blind (towards the end of his life). Didn’t stop them. Doing what works for you, even if it works for silly/stupid/childish reasons is fine.

How “productivity” actually works

The facts about are life sadly painful - I am a diligent person making meticulous notes with all my work captured in notes and todo-list. I have elaborate nested folders for my documents, yada yada . A close friend has their work and life things strung together with ducktape and glue. Only when work pressure got super high did she starting a todolist. faints in disbelief

Yet on most common measures, health, wealth, salary, etc. me and My friend and I are pretty indistinguishable. One definite undeniable upside is when we travel or have present our papers somewhere - I am able to find and present my documents stylishly in a breeze . While my friend will scamper around and get flustered but somehow produce the documents.

The underlying metaphor for all of modern productivity is that of a machine. Faster, cheaper. Oddly, no one on their deathbed has been heard saying “I wish I had read my emails faster” As if productivity is a system; but productivity is an ecosystem.Relying on often balance of relationships, tools, processes and temperaments.

Principles & tools to keep in mind

Still a few principles remain

1. Focus
2. Set realistic expectations with room for error
3. Focus on the habit for starters
4. Good times are precious and rare. They are a metastable state and we shouldn’t think about getting there but focus on not getting into a rut.
5. Failure and gaps will come. So don’t dwell on it and just focusing on bouncing back
6. If you have the luxury of it, Do things your intrinsically motivated about
7. Small consistent output is the rocket fuel for anything
8. this is because it gives a SHORT feedback loop
9. Show someone your work regularly
10. Follow your intuition on tools
11. hardcore tool refinement is a luxury for those who made it and a distraction for most. You can get 80% with everyday tools.
12. A fixed place and time can work wonders
13. link a frequently occurring trigger to it. After work; after my first coffee.
14. Winners are made in training, not on the field
15. We see the outcomes on the field. But those outcomes are a result of training.
16. E.g. How to be a creative writer >> Read a lot, write prolifically
17. E.g. How to be great sportsperson >> Obsess on progress during training