Five Productivity Ideas I’m Not Buying (Yet?)
The body of work on productivity, life-work balance, and personal achievement sits uncomfortably – perhaps perilously — close to the genre of “self-help”. There are good ideas out there, but there are also a lot of hacks, quacks, and worse pawning off half-baked philosophies and poorly conceived analogies as solid advice.
While none of it is all that dangerous in and of itself, I think there is reason to be cautious about the ideas and strategies we invest our time, energy, and all too often our selves into. By presenting poor advice that promises but, in the end, fails to make us more productive, more able to handle the overwhelming press of personal and professional commitments, or more satisfied with our abilities, talents, and achievements, this mass of bad advice leaves us doubting ourselves, wondering not if there’s something wrong with the authors but if there’s something wrong with us.
After working my way though a good part of my local library’s books on personal productivity and organization, I’ve been struck by the sheer number of ideas that, though popular, seem to promise a lot more than they deliver. A lot of it is built on poorly done, poorly understood, or even fraudulent research. I’m surprised, too, at how shallow so much of this literature is that promises to help its readers deepen their lives.
Much of it isn’t worth mentioning, but there are a few ideas that are so popular, that come up so much when we lifehackistas get to talking, that they do deserve examination. Here is my list of five ideas that I’m not buying – some of them I’ve tried and found lacking, others simply strike me as outright stupid, and some as sheer BS, but all of them are well-known and carry a lot of weight in the personal productivity world.
- Mind mapping. I wanted so badly to believe this one! As an academic, I’m always looking for ways to simplify and strengthen the organization and use of information, tools that would help me to see connections among seemingly disparate ideas. What a disappointment it was to sit down with Tony Buzan’s books and find almost nothing there – a way to make beautiful pictures that seems to offer nothing in the way of actual productivity. I simply can’t see why a handful of colored pencils and an hour of sketching little drawings and cutesy arrows (hey, let’s make this line look like a staircase, because it’s about “moving up” in the world!) should be considered an improvement over ten minutes of list-making. All Buzan offers to support any of this is his insistence that this is how the brain works. And if it isn’t…?
- The 80/20 Rule. I get the idea here: eliminate the stuff you do that doesn’t make you happier, wealthier, or wiser, and focus on the stuff that does. But why wrap the pretty good advice up in a scientific-sounding pseudo-rule (hey, it’s mathy, it must be true!? What is “20%” of the stuff I do, anyway? How is that measured? Total calories expended on each task, minutes used on each thing, or maybe the amount of worrying I do in getting something done? I’m sure there’s some business psychologist somewhere who has sat down and tracked employees’ workflows – what does that have to do with me? How does that transfer out of the workplace, and why should it? What would “80%” of my productivity even look like? What does 20% of parenting look like? Of painting? Of writing? It’s a bogus measure meant to give more gravitas to advice that, frankly, doesn’t need it.
- The power of Brand You. This is another one I get the idea of, but think it’s misdirected. Basically, the idea of Brand You is to stand out, to be memorable, to market yourself – through schmoozing, networking, the quality of your work, and so on – as THE person to turn to in your field. But the over-reliance on the idea of a brand, as if you were a product to be put on a shelf – it bother me. What’s more, the idea is that you’re always selling yourself. In no other part of life do we think of salespeople as holding the keys to success, but when it comes to shaping our careers and even our lives, we’re asked to turn to Willy Loman as a model?
- Making productivity a habit. This strikes me as good advice, but it’s only halfway there. The problem with habits is that they become routines, reflexes – not even “become”, they are routines. As anyone who’s ever tried to quit smoking or stop saying “um” will tell you, habits are hard to break. Habits can hinder our ability to adapt to change, can even prevent us from seeing change at all. They can also blind us to important information, forcing us to push it out of our minds the way the habitual smoker explains away his morning cough or wheezing after the second flight of stairs.
- Visualizing success. I’ve saved the worst for last – the alleged power of positive thinking. It never ceases to surprise me how much traction this kind of new-agey, pseudo-mystical thinking gets among otherwise hard-headed, practical-minded movers and shakers. The worst part is that it’s not even true: research shows that visualizing yourself as successful, imagining you’ve won that promotion and corner office or walking down the street with the current object of your obsession rarely leads to effective action. Instead, psychologists find that mentally re-enacting the series of events that led one to have difficulty securing a promotion or getting a date is more likely to compel us to act, and in more productive ways. Self-examination is key, not escaping into an imagined but unrealized future.
Like I said, these are ideas that have a lot of followers, which tells me that somebody, somewhere is getting – or thinks they’re getting – some use out of them. So I’m not ready to close the door on them entirely; if you think there’s a good reason to take another look at something in the list above, let me know!
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Comments
Doug says on August 17th, 2007 at 10:13 am
I don’t disagree with what you’ve written, but I am still a fan of the 80/20 rule. My reason is much simpler than what would fill a book though. I like it because people know it. When someone is spending time on perfecting something and my stance is that it is unimportant and they should move onto the next task, I can simply raise the idea of 80/20 and my concerns are understood (if not agreed upon). It is useful in that it adds to our common lexicon. In all honesty, I’ve never actually seen anyone use it beyond the simple concept and certainly not as a specific 80% to 20%… I wouldn’t buy into that either!
Joe says on August 17th, 2007 at 10:14 am
I’ve found mind mapping to be very useful, but without any colored pencils or fancy symbols. It’s a step up from an outline (which, in turn, is a step above a simple list). Instead of shuffling concepts up and down in a one-dimensional outline or list, it can make it easier to view the structure of your project when you arrange the concepts in two dimensions.
Jeff says on August 17th, 2007 at 10:25 am
I think this is a great article and you make a lot of sense. You made a great point about visualizing success: that just thinking about being rich doesn’t get you there. I think you’re misapplying the rule. Don’t get me wrong, I think most people do and you’re right to call them out. I first learned about this concept by reading a book by Michael Jordan when I was in grade school. People asked him how he made so many shots. He told them, “I just visualize making the shot and then I take it.” That image has stayed with me to this day.
The point is, he was taking the shot. Don’t visualize yourself being successful (e.g. swimming in 100 dollar bills). Visualize yourself succeeding in the current task (e.g. making the sale by listening to the prospective client and making a good case). You still have to go through with it.
Never underestimate the power of confidence going into a challenge. The fastest way to fail is to “know” you’re going to fail heading into something.
But you’re right, everything else is just wishful thinking.
pril says on August 17th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Wow some of the stuff you listed i haven’t even heard of but you saved the best for last!
and i have found that is the ONE thing that works best for me! I know we are all different different thigns work for different humans. But i have started postivie reinforcement at least 10 years back! it’s like mediation and it helps keep you focused, motived, and helps you explore differetn out comes as well as the issues or blocks that may get in your way so when you are faced with it your not going into shock or anything!
I will say acting the part is best but you have to think about how to act and when you think you visualize! hence why it works so well!
Thanks for posting tho!
i would give it a second shot! more then once or twice maybe give it a year or two! this is something that is more for your longer term stuff anyway! so i can see if it’s not for a raise or promotion that may arrise soon but over all this ist he best!
Cody says on August 17th, 2007 at 11:16 am
I think with visualization, don’t visualize the outcome you want. Visualize the process it will take to get the desired outcome. Then look for pitfalls along the way that you need to avoid, and other potential problems.
That way when you actually DO, you can see “ahead” and avoid problems in the first place. using this, when I lead group projects, I get comments from other about how I seem to know about problems before they happen, or always make the right choices.
Its because I’ve actually thought the process through to completion. For me being a visual person it means I make a “movie” of it all in my head and then “direct” the real life actors (myself and others) to make that movie become a reality.
It’s really a process of gathering as much info, and making all the decisions in advance so that in the cases where you truly have to adapt due to unforeseen events you’re only dealing with the pressure of one decision.
That is what visualization means to me, and I believe its very useful and true. It’s worked in film projects, ski racing, driving in a new part of town (thanks to google maps), even on dates.
Scott says on August 17th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Totally disagree..I’ve used each and everyone of these techniques with outstanding success. I’d only caution against relying on just one, and not all five.
Good Cheer!
Gavin says on August 17th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
As people have mentioned the key thing with the visualization is to visualize the process of getting to an end. To do this without missing any steps it can often be easier starting by getting a clear detailed image of the end point and working backwards.
the theory states that it works because you are effectively practicing the steps to completion, which to your brain is almost as good as doing it.
Also the visualization forces you to get a clear idea of what the end point looks like, which you may not have had.
Although not directly related to productivity there is strong evidence that visualization does actually do something – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1668247.stm
Eric S. Mueller says on August 17th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Dustin, good comments. I think there may be some use is each of these concepts, but often they are taken to some seriously ridiculous levels. I’ve never read Buzan’s books, but I do occasionally use mind mapping. I may not use it the way Buzan intended. To me mind mapping is a way of brainstorming or laying out concepts in some kind of relational order. I’ve never completely bought into the Pareto principle, or the 80/20 rule, at least not as a universal constant. As Joel Spolski says, software developers try to use it with the assumption that 80 percent of the people use 20 percent of the features, but even if that were true, the 80 percent doesn’t use the same 20 percent of features. I may only use 20 percent of the features in Microsoft Word, but you may use a different 20 percent of features.
I agree with other posters on visualization. It does work to deeply concentrate on tasks. I think saying “Picture yourself with lots of money and a Mercedes” is just a way to sell books. I have in the past concentrated and visualized my way through a task in order to learn or improve my performance. This helped me out a lot in the Navy when I botched communications during an exercise. I spent the next several weeks running through the “script” or sequence and the next time we conducted the exercise, I nailed it. However, picturing myself in an Armani suit and driving a Jag has given me no objective evidence of success.
Fred Woodbridge says on August 17th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Good points, in general.
In particular, I don’t agree with your review of MindMapping. Sure, if it was entirely manual, the way you describe, it would be almost entirely useless, but as an idea in information management using software such as Mindjet’s excellent MindManager, it’s a veritable aid to visual thinking and idea classification.
You should try it, let’s know what you think afterwards.
insidemybrain says on August 17th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
I guess a good reason to take another look at the 80/20 rule is that it’s on your “22 Tips for Effective Deadlines” list(http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/22-tips-for-effective-deadlines.html) ;)
Besides, it helps to explain why finishing a project takes so much longer than building a prototype…
elmegil says on August 17th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Mind Mapping without the pretty pictures works pretty well for me. I sprung for mind manager (a pretty penny, so not a starting place) and it does a good job of letting me brainstorm my way around some idea and put the pieces where they go pretty much as I go along, without having to force myself into any particular ordering. It’s a planning tool, and certainly not an end in itself.
Ethan Lee Vita says on August 17th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Interesting post. At minimum it challenges us to question the conceived notions we have, which is always a good thing if we wish to better ourselves. I would like to see an upcoming post on what he does approve of. Finally, a bit of an odd post to see on here with the consideration of how much that stuff is posted and mentioned on lifehack.org
Steven Buehler says on August 17th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Of the five you’ve mentioned here, I find that mind mapping is indeed very useful for brainstorming and roughly organizing information *en route* to a completed product or outline, although I do it with a computer-based product rather than pencil and paper. Mind you, it is certainly not for everyone.
I find it especially useful with putting together scripts for speeches and for organizing projects. It’s putting everything down visually on paper, and then you can structure it into the final product any way you wish.
Leo Babauta says on August 17th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
I’ve also used most of these ideas with success (except mind mapping).
* 80/20: I also don’t know anyone who goes for the actual numbers … it’s more of a visualization thing … 80% is the large majority of things, while 20% is a smaller number. No one uses it exactly.
* Branding: I can see how this would bother you, but it’s a concept that works, if you are looking for widespread success. If you’re looking for more modest success, you don’t need the concept of branding.
* I’ve made productivity a habit, and it’s never hindered my abilities.
* Visualizing success: it’s not so much the visualizing part as the mindset. You have to believe you can do something, otherwise your chances of actually doing it are much smaller. I don’t really use visualizing, but I do use positive thinking, and it makes a huge difference. For me, it’s simply a matter of squashing self-doubts (which are the real obstacle to succeeding on any goal) and replacing them with positive thoughts. Of course, you still need to be realistic, but if you’re realistic with a negative attitude, you won’t go anywhere.
Still, I respect your doubts and don’t think that everyone needs to buy into these concepts. I’d suggest they give them a try, and see if they work. I know many people who have, with success.
jaz says on August 17th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
I use mind mapping to organise my lecutres . It helps make things clearer and its easier to see relationships between different ideas. There is never a one size fits all solution and some of these concepts can be useful to the right person in the right context
Stephanie says on August 17th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Regarding visualizing, here’s a quote from an article I coauthored:
>>Another exciting development from the world of neuroscience has been known by athletes for many years. If you mentally rehearse a desired behavior, your brain is changed and your skill level improves. Tiger Woods, Nancy Kerrigan, Michael Jordan and Jack Nicklaus are just a few on the long list of top performers with the ability to use mental rehearsal to fuel extreme competence.
Neuroscientists have studied the brain changes caused by mental rehearsal. A typical study compared one group physically engaging in a new behavior, another group mentally rehearsing a new behavior, and a control group doing nothing. The brain changes consistent with skill improvement in the first two groups were almost equal.
Of course, doing nothing resulted in no change. The research is proving what great performers have practiced for decades. Mental rehearsal is another effective key to self-leadership.
Stephanie says on August 17th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Part of the message seems to be cut off. Maybe I exceeded a word limit. Anyway here’s the link to the rest of the article:
http://www.thecompletelawyer.c.....ppaid=2083
bob ashley says on August 18th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Mindmapping or concept drawing was indispensable to me during university. You’ve missed the mark with the misperception of this as a “productivity” tool. Certainly, some have tried to morph it into that, but I used it more like a “mastery” or “idea-banking” instrument.
I iconized concepts to review, understand and recall them, not to chunk them through a production line. Studying Aristotle has nothing to do with productivity, but rather a lot to do with connecting concepts.
My drawings are variously wild slashes of color, geometric shapes, sick faces, leud and so forth. Using mnemonics in conjunction with the mind map I could remember huge amounts of stuff.
I graduated first in my university class, in part, with the aid of drawing stupid pictures.
It’s actually counter-productive or anti-productive, this practice. A good mindmap takes a lot of thought, a lot of effort, a lot of time, just like practicising the piano takes forever.
Mindmapping, for me, was a hard-won discipline, the free-flowingness of them giving a rather misleading impression.
The reward, of course, is that while not particularly “productive” the mind map can help instrumentalize “indelibility”.
It helps you to remember things better, not to produce them faster.
Mrs. Micah says on August 18th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Like others, I think visualization is useful if done right. I tend to reserve it for times when I need motivation. When I’m first starting a project, I envision how I want it to turn out. I think back to that later, when my drive slows down.
But it’s too big picture for the interim. I tend to work best by breaking things down into steps. Visualization can help there too.
I’ve never tried the others, they didn’t seem like something that would work for me.
Alexander Becker says on August 18th, 2007 at 8:30 am
I think most productivity ideas, and in general, most of the stuff we read and write every day is about inspiring people to think and to self-reflect.
Most tips are either too generic — to produce more and more content, you have to broaden your sight — or too specific to be applicable by most readers.
Also, when you *really* need the help, you sit somewhere paralysed and stuck and unable to sort through lists of stuff that could be of help anyway.
In the end, the sheer quantity productivity ideas and ‘tips’ intended to increase productivity results in pseudo-productive leisure activities and info-overload.
The best outcome is a spark of thought in someone’s mind that is in *real* need and in the position to make use of it.
Dustin Wax says on August 18th, 2007 at 11:00 am
I just want to thank everyone for their comments on this thread — keep it up! I’ve been out of town without a PC for a few days, and it was nice to come back to a really good discussion here. I half-expected to be hung in effigy, and I’m glad to see that people took this less as a dismissal of what I know are important tools for some people and more as a chance to explain some of these ideas. I’m still not convinced, especially on mind-mapping, which I kind of get but which folks like Tony Buzan swear is so much better than anything I can see either here or in their work. But it’s good to see people taking these concerns seriously and grappling with them.
Oh, on positive thinking, I’m speaking specifically about visualizing outcomes — what psychologists seem to find is that this does not often lead to creating processes to reach outcomes, whereas re-visualizing past failures does lead to action. Also, I have nothing against staying positive when its called for (see my post on negativity a couple weeks ago): confidence etc. are not what I’m talking about here.
Hamish MacDonald says on August 18th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Mind-mapping — seriously? I use this for every problem I’m stuck with, every article I write, and even when planning out my novels.
It’s the one thing that consistently takes me out of overwhelm, sorts out all the elements of a project, then helps me organise my thinking so I can see what to do first.
Bren says on August 18th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Interesting. Wise of you to basically “never say never” in your intro, though. Everything doesn’t work for everyone all the time. A while ago, I wrote on Slacker Manager that I wasn’t buying the idea of inbox zero. Now I do. Attitudes, perceptions and receptivities change.
lizzbee says on August 19th, 2007 at 2:37 am
I agree with you completely on mind mapping. Everything I’ve read extols it as this incredibly creative and shockingly inventive way to brainstorm. I’ve heard exhortations when I was trying to get the gist of the GTD system to look at some of the mind maps online. I look at them and I see tons of visual clutter, and the clutter makes them utterly incomprehensible to me. I was taught mind mapping in elementary school, and even then it evaded me. I’ve had much better luck with lists and following trains of thought in my head to their destinations.
Gary Patterson says on August 19th, 2007 at 10:12 am
I love this discussion. For me, it confirms what I’ve seen in 25 years of doing consulting and other “knowledge work” — people think differently.
Personally, I like mind mapping, use the 80/20 rule as vocabulary, don’t do much with “branding”, try to develop useful habits, and always try to visualize work steps, not outcomes.
But hey, that’s me. There is lots of research on the different ways the people process their environment; some verbally, some visually, some conceptually, etc. I think the hard-wiring of your brain & how you’ve learned to think determine if any technique is useful or not.
But the discussion is universally helpful – let’s keep it up!
Matthew Cornell says on August 20th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Thanks *very* much for saying this! I feel the same way on many of these. For me, here’s another I’ll shyly admit to:
o Setting goals
It’s in every productivity and time management book on the planet, and I JUST DON’T DO IT. Genetic defect, I suppose.
Steve says on August 20th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Hi Dustin,
My thoughts on the 80/20 Rule. It works but not on its own. You need to turbo charge it with some fire power by adding one ingredient – INTEGRITY.
If there is no integrity then you are basically wasting your efforts. In order to be truly effective and productive, take 20% of your actions that will lead you to your goals and write them down as commitments for the day. At the end of the day, check this list to see how many of those actions you took – most people will never finish this list of daily commitments. If you haven’t completed your commitments then you are out of integrity and you have just kicked yourself in the ass because the Universe doesn’t believe a thing you say!
You say(or write) actions out but don’t complete them. This puts you even further out of integrity the more you do it.
I wrote a detailed post on integrity, ‘Your Word Is Law – Part 1′. Check it out if you would like to learn more…
http://www.stephenmartile.com/?p=51
Stephen Martile
Personal Development with NLP
http://www.stephenmartile.com
Mark says on August 20th, 2007 at 10:04 am
totally agree on mind mapping. what it does for me is a make a big mess. I so want to get it and I can’t. it’s completely useless.
am not as sure on visualizing. everybody rehearses for big events. no one questions the key note speaker sitting quietly in a chair reading over his notes before he speaks. what is he doing? he’s giving the speech in his head. he’s hearing himself tell the jokes, shout, pause, etc. he’s visualizing the speech.
somehow though that seems different than Michael Jordon visualizing a shot going through. he’s rehearsing too but I’m not as convinced that works. need more research on this… and would like to read the research already mentioned that visualizing past failures leads to action. maybe someone could post a link….
John says on August 20th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
I’ve tried hand-drawn mind mapping as Buzan recommends, but found them to be quite a lot more work than they were worth.
On the other hand, I’ve found that software-assisted mind mapping is incredibly helpful for organizing both large and small quantities of information. Like others, I’ve sprung for MindManager, but there are less expensive options like FreeMind, a free open source project which does a decent job.
As an academic I think you would get quite a lot out of such software. I’m currently working on an academic paper with 50+ primary sources, for example, and have a map called “research” to organize it all. Each source gets its own node on the map with a set of three standard items: “meta”, “tasks”, and “notes”. The “tasks” section is pre-filled for me (MindManager makes this easy) with the list of things I need to do with each source, e.g. get it into Endnote, mind-map the structure of the work (a very good way to get a quick overview of a complex book or article), initial reading, notes in a mind map, and notes integrated/synthesized into the greater project notes (another map). MindManager includes task management features so that I can prioritize each task and keep track of how far along I am on each. This lets me see at a glance how far along I am on my research and what exactly I still have left to do, while also being able to drill down into the details of each source from the same view.
I use another map to contain my ideas and notes from across all readings, along with the outline for the final paper. Due to the map format this can be a lot more detailed than might usually be possible with a traditional outline. (In theory, I could write the paper itself in the outline — MindManager allows you to include rich text notes with any node, which would become paragraphs when exported to Word — but I haven’t tried this yet.)
I’ve found this to be a far more productive way to tackle such a large task than the usual flurry of post-it notes sticking out of every book along with pages and pages of scribbled notes or stacks of note cards. It’s more work in some ways, but reviewing my research is incredibly easy (visual review, search across numerous submaps, etc.), which means I do it more often. Consequently, I’ve never had nearly as much confidence in my command over the material I’m working on as I do now.
Dustin Wax says on August 20th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Mark,
I don’t dispute the value of visualization as a form of practice, etc. What digs at me is the idea of “see yourself driving a fancy car and owning a big house”, that sort of thing. What psychologists find is that this soft of visualization is not very likely to result in the visualizer coming up with and following a plan of action; what does seem to work is what some other commenters here have talked about, a sort of virtual walk-through of the steps one would take to accomplish their goals.
Jacob says on August 21st, 2007 at 11:40 am
“a sort of virtual walk-through of the steps one would take to accomplish their goals…”
Isn’t that just called “planning”? Of course one is going to have better results if they plan out their course of action, than if they just rush blindly forward hoping to reach their desired destination. My question is, why all the fancy terminology around such a basic concept which can be summed up in a single word?
travors says on August 25th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Smoking isn’t a “habit”, it’s a drug addiction.
Jessee Bunyip says on August 31st, 2007 at 3:12 am
“The 80/20 Rule. I get the idea here: eliminate the stuff you do that doesn’t make you happier, wealthier, or wiser, and focus on the stuff that doesn’t.”
Focus on the stuff that doesn’t make you happy? I don’t get it or an edit is required.
I’ve found no way to avoid 80/20 on projects, 80% of time spent on 20% of the (planned) work. As for the concept I think you’re addressing: Sure I could stop doing all mundane stuff like the housework and paying the bills, but… yikes. And I know people who keep their house clean so they’re not embarrassed when the house cleaner shows up. Pointless really.
miss dipsy says on December 4th, 2007 at 7:56 am
I think mind mapping is a highly personal thing; it works for some people whilst others wonder why they didn’t just write a list! Also, the way that you mind map should be personalised – I don’t really follow Buzan’s method, I invented my own, although there are similarities. I suspect it is linked to individual differences in information processing – I am a fairly visual, non-linear thinker, so I’m probably more suited to this style than someone who “thinks in a straight line”!
It also depends what kind of information you are mind mapping. As a student, I find it really useful for revision, but less so for taking notes in lectures. Lectures are presented linearly, therefore trying to take non-linear notes just introduces an extra distraction. They are also useful for brainstorming complex ideas where there are a lot of factors to take into account.
I actually use a hybrid method for most of my notes – roughly linear but with a lot of arrows, boxes & occasional images to highlight the key information, show links, and make them more memorable. In lectures, this becomes more linear, in revision & detailed brainstorming it becomes more “networked”.
BillinDetroit says on April 29th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I’ve always understood mind-mapping to simply be a way of organizing disjointed thoughts. Related thoughts occur in spurts for me. If I’ve used a handy tool to put them on a page somewhere -and can quickly find that tool again- I can accumulate ideas to the point that I can see the whole better. I use a program called “Freemind” that sits as a link on my desktop. When my mind starts wandering, I save its output there. Once it’s written down, I find it easier to return to what I intended to be doing when I sat down.
I’ve always understood the 80/20 (or, alternatively, 90/10) “rule” to be a fuzzy rule of thumb. It serves as a useful reminder to focus on the meat of an issue and not aim for perfection each time through.
For instance, I spell check at the end of the writing session, not during. “During”, I want to be focusing on getting ideas committed. “After”, I am editing to make the output presentable for my readers. This puts the ‘perfection’ part where it belongs and keeps it from interrupting the ‘meat & potatoes’ part.
The only way I am really comfortable with “Brand You” is if it is the natural extension of what I am doing. Wearing a red carnation every time I don a suit brands me (in the group I move in) as being either committable or homosexual. Neither of these are acceptable in the crowd I keep. My ‘brand’ is of having an encyclopedic knowledge of several subjects and empathy toward others, especially children. (I recently visited another congregation 5 states away and the kids came to me, a complete stranger, just like they do at home. They even asked me for candy – just like at home! But it’s not as if they were asking everyone … just me. Fortunately, I had some wrapped candy with me, hidden away in my satchel) I want to stand out for my accomplishments, not grandstanding. And I do.
Making productivity a habit doesn’t harm you in any way. What it does is free up time and other resources for activities that require them … things like creativity, leisure, empathy, hobbies, new ventures and so on. It ties in nicely with the 80/20 idea. If you can get 80% of the potential results in 20% of the time and if 80% is actually good enough for your purposes (I do not need to scour the trash can between uses … it is enough if I get it to the curb in time for pickup.), then you’ve freed up a large chunk of time for doing things that interest you. “Productivity” simply means getting good value from a resource, not a frenetic preoccupation with efficiency and measurable output. I consider my blogging time productive if I can take an idea that interests me and phrase it so that it interests others. Some days that takes hours upon hours. Other days I can put together 4-5 posts before breakfast. (Okay, dinner … when the muse strikes, I tend to skip meals because my mind is focused elsewhere.)
I will agree with you in your disdain for mystical ‘visualizations’ which, all by themselves, are supposed to get the known universe to drop what it was doing and come to your aid. But visualization does serve the same useful purpose as affirmations do. They help retrain our minds away from self-defeating scripts and into new patterns of thought. The apostle Paul addressed this at 2 Timothy 1:13, referring to it as a “pattern of healthful words” that were beneficial to follow.
I’ve responded elsewhere to a couple of your other posts. Carry on, my good man … carry on.
Brian says on May 13th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Dustin, I’ve always enjoyed your articles in Lifehack and look forward to reading more of your ideas. However, I have to disagree with the point of this article. Even if these ideas didn’t work for you or make sense to you, they may be valuable tools for someone else’s situation.
One thing in particular that stood out to me was your reference to Willy Loman. I’ve been in sales for nearly 20 years, including stints as a manager and trainer, and Willy Loman has never been held up a success model.
The fact is, poor Willy is nothing but an old stereotype.