The productivity project by Chris Bailey
Right alter college, Bailey invested a full year to learning about productivity, and finding ways in which he could be more productive himself. He read multiple books on the topic, and conducted multiple experiments with himself that included, but were not limited to, reducing his work week to 20 hours, expanding it to 90, only spending one hour a day on the phone, and completing 10 days in complete isolation. He kept a journal all throughout where he recorded how these factors affected his overall productivity, and published his insights in his online blog — which soon went viral.
From reading his book, the ideas that stoke with me the most were: (1) managing your time and attention in order to be more productive, (2) reducing the amount of goals you have per day.
First, as Bailey states in his book, we no longer live in a time economy where time is Money. We live in a productivity economy, where our productivity certainly is, and being busy is not the same as being productive. More often than not, Lacking time is not a sign that we are accomplishing more. It is rather only a sign that we are not prioritizing correctly or spending nor time wisely. Certain distractions such as our phones and social media kill productivity, not only because of the time we spend on them, but also because of the attentional space they start to occupy in our heads. Working in complete isolation can do wonders for your productivity. As a result, managing our time and attention should be of foremost importance in our daily planning activities.
Second, Bailey recommends readers to reduce their daily objectives to a small number: from around three to five. The conciseness of the goals makes them easy to remember throughout the day, and therefore divert attention and energy more effectively in their direction. This idea extrapolates to weekly, monthly and yearly objectives.
I overall recommend this book, and remember rating it four out of five stars the first time I read it. It makes for an interesting read.
