The Anti-Productivity Manifesto Part 3/5
How to let go of your invisible procrastination compulsion and create real momentum in your life.
(Read part 1 here… VIRTUAL REALITY)
Shadowy Secrets
Productivity = getting more done in less time
We strive for ‘Productivity’ because we feel like it’s the route to a better life:
Implement these hacks and processes – and we’ll achieve MORE in every domain.
But amidst all the lists and systems we gloss over it’s dark secrets:
a) Meaningless Task Addiction
We develop an addiction to completing small tasks because they’re easy
(We get a gratifying hit of feeling ‘productive’ by doing this).
Accomplishing small tasks is like treading water:
We don't move forward or achieve anything substantial.
Yet in the moment we feel great - we're getting things done! It gives us a false sense of power.We’re INEFFECTIVE because we’re addicted to easy dopamine hits from ‘ticking something off’
b) Do Everything Compulsion
We’re fooled into thinking that we can ‘get a handle’ on everything
(ie once we tear through the small tasks, clear the decks and streamline everything with our perfect system – then we’re going to knock out all of the deep important work that’s waiting for us)
In reality we never get to the important work, because we’re afraid.
We don’t want to face difficult or uncomfortable things (getting into the focused state required to do real work doesn’t come easily). Trying to get a handle on all the small things is a convenient way to avoid facing this.
We’re afraid… because we don’t want to give up control.
Completing small tasks makes us FEEL like we’re in control of our lives because we’ve got everything covered. In reality all we’re doing in flitting about.We’re UNFOCUSED because we’re addicted to control and avoiding hard things
In other words, our attempts at Productivity are an addiction to control and certainty.
What’s insidious about these demons is that they’re literal addictions.
It’s like the alcoholic that decides to get drunk ‘just one more time’.
We forget again and again that it’s the wrong path and keep indulging our ineffective unfocused efficiency to avoid the real work.
It’s a clever trick for our mind to rationalise avoiding meaningful work and stop us moving forward.
Revelling in the high of ‘getting more done in less time’, Productivity is INEFFECTIVE UNFOCUSED EFFICIENCY.
Ineffective Unfocused Efficiency vs Effective Focused Inefficiency
In the end:
Productivity fixation means we achieve LESS in every domain.
Here’s the crazy part:
In order to get real meaningful work done – you have to be UNPRODUCTIVE
Take writing:
Step 1: Write badly for a long time until you learn through iteration
Step 2: Forge the habit of writing consistently even though you’re doing it badly
Step 3: Get frustrated with your lack of progress but ignore it and keep going
Step 4: Get overwhelmed by how long it takes to produce anything but ignore it and keep going
Step 5: Get crazy at how many times you need to edit everything but ignore it and keep going
You stare at a blank page. You write drafts that are atrocious. You pass over them repetitively to edit.
It feels like you’re wasting a trojan amount of time.
Yet that’s the only way to learn a skill
Tasks vs Time
But if you’re doing it ‘productively’ you don’t want to waste any time
So you read books about writing and search for tips on google
You get a fake feeling of accomplishment because you’re ‘learning’ something
You’re lulled into this false sense that it’s going to magically translate to the action.
You think that when you do turn to the writing, you’ll be able to click your fingers and finished work will appear, with no expenditure of effort or ‘time-wasting’.
Actual result – You have a lot of theoretical knowledge but never write anything
Nothing gets published.
But you still get high from the false feeling of being ‘productive’ – you just need to read one more book and then you’ll start.
You can revel in this for YEARS without realising what’s happening: Your brain gets too much satisfaction from the information you’re consuming. This steals away your motivation to put the information to use, because consuming more information is easier and you crave another satisfaction hit. You habituate yourself to this cycle and it becomes more difficult to do the task that doesn’t provide instant gratification.
In the end you’ve wasted more time than you would have by writing slowly and inefficiently.
You’ve got nothing to show.
The knowledge you’ve ‘gained’ will come and go out of your head without a practice to enforce it.
Writing is just an example – this applies to everything
Counterintuitive Truth:
The way to respect your time often feels like ‘wasting’ it – striving and struggling in the world rather than in theory – meaning that you’re overcoming challenges and transforming as a person.
Here’s the fatal flaw:
Productivity is perceived as our relationship with tasks
But what’s far more important is our relationship with time
Getting tasks ticked off is antithetical to meaningful accomplishments
eg. If you want to write a book – that’s not going to get ticked off for a long long long time
A task focused outlook locks us in a distracted state – we’re hopping from one thing to another to plow through a never-ending list.
If we’re distracted – our relationship to time is broken.
It lacks quality.
Productivity as we know it = trying to do everything = being in a distracted state.
You’re primarily fixated on the huge list of things you haven’t done.
Hours can disappear when you’re distracted by one thing after another.
It’s as if time has no weight or substance.
It vanishes rapidly into the ether because you have no anchor for your focus.
If you meditate and zone into a focused state, it feels like time has a weight or a substance to it.
This is also what it feels like to do focused work.
Time becomes enriched.
That’s what we’re looking for.
Nobody fulfilled their aspirations by completing their to-do list.
It doesn’t move the needle.
Task-orientation is for computer programs. They execute code.
For humans, our relationship with our time is our relationship with our life.
This is part 3 of the 5-part Anti-Productivity Manifesto.
How to let go of your invisible procrastination compulsion and create real momentum in your life.
Read part 4 here…
The Gift