(Essay 5/30) Productivity Contraptions. Drop it.
I'm no more on a streak. Couldn't write yesterday.
Nevertheless, the 30-essay series still continues.
Today I am writing about productivity - a topic that is beaten to death a million times, every day, day after day.
Well, this one is a different.
I'm not selling a "I-know-it-all-shoving-it-down-your-throat" productivity system.
Rather, I want to call out that -
Most productivity systems out there are designed to make you an imposter.
Productivity imposter is one who enjoys the bells & whistles of such a system without actually shipping what matters.
Streak matters more than shipping.
Not that building a streak is bad.
But over-indexing on a streak without moving the needle results in false positive.
I'm myself guilty of over-indexing on streak building, misallocating bandwidth and under-shipping days in a row.
Hence, I devised a simple system based on mindful repetition to ship needle-moving wins by end of day OR by end of week.
Size of my daily or weekly win is immaterial.
What matters that I build momentum in the right direction.
Here's what I did earlier:
In the past I used frameworks, to-do apps, note taking integrated with calendar ..... blah blah.
Managing these contraptions became a task in itself.
Here's what I do now:
I maintain a google doc.
It has 3 tables. One each for:
- My work
- My side project
- My personal life
Each table has three columns -
- Date,
- Up to 3 top tasks for the day,
- Done (completed tasks)
Each morning, I enter tasks that I am to complete by end of day.
At 9pm everyday, I cut-copy-paste the completed task to the 'Done' column.
Been on this for past 47 days.
Been shipping - making progress inch by inch.
No more imposter syndrome.