We talk a lot about productivity, but I’m not sure many people truly understand what being productive is about. I mean, sure, we understand it okay, we just tend to have a problem of only seeing productivity from one angle, which is what I’m hoping that we’ll both be enlightened about in this post.
Thing is, when many people hear productivity, what their mind conjures is 2 or more hours of absolute concentration or work. This is not a wrong way to define it, but it’s not the only way either.
Wikipedia defines productivity as the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. This definition is wrong based on my new definition of productivity. Right now, I define productivity as doing what I said I’d, when I said I’d do it, and for how long I said I’d do it. So basically, to say I am productive, these 3 things have to be true.
Scheduling time to be unproductive is productive
Why I have a problem with wikipedia’s definition – it only sees you as being productive if you’re doing something. But as long as you have planned to be doing nothing at a certain time and for a certain duration, you’re productive in my very new book.
I was telling @ b0s something some months ago about how to be productive, but at the time, the concept I was trying to execute hadn’t fully formed and solidified yet, so I didn’t even realize that this was what I was trying to say. I told him one of the ways I get myself to be super productive sometimes is that I waste an entire day, and the guilt of that waste pushes me into a productive overkill the next few days.
In that case, although unaware, what I was doing was rewarding myself in advance with so much unproductive time that that would force me to transition into my productive mode. I intentionally set out to waste a day. It was scheduled. And so, by the metrics of my current definition, I was actually being productive all those times.
I think that more people should do this – schedule time to be unproductive. We’ve become so accustomed to feeling like we’re wasting time when we’re not doing anything, that we push ourselves to burnout in our quest to constantly be Wikipedia-productive.
Whether your case is that you have a job or you’re a student, you work/study hard enough already. So as long you planned in advance that you’re spending the entire day bingeing House of Cards (ahem ahem), or playing PES with the boys all night, pat yourself on the back for such a productive day. Live by your own rules and principles and if majority’s definition of something doesn’t work for you, by all means, redefine it.
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