Framework I made for general “productivity”
Hi, wrote down some thoughts on a generalized framework to think about how to get work done. In spirit of taking my own advice and getting feedback on making sure I’m moving in the right direction, posting here. Please rip it to shreds or lemme know if it’s useful.
What is getting something done?
Very broadly, amount of time doing something * how fast you do it
Amount of time doing something
Function of 2 things: motivation, and “having time”
What is motivation?
Very broadly, we can define it as desire to do something that we feel is going to be long term productive but maybe short term unpleasant.
How to get motivation?
For easy tasks (lose weight, sleep earlier), necessity is the mother of invention. it’s good to force necessity**.** See: child being born and going to sleep at 9 PM.
For hard tasks (creative work), where there’s a will there’s a way. You should theoretically just increase your desire for it, which will therefore force your brain to find a way.
Practically, maybe watch videos on Ray Dalio or whatever. Your instagram is kinda good at this now, actually.
What is having time?
Basically doing tasks that once again are long term better but short term may not yield immediate benefit.
*How to get time?
Have to set aside a time that we’re gonna do this and only this: see, Sabbatical Saturday, side project Sunday
How fast do you get it done?
Function of 2 things: direction and velocity
Direction
How do we know we’re moving in the right direction?
Feelings
Trust that if you’re moving in the right direction, it just feels right. This of course requires ability to read your feelings correctly and trust that your feelings are right. If you don’t have these, figure out how to get those first.
Feedback
Seek truth: ask people you respect if this is useful/you’re on right track
Velocity
Are we moving as fast in this as we can?
Tooling/methodology
Block some time to “sharpen your saw”: make sure you keep track of the methods other people use.
Feedback
Get idea gen: work with others/see how others are doing it and see if you can incorporate those
I like the direction of the text, but you lose me with your motivation section.
Losing weight as an easy task? Motivationally or otherwise? What?
Creative work as a motivationally hard task? So that one could get more motivation from other people’s motivational videos, rather than from one’s own creative impulses? (Yes, writer’s block is a thing, but that’s a more involved topic. Like what happens to the creative aspect if one forces oneself to do creative work, and so on. That’s for a longer text, not for a short one.)
I’d say one of the main things that would be missing in this (for me) is prioritization and goal orientation. I often feel energy and motivation to get things done and have plenty of time to do so, but actually channeling that energy into the important tasks that *should* be prioritized is my prime productivity destroyer.