The extremely underrated and counterintuitive secret to great productivity is that it’s far more important to focus on what you shouldn’t do than what you should do.
Why?
After all, isn’t the point of productivity to do and accomplish things? That’s why so many people tell us to get up at 5 AM, take cold showers, and all this other stuff: To get results.
Well, yeah, that is the point of productivity…
…but that’s not how the human mind and how real-life works (as we can all agree).
The human brain, while incredibly beautiful and brilliant, is very imperfect and can sometimes be rather… uh… dumb.
Much like a fish, we’re attracted to shiny objects. Our brains are wired for new, unusual, and contrasting elements. We always like a novelty whether it helps us or not.
As a result, we start gravitating towards countless different tactics that we think might get us results because they seem bright and cool, but they actually take us farther away from where we want to go. “Oh, I should do a TikTok! I should hand out flyers! I should read this article! I should try that life hack.”
Next, no matter who you are, what country you live in, or how old you are, we all have a ton of competing demands, pressures, and obligations in our daily life.
As a result, there are many things fighting for our time and our attention, which further blocks us from productivity and from accomplishing the things we truly want to accomplish.
So yeah, in a perfect vacuum, productivity is about focusing on what we want to do and making progress.
But in this imperfect reality that we live in, you can see that productivity is really about setting good boundaries and constantly putting blinders on your brain so it can stay focused.
Otherwise, if left to our own devices, we’re kind of like…
How To Use This
We all have some kind of to-do list, either mentally or physically. There are the tasks, objectives, or obligations we all have to do—from work to family stuff to taking care of your house, etc.
Each day, I have a list of things that I do, but I organize it in a very specific way.
At the top of my to-do list, I write the three things (at most) that I must do that day. These are the most urgent, important, high-leverage things that I want to accomplish by the end of the day.
Then, below that, under a hard line, I write out all the other things that I want to do.
Here’s the key: I don’t do anything below the line until the top three things are completed.
Because it’s everything below the line that’s going to interfere with everything above the line. After all, what’s above the line are things I have already calculated and decided are the most important for the day.
Now, whether you have five things or three things or just one thing on the top of your list, it’s not as important as the deeper lesson:
You must identify what you will NOT do during your day (at least, until everything else is done).
This can be very difficult if you’re not used to it. What often happens when you start doing this is that you freeze because, seemingly, everything is equally important.
So just identifying the three things to put at the top of your list can be challenging because you don’t know what’s most important at the time.
As a result, their lives feel extremely busy because they’re being pulled in all kinds of different directions that seem of equal importance. It kind of feels like they’re in the middle of an ocean and they can’t see land so they don’t know which direction to move toward.
Here are two tips:
First, when you’re doing this, think about the main goals you want to achieve and what is going to give you the biggest “bang for your buck.” What is going to have the biggest impact to help you get there? And what’s just a distraction?
For example, if you want to create your own blog, what’s more important: Creating the logo, choosing the theme, or writing your first article?
The answer is writing your first article. (That’s the entire point of a blog.)
This tip is first for a reason. Because I know people who fill their lives with all kinds of different projects and obligations and they try to be as productive as they can.
But they never actually take a step back and realize that those pursuits are pulling them away from what they really want in life.
For example, maybe they really want to feel more fulfilled at work, find a life partner, and start a family. But instead, they’re filling their calendar with all kinds of random chores, events, distractions, and obligations that steal their time and attention.
That’s not productivity.
And no productivity hack will be able to solve that.
The second thing is that you are going to have to learn how to let things die. The fact that choosing between tasks and options feels like “Sophie’s Choice” to you is a pretty good sign that this is an important skill you need to cultivate.
Because being an effective leader—and an effective person, in general—is being able to be decisive and accept the consequences that might come from your decision.
Learn to be more comfortable putting things aside. Learn to be more comfortable saying “no” to certain things. Learn how to say, “This seems interesting, but I’m not going to do it right now because there are other things I want to do.”
All of this is going to help your productivity.
Success isn’t that difficult; it merely involves taking twenty steps in a singular direction. Most people take one step in twenty directions.
— Dr. Benjamin Hardy
By removing options, it makes the path to success so much easier. Rather than focusing on a ton of tasks that you’re weakly committed to, you zoom in on the things that you’re truly committed to.
This will help you become laser-focused with your life and start making real progress toward your goals—which, in turn, will boost your productivity like nothing else.
Hope it helps.
I will do this today.
Great!!