The Ultimate Productivity Hack

I have tried many ways to emulate the success that other people have seen in their lives and have ultimately concluded that 99% of the productivity advice out there will ultimately set you up more for failure than success. 

From the book Eat that Frog - I have tried to do the hard thing to start my day. The whole theory presented is that if you focus on getting the hard thing done right away, you don’t have to worry about it all day. 

That didn’t work for me. I found that I just ended up procrastinating everything that I needed to accomplish because I was avoiding the first task that I was supposed to get done. 

I have tried structuring my day based upon my sleep chronotype as presented in The Power of When. While I did see benefits in going to sleep on a specific schedule, ultimately pulling myself out of focused states to drink tea at a specific time served me limited benefit and more detriments. It had no positive impact on my ability to produce at my company. 

I have tried cold showers to wake myself up because they are supposed to be great for shocking your system. No thanks. I love taking showers. Something about sitting in the hot water feels cleansing for my soul and gives me an almost meditative state to think - I don’t need to poison that blissful time with shocking my system. 

I’ve tried waking up early because “that’s what successful people do,” you know what, you sociopaths? I hate getting out of bed early. PS I don’t actually think you are sociopaths, I just don’t want to go to bed earlier than I have to as going to bed at 8 is far too early for me when I could easily stay up past midnight working and I’m lashing out. You get all the quiet time you want in the morning and I’ll take all the quiet time in the evening, deal?

The Pomodoro Technique? More like - let me interrupt my flow the moment I actually get going on something and continually disrupt myself each time I find a groove technique. 

I’ve tried keeping dishes out of my sink because a cluttered house is a cluttered mind. Well, if the dishwasher is running, I’m not willing to hand wash and dry all of my dishes. 

I’ve tried much more than the above to be successful and you know what? It’s all bullshit. 

First and foremost - notice how not a single process listed above talks about focusing on the actual work. Not one. Okay - maybe the Pomodoro technique but that is more about interrupting the work that you are doing than it is about getting the work done. 

But really, these might as well all be dubbed “techniques to make yourself feel like you are being productive even though you are distracting yourself with something that contributes negatively to the work that you actually need to get done.” 

I’ll admit, I’m sure that these techniques each have their own merits for the individuals that created them and ultimately may help some of you but I’m at the point where I no longer care if something is “scientifically proven to make me 15.9% more productive within two standard deviations.” If it doesn’t feel like it is contributing to me getting work done, it’s not worth doing. 

Largely, all of the above is marketed to people that want more effective techniques to getting their work done and are prolonging their not doing the work by reading books or finding the “best way to optimize” their production when they actually sit down to do the damn thing. 

You want a way to guarantee that you will do the thing and get it done?

Do the thing. 

Remove the distractions from your space - put your phone in another room, take your dog out on a walk so they have gone to the bathroom and are tired while you work, make sure you have eaten a little bit, have water, or better yet - just sit down and work. 

If you get pulled from your work by the siren song of your phone or your dog or your thirst - acknowledge what it is that is distracting you, ask yourself if it is something that is a pressing need (trust me - your dog whining to go out constitutes a pressing need) - take care of the thing as necessary and sit your ass back in your chair to work. 

Unless it is absolutely necessary for where you are at in your project, research is you procrastinating in a way that makes you feel like you are being productive while making no real progress. 

What does necessary mean? That there is NO way the project can move forward without the research. If this takes any amount of time for you to reflect and rationalize, it likely isn’t necessary. 

There have been many times where I am writing that I have tried to convince myself that I need to cite my sources like I am writing for a scientific journal. I’m not. 

If I can remember where I heard an idea - I will happily shout that individual out but I am not giving myself an excuse to procrastinate. 

I want people to get credit for their work and am ultimately happy to give it but everything written on these pages relates to my experience and thoughts that I am sharing with you to try to help you make progress based on the lessons that I have learned from others and my past. 

The moment that you realize that you are avoiding doing the thing by researching or going on YouTube to binge techniques that have made billionaires so successful so you can implement them in your life instead of doing the damn thing, is the moment you will be liberated by leaning into doing the work. 

Like all good practices, this will take time and mindfulness. Realizing this once won’t fix an ingrained procrastination habit. You are hearing this from a master procrastinator still working through this. 

You will need to refocus again and again and again and again. 

The amount of times I get emotionally entranced by some politically idiocracy or a dog coming out of abhorrent conditions on Facebook is disappointing but I tell ya what, I’m getting better and better at refocusing. 

My phone is right next to me but I’m workin’ baby! 

In college…. Not as likely. 

Ironically, directly after writing that - I had a split second where I picked up my phone… But I put it down and got right back at it! 

You can do the same thing. 

Are you consuming a massive amount of content, avoiding what you need to get done? Are you scrolling through Tiktok, the gram, or Facebook when you know you have stuff to get done? 

Reading this doesn’t count as procrastination - no this is valuable - while you are at it, read all of my content because it’s not procrastinating…

I’m kidding. If reading this is you procrastinating, get outta here! Go do the damn thing! 

If you need some guidance, here ya go: 

What are you doing right now? Are you doing this for entertainment? Are you doing this in an attempt to be productive? If you read another 30 of these articles, would you progress towards what you want in life? What are you putting off doing? What would doing the work involved with that lead to if you just sat down and knocked it out? What would your life look like if you stopped trying to optimize and instead focused on doing the thing?

Ultimately, there will come a time when you need to focus on optimizing. The likelihood that you are there yet is minimal. 

The people that you idolize that share these routines likely didn’t focus on the best method of doing their thing until they achieved some semblance of success and prowess at doing that thing. 

Or they are scientists that don’t actually practice what they have studied so it is irrelevant anyway. 

Regardless - you likely don’t need to focus on anything more than doing the thing yet. 

So close this browser down and go do the damn thing.