I’m sure a lot of Lifehack readers are also readers of Leo Baubata’s blog Zen Habits. While I’m a big fan of Leo’s and can honestly say he was my biggest inspiration to start blogging, I also disagree with some of what he has to say of late.
A couple of months ago Leo wrote an article entitled “Toss Productivity Out” and to most productivity geeks and ninjas the initial reaction to that post would include a shriek and maybe a gasp. What would my life be like if I toss productivity out? I’m certainly not going back to the pre-productivity chaos that was my life.
But Leo’s concept is about letting go, not living life constantly striving to achieve more, faster, and better. And in this concept I agree. I too have been trying to simplify my life, I have been trying to value my time and not waste it working on things that don’t matter.
But there is a time and a place for productivity, and I think in all of Leo’s wisdom that letting go too soon can have a negative effect. I think there is a time in our lives for goal setting, for productivity systems, and for letting go.
Goal Setting
Goal setting is probably one of the biggest personal development ideas of the past decade. Stephen Covey, Richard Branson, Robin Sharma and other successful people will tell you to set goals. If you want to achieve something, you must visualize it and then go out there and get it.
How to go about achieving your goals is where the next set of experts fit in. The ones who will advise you how to manage your time and make time for all the things you want to achieve in life.
Productivity
People like Brian Tracy, David Allen, Mike Vardy and CM Smith tell us how to get from the vision to the completion. How you can get things done — and stay calm and as stress-free as possible while doing it. At a certain point in everyone’s life we want to accomplish things and often find that we don’t have the time to do it. Productivity systems help us to manage our time and resources to enable us to get all the important stuff done. Productivity systems help us to achieve our lofty goals and dreams.
Letting Go
Then there is another school of thought — the one that advises us to let go, to stop striving. To live in the present and accept life for what it offers. These are the letting go advocates like Babauta, Mary Jaksch of Goodlife ZEN and many others who tell us to focus on the present and appreciate each day for what it is. I wholeheartedly agree with the concept of letting go and living in the now. But can we do this without first going through the process of goal setting and productivity?
But then again there were some gaps in the evolution of man. Are these down to missing pieces of information or were they quantum leaps in development? Is this what Leo is telling us now…that we no longer need to go step by step in our personal development? Is it perhaps time for a quantum leap? Is it time for human consciousness to let go and allow the universe to let things happen and evolve how they should?
It’s certainly an interesting concept. I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the comments below.
(Photo credit: Woman Letting go of Balloons via Shutterstock)
I had the same reaction you describe when I read Leo’s post, but I’ve arrived at a similar yet different solution. I am very goal driven, and a hardcore single-tasker. I usually have my hands on 3-5 major projects at a time, and I occasionally get that out of control, overwhelmed feeling.
Lately I’ve been doing the same things, but I’m more comfortable with myself and my limited amount of resources, namely time. I still work very hard in whatever I’m doing, even play, but I’m ok with not getting everything under the sun done. Wherever the day ends, that’s ok. I pick it up and keep moving forward tomorrow.
I’ve sort of eased into this mode over the last year or so. I’m still as productive as I’ve ever been, and very driven, but I’ve been a lot happier and a lot less stressed.
I don’t think I’ll ever be a “float where the wind takes me” kinda guy, but I do agree that you can’t let your productivity and to-do lists rule your life. Gotta find a middle ground..
Good take – you captured what I was doing, but more succinctly! :)
That’s funny – I read yours and thought “yea – what he said!”
The best way to explain Leo’s article is probably to compare two related concepts: effectiveness and efficiency. Effectiveness is about achieving, completing or producing something – getting x done, in other words.
Efficiency, on the other hand, deals with the relationship between resources required and the outcome. How much does it take to get x done? Productivity is an efficiency construct, not an effectiveness construct.
Efficiency breaks down into halves. Variation A asks the question: how much can I get done in 8 hours, or with $1,000, or some other constrained resource?
Variation B flips the question around: How many hours, dollars or whatever, do I need to achieve the outcome I set out to achieve?
For example: I want to write for a living. My goal is to write 7 blog posts today. Effectiveness asks whether I completed 7 articles or not.
Efficiency (productivity) asks: how many hours do I need to complete 7 posts? Or the alternative: how many posts can I get done in 8 hours?
Stress enters when there’s a mismatch. Let’s say I can write only 6 articles in 8 hours. How do I bridge the gap to write 7?
That’s where productivity comes in: finding ways to extract more output out of the 8 hours I have, so that I will end up writing 7 posts, instead of the 6 I can normally do.
We create additional stress when, after we figured out how to get 7 articles out of 8 hours, we up the goal to 8 articles in 8 hours. Now we’re back to the productivity stress: how do we achieve more with the same resources?
Stress could also go the other way: Let’s say I have to care for my sick mother which leaves me now with only 6 hours. Now I have to figure out how to write the 7 articles in only 6 hours. Again, productivity tries to bridge that gap.
Either way, productivity is at its core a reliever of that stress that arises when the set goal exceeds the natural ability of the available resources.
Okay, so back to your question: I read into Leo’s article that more happiness (ultimate goal) is achieved by going from Variation A, aimed at some lofty goal set, to Variation B, where he says OK, this is what I have resource-wise. What’s the most I can get from said resources?
And then, instead of relying on productivity to bridge the stress gap, just settle for what the resources can deliver. Of course, you can use productivity to see if you can get some more from your resources (with productivity increases) but there’s no need for a goal that introduces stress.
In other words, be happy with what you can get. By all means, try to get more if it’s not enough, but don’t go introducing stress when the unhappiness from the stress outweighs the happiness from the incremental achievement.
Ultimately it then focuses in on: how much am I satisfied with? If I only want to write for four hours today, am I satisfied with only getting three blog posts done?
What I hear him saying is, hey, if three is all you can do, why stress over the 4 you couldn’t do anyway? Just go for the three.
And throw out all that productivity thinking – because you no longer have the stress from the mismatch between goals and resources, you don’t need all those productivity things.
And be happy with what you can get.
Does this make sense?
Hi William, your interpretation does make sense and I agree that stress often comes from a mismatch between resources and goals but the interpretation of what productivity means is probably where the answer lies. The word productive is synonymous with creative so if you look at it from that perspective as opposed to the industrial connotation (increased output per unit of input) we have a different outcome.To me being productive is achieving what I want to achieve in live and doing that with the least possible time input and minimum stress. As I mentioned in the article I do agree with Leo’s philosophy but not to the extreme of not setting any goals or becoming a minimalist as opposed to getting organized but of course that I believe is because I am at a different stage of my life to Leo and at a different stage of my own personal development. I also believe that there are many people whose work or personal situation requires them to try and fit more into less time so all the productivity systems are essential.
I believe you can do both: It’s possible to have goals and achieve them…but also let go and stop striving. How does this work? For me (at least what I TRY to do), I have a vision in mind…Let’s say with my blog, for example. I have this big-picture goal for it, and there are many steps I can take every day to ensure that it happens. The productivity stuff.
The letting go and not striving comes from releasing the need to control. As long as I’m doing those action steps regularly and enjoying the moment, I’m good. Productivity goes wrong for me when I get obsessed with doing.
This is a tough one to get out and make sense of it…Here’s hoping it makes SOME sense. ;) I think productivity is fine, as long as you don’t get obsessed with results and constant doing.
Exactly Kaylee, if you set the goals, do the work, then you can let go of the outcomes, but we still need help getting the work done and that’s where the productivity systems come in.
WIthout a finish line (goals)… there is no race.
Some are just choosing not to run the race. And that is OK.
My thoughts are, if you “go with the flow,” you get what life gives you… (though not necessarily what you want.)
It’s easy going… but you are not stretching your potential.
As one of my favorite quotes says,
“Good things may come to those who wait, but only those things left behind by those that hustle.”
- Abraham Lincoln