Be productive in a meaningful way
Let me tell you a little about myself— I love starting new projects. It’s so much fun to come up with a new app idea or blog post idea and begin to work against it. New things are really fun for me, because there’s tons of possibilities and there’s no structure to it yet. The problem though is that I basically have what I call squirrel brain — I am drawn to something and then unfortunately two seconds later I’m distracted by something else new. Then it happens again and again. I end up bouncing around from project to project, much like a squirrel darting around in a busy park.
This is a real problem. It’s a problem because then nothing ever gets done, which means that I don’t make any meaningful progress. Instead I am left with the illusion of productivity. I can point to a bunch of projects and ideas, but I can’t really point to anything that I’ve actually shipped or finished. That’s fun if it’s just they’re just hobby or side projects, but when my livelihood depends on me actually shipping, then it’s clearly a problem. To solve this problem in my life, I’ve used these two strategies that have proven to be useful. Hopefully they’ll help you be more productive in a meaningful way!
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Practical Productivity Tips: Using Music to Get More Done
In psychology, students learn about something called Classical Conditioning (and the scientist Ivan Pavlov). You can read about it in more detail here (thanks, Wikipedia!) but in short, it’s about associations and the reactions they illicit.
Pavlov would feed dogs right after ringing a bell. Part of the normal reaction of eating is salivating (to help break down the food). It would be like: Bell ring, then get food and begin salivating. He did it enough times that one day he simply rang the bell (no food), and the dogs began to salivate anyway. Their brains had now wired together that a bell meant food, which meant they should salivate.
Knowing this, there’s a really cool productivity hack you can do if you’re trying to be more productive or more disciplined about a task. One of my many tasks of this company is sit down and write code (for our apps). It’s a difficult process because it requires that you really have a strong focus, and it requires a lot of abstract thinking at times. Writing and creating code (like any other creative process) has a lead in time that can’t be disturbed otherwise you start over at zero. Think of it as falling asleep— you gradually fall asleep and then you’re out. If you get disturbed by a loud noise, you more or less reset back to being awake and you have to start all over again.
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The benefits of ignoring todo lists
To do lists are incredibly popular. If you have any doubt, just search the App Store or Product Hunt for todo apps. They’re are literally thousands and thousands of them, all promising to help you stay more organized, and be more productive. But are they actually helpful? Do they help you be more productive, or do they just force you to feel like you’re drowning in tasks, and you’ll never make any headway?
In my personal experience, there are benefits of ignoring todo lists.
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Find the productivity method for you
The website, LifeHacker.com, once asked their readers to share with them the methods they use to stay productive thoughout the day. Many people responded with a variety of different answers. A few methods stood out and LifeHacker shared those on their site.
Here are 3 of those techniques explained for you.
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3 Tips for Improving Focus
I challenge you to read through this post without being distracted by something. Do you think you can?
Distraction is not a new problem. People will always have days when they need to make themselves focus on one task to get it done.
There are ways to train yourself to focus better. For some, it might be as simple as making up their mind to do it. Others might need all the help they can get.
Here are 3 tips for improving focus, and what you can do to train it.
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3 Cool Ways To Use TimeTag Time Management
TimeTag (Time Management) is built in a way that almost anyone can use it and get value from it. I’ve seen some really interesting ways that people use TimeTag and would love to share some of them here to see if it sparks any ideas in you!
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