The Importance of Individuality in Productivity Systems

May 23, 2021

I have spent a large portion of my career looking to find the best system of organizing myself. Reading about the latest trends in productivity, and trying new tools has been a habit I have continued to exercise throughout my years of working. I’m certainly not a veteran of the professional world. But I have spent more time than the average guy thinking about productivity. It started as a way to manage tasks. Then it progressed to block scheduling. Then organizing tasks into projects with data analysis to measure my productivity. Before I knew it, I was using multiple online applications, papers, and emails to keep track of my tasks, schedule, and projects. The complexity multiplied as I adopted new “better” apps. One would do one thing well, while another would do something better. My methods were ever-changing.

Don’t get me wrong, I love learning new things, and if you have an opportunity to improve, then you should go for it! But, if you spend all your time looking for the next greatest thing, without understanding what makes a good productivity system at the fundamental core, Then guess what?

Nothing actually gets done.

Productivity is about you

There seems to be an unspoken rule among corporate management that says productivity is something that is measured the same way for all people. In other words, productivity is a simple measure of how much can get done over time. (Sometimes, if you are lucky, it will also include ways of measuring the quality of the work but that's not always the case)

Looking at productivity this way is only part of the story. This is productivity only at the micro-level. “how much can be accomplished in a specific timeframe.” Life cannot be viewed as individual boxes. When you want to organize yourself and work efficiently, you need to look at the whole thing. The big picture. Your entire life.

Productivity is about optimizing your individual life for efficient sustainable output.

Knowing yourself and being aware of your habits and life, is the key to unlocking productivity. Your personality, environment, and habits all contribute to how you will approach the tasks you have to complete. If you don’t feel comfortable on a computer, then use paper and a pencil. If you don’t like waking up to the same routine every day, then structure your day with enough variety to keeps things interesting. Don’t box yourself into using tools that you have to work to use. Use systems that can work for you.

Action is powered by motivation

Motivation is very important to structure your life in a way that is conducive to productivity. In fact, motivation is the most important aspect of accomplishing any task! Motivation is the driver that pushes your brain to do things and Productivity is no different. Without motivation, your drive to be productive will only be effective for short bursts of time, and productivity is pretty much useless if you are only effective for a small percentage of your day, week, or month. The goal should be sustainability. If you are not motivated to stick with the system that you have put in place, then you will fail. It may take a few weeks, but if nothing is motivating you to continue doing it — nothing giving you a hit of dopamine, it won’t happen.

Motivation is not always a constant thing either. Sometimes, our desires and motivations change and progress. Something that motivated us before, may no longer do so. Instead of forcing yourself to continue pushing uphill, find the new motivation. Tweak your system, and re-evaluate how performing your tasks can provide satisfaction. Again, this is deeply personal. Some people may need a very rigid system to stay motivated and energized. Others may need to make changes to their system every couple of months to keep things interesting.

Goals — The missing key

In my experience, the primary difference between task management tools, and a productivity system is the concept of goals.

The difference is that to be productive in your entire life — actually becoming the person you want to be, you need goals. You can’t just look at tasks and assume that by accomplishing them, you are taking your life in the direction that you want to go. You have to be able to sit down and prove it! By taking the time to sit down, and realize your goals, you can connect them with the tasks that you are doing throughout the day. Connect your longings and desires to the mundane habits of life. You are able to answer the question why am I doing this today? Without goals, you’re just checking off tasks from a list, without any idea of what you are accomplishing. Sure, maybe you get satisfaction from checking off the box, but in the grand scheme of things, all you’re doing is checking a box and the only thing pushing you forward is checking off another box.

Almost every holistic productivity system has a kind of review process built into it; some way of verifying that what you are doing is moving you towards your goals. This is an important process because life is unpredictable, and our goals may change over time. re-evaluating where you are going, and why, will keep you refining the system that will continue to drive you to actually get there.

Finally, while productivity systems are deeply personal, It is a good idea to do research and find out what other people are using. There are hundreds of systems and tools out there and thousands of more variations of those tools. It’s worth taking some time to see what’s out there and use them as building blocks for your own productivity system. The system that helped me be able to understand this connection between goals and productivity and was the inspiration for this post is Year Zero. (Previously known as More Time per Day) Also, below are some more resources I would recommend to get ideas:

I hope to provide articles in the future that go into some more specific detail about I organize my time and manage my tasks. Stay tuned and join the conversation by following me using the social media links below.

-Josh