Know Your Productive Self
People don't always start on their productive journey being productive or optimized. I don't consider myself a guru or anything of the sort, but over the years I have realized that it is a topic I care about and spend time on whereas my peers may not. I'll at least count myself somewhat educated, slightly ahead of oblivious or uninterested. When framing myself as pursuing optimization, even using the term 'optimized' in the past tense feels weird but it suggests some sort of finality or end to the pursuit - that it can be fulfilled or achieved.
From a personal perspective, it is something I am interested in and something I aspire to be better at. I 100% recognize and acknowledge I will never be fully optimized but in the journey of striving for it, I can get better. When I think of my own productivity journey, there are very niche and specific things that I think about — specific things about myself that I know make me more productive or less productive.
Knowing that I like to listen to non-English music or music without lyrics.
Knowing that I like to have timers or apps to restrict my internet access.
Knowing that I like standing or crouching in my seat.
Knowing that I like working when it's dark out or people are sleeping.
These are things that I have learned about myself, my psyche, my personality and my outlook. Over the years, I have slowly learned these things about myself because of the experimentation I have done, the intentionality of my pursuit for productivity and the ongoing interest in productivity beyond my years in schooling.
And ultimately, it stems from 2 specific things.
A pursuit of optimization
A degree of honesty about myself to myself.
So what does this have to do with you. Well, you have enough interest to read my blog. So either you're interested in me (and I'm flattered) OR you're interested in productivity and want to take a few first steps in your productivity journey. Congrats and welcome to a life looking into inefficiencies, creating routines, and pursuing your interests with an intensity that not many appreciate.
Now, it is only because I am looking to optimize my productivity, that I pay attention to these things — these idiosyncrasies. If I wasn't looking for or paying attention to things to optimize, I wouldn't bat an eye at these patterns. So #1, there has to be a desire to want to improve.
If you aren't wishing to improve, then there's no need or reason to pay attention or audit your productivity. Because you are satisfied. If that's the case, stop there. You're not looking for more and that's great! That's you. Many people in my life enjoy that lifestyle, enjoy their work-life balance around 50/50 and that's amazing for them. I, on the other hand, enjoy trying to achieve some abstract idea of full potential. I honestly don't know what that means to be honest, but I want to make every second of my life count on Earth. And the only way I really know how to do that is to do things better, faster, more regularly. Scheduling my life, keeping myself on a path, designing my life around the things that I think interest me. Those intentional choices keep me accountable to myself and keep me focused on what I designed for myself so that I don't always get distracted by other people and their goals, dreams and wants.
If that explanation resonates with you - if you are looking to pursue productivity optimization, keep reading.
#2 is a degree of honesty about myself to myself. There's a unique vulnerability and honesty that needs to happen when you audit yourself. You know your inner self — your ugliness, your short-sightedness, your flaws. You need to recognize and be accepting of your weaknesses to move forward. This is actually a hard thing to do because you need to have the willpower to hedge against yourself and have the self-discipline to stick to it and trust the process.
I know I love watching YouTube. I spend hours on it if I don't keep myself in check. There's so many interesting content creators from so many different walks of life and they all bring such valuable content to the platform. To give you a sense of my breadth of knowledge on the platform, I go from:
Dimension 20 Brennan Lee Mulligan's D&D roleplay
to
Thomas Frank's Notion Tutorials for Optimizing Everything
to
Ice Cream Sandwich's Stick Figure Drawings About the Mundane
to
Ido Portal's Gravity Defying Feats of the Human Body
Anywho, if don't keep myself in check, there goes an entire weekend day.
If I let myself nap, say goodbye to 2-3 hours of my day. So I also typically avoid the couch or bedroom because I know I will be tempted to lie down.
So basically, I design my productivity around these weaknesses so I never give myself the opportunity to be tempted.
So Now What?
Well, I think you need to figure out what you want to do in your life. Are you satisfied? If you are satisfied with where you are, there's no need to push yourself to do more, or optimize, or eliminate temptations that would otherwise be great things in certain contexts (e.g. Watching YouTube about your hobby is a great way to unwind if you aren't trying to be productivity).
So, sit down with yourself and ask what's next.
Either way, you know what you want in life and you are responsible for your life and where you go. I'm obsessed with reaching my full potential so that's why I do this but I love the journey of trying. That's what gives me satisfaction.
Hope you know what gives you satisfaction too!