I have been trying for many months to increase my productivity. My philosophy has long been that one ought to ivest a significant portion of one’s time developing shortcuts to save time later. For me, these shortcuts are typically life hacks or software tricks. They either
- make life simpler to reduce everyday cognitive burden, or
- dramatically reduce the time neccessary to complete some task at the cost of a relatively small increase in complexity.
I have already found shortcuts for working on the computer, for writing and blogging, and for reading. But the shortcut that has been in the forefront of my mind for months now is productivity itself: increased productivity will enable me to get more done each day regardless of the other shortcuts I have developed. Fortunately (read: unfortunately), there is no shortage of productivity advice on the internet. Hundreds of websites and books and tweets claim to contain productivity “secrets”. Were I to reproduce the various tidbits of wisdom I have found, this post would be longer than a Justin Bieber flame war on YouTube.
One simple truth keeps me from obsessing too much: studying productivity is counterproductive. I found a video in which a young guy chronicles his quest for productivity. He abstained from employment for an entire year, spending his days in ascetic devotion to productivity (wait – what?). He tried everything from the Pomodoro technique to fasting and meditating. His conclusion at the end of the year was this: “There is no secret” (see 3:04 of the video here). What a terribly unproductive year he had. I procrastinate like it’s going out of style, but to date I have done nothing so extreme as sacrificing an entire year to a wild goose chase.
In his yearlong quest, there was something he forgot to try. I know he forgot to try it because I have tried it, and it works. There is a secret. Are you ready? Here it is:
Listen to the Mass Effect soundtracks while you work.
That’s it. Completely changed the way I work. Now I feel like I am saving the galaxy with every text file I edit and slide I tweak. I could have saved the productivity monk a year of his life.