Some people show up.
Sounds simple, and there are always exceptions, but someone willing to spend their time and take action (not just verbal, digital, and mental time but actual time) are the ones you should prioritize.
Tag: productivity
- Theme: Self
to remain vital, you must expand
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1–2 minutesThere are thousands of ways to optimize, reduce, or contract: these are control methods, not human exuberance or creativity.
Each has its place. Without over-indexing (on control or chaos) we can realize reactions that expand us (into a greater self), and those that contract us (for specificity).
To improve yourself in measurable ways has an allure, but limitation for expansion constrains the self into a nearly mechancial, narrow channel. - Theme: Self
clockwork man: time uses us
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1–2 minutesSince the invention of the clock, time can be wasted, which converts time into a resource to be controlled and mapped into productivity. Time can be used and optimized, pushed and manipulated, for our desires.
Instead, consider that time can use us.
Each process takes the time that it takes. Time guides our reactions and dictates outcomes. More is not possible; only acceptance (acquiescence) to the pace.
There is fear in the simplicity implied: we are only a mechanical appendage of time, a clockwork man performing at a heteronomic tempo. Yet, this reality has always existed and is quite preferable to modern anxiety and pressures of escalating production.
- Theme: Growth
Tactics vs Strategy
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1–2 minutesTackling one task after another feels productive, but the tasks will not end, and if you are effective, you will add more functions upon completion.
This can fill your entire life, but tactics are not a strategy.
This is to say; you can convert yourself into a drone and never win. - Theme: Self
Mostly, we want to ‘feel’ smart
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1–2 minutesBeing smart is hard. Feeling is easy.
We like to read books that offer an illusion of understanding: clever detective-esque inquiries with a tidy revelation.
Between our repetitious “A-to-B” obligations, we don’t have to think: we consume the book/podcast’s form of thought without doing the act of critical thinking.
And yet, this escapist distraction away from emotion allows productivity in the sense of pacified inner turmoil: existing between thinking and feeling.
This placebo intelligence is often preferable to the chaos of continually existing in your heart or head.
- Theme: Growth
Micro goals into mighty effort
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1–2 minutesGoalsetting is several small steps (micro goals) that are focal points on the longer path.
As you near the completion of your goal, called the “goal gradient,” you push harder.
Interestingly, a “sunk cost fallacy” drives us forward: the closer we get to success, the harder we try to achieve it, doubling and tripling our effort.
The exponential effort can work unless your goal is constantly vanishing in front of you.
- Theme: Growth
Out maneuver Yourself
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1–2 minutesOur ability to forecast motivations leads us to form expectations. Conforming to our predictions, we extrapolate seemingly rational actions or behaviors.
This most often looks like a crafted argument dropped onto the unsuspecting. Or we create a routine for optimal results so complicated (obsessive) that we can’t remember.
This excessive manufacturing and maneuvering becomes second nture: a series of defenses. Unfortunately, they prevent us from encountering the world as it is.
- Theme: Growth
arguing produces loss
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1–2 minutesArguing over the best way to do something is the best way not to do anything.
And since you do nothing, no one is to blame. It would be easy to say that with no winners, there are no losers, but instead, we all lose. - Theme: Growth
Seeds of transformation
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1–2 minutesEstablishing a goal and aiming for it is admirable, but the Kantian/Euclidean path ignores the embodied process of change that occurs.
Instead a goal is a field that grows seeds, allowing us to tend to (and react to) changes over time.
- Theme: Growth
Humans: parasite or marvel?
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1–2 minutesWhen you look out across nature and see rooftops sprouting amongst the trees, do you think of humans as cancer or plague spreading across the land, or do you marvel at our productive capacity?
Two generations ago, the production and growth of humanity were celebrated marvels. Today we are appalled at our escalating proliferation.
Within another two generations, we must regulate for equilibrium. This is only possible if our species can transcend its parasitic childhood.