Productivity | 5 Min Read
#14 - False Productivity
It's easy to be busy and say you're productive but are you really being productive? Or, is it just false productivity? That's what I cover this week.
Hey Friends 👋
This week, in a slightly ironic fashion I want to talk about redesigning productivity systems and using new tools and services that promise to revolutionalise your life and offer up unrealised productivity gains.
Why is that ironic?
Because I decided to redesign my productivity system today to realise potential productivity gains... 😅
But, before you close this email and just call me a hypocrite, let me explain.
In the past I didn't have a system, I mean I said I did but in reality, I didn't.
All my system was, was Todoist that I occasionally used when I remembered (which I didn't). So, this new system is a big step up in my game. It's using Notion which is unbelievably flexible and powerful and I've custom made it to match the demands I have from project task tracking to content creation and personal tasks. Essentially, it's task management on steroids. 💪
It's hard to cover exactly everything I do with this new system as it's very much still in its infancy but it should now make me more organised in producing content and working on side projects like my upcoming Twitter analytics SaaS and website redesign.
I'm looking forward to sharing more about the new Notion system I'm using in the coming days and weeks. I might even do a blog post or video to show it off. So, make sure to let me know if this is something you're interested in. 😉
System's Don't Matter
But, now I want to get to the main part of this newsletter and after telling you all about my new productivity system and how great it is. I'm going to tell you that the system we use doesn't matter (for the most part).
As I alluded to above it's quite common to redesign your entire productivity system to use a new app or service that's become trendy. The funny thing is when we redesign our entire system to be more productive, we think we're going to achieve unfathomable levels of productivity. But, in reality, all that happens is we achieve false productivity.
False productivity? False productivity is where we think we're being productive and give ourselves a little pat on the back for a hard day's work. But in reality, we haven't achieved anything that pushed us towards our goals.
And, redesigning an entire productivity system to use a new service or tool is exactly that.
We might spend the entire day or just a portion of it changing everything about our system and setting up our new one to be exactly as we want it. And, all the time we're thinking we're being productive. But, in reality, when we take a step back and view what we achieved, we didn't take any steps towards our goals.
So, the solution?
If you have a productivity system in place that works and helps you be organised and make progress towards achieving your goals, stick with it. Don't change just because some fancy new service got released and it promises to change the world for you. I promise it won't.
If your current system works and you have no major issues with it (issues preventing you from making progress). Then stick with your current system.
But, if you were like me and didn't have a system or your current system genuinely has issues that are stopping you from being productive and making progress. Then look at redesigning your system to make you more productive but only then.
There is a time and place for building new productivity systems and it's all about being honest with ourselves. To be productive, we need to be taking steps towards our goals.
With all of that in mind, I wish you a very productive and happy week and I look forward to speaking with you then if not sooner.
Coner x
🏃♂️ What I've Been Up To
This week, was the first full week back doing content creation and what a week it was.
We did our first Twitter Space on achieving goals in 2022. It was a great talk with some amazing points raised. I will be uploading the recording to Anchor soon to share with everyone. 🙌
This week I also announced the initial designs of my Twitter Analytics SaaS that I will be making over the coming weeks and months.
And of course, I redesigned my productivity system to make me more organised with my content creation and projects. 🙌
Next week is going to be another great week of content creation on Twitter. Along with more Twitter Spaces and blog posts so make sure to follow me over on Twitter if you don't already.
💯 My Current Faves
- 📺: Ex Machina: With AI and ML becoming even more commonplace in our lives, watching this film did make me future is this possibly our future? It's worth a watch if you haven't seen it before.
- 📚: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear: Still going with this book. I need to allocate more time to reading... 😅
- 🎵: Ayo Technology by 50 Cent: Just a catchy, classic song. 🤷♂️
- 🎤: The high cost of cheap clothes by Today, Explained: I'm not exactly a fashion connoisseur or anything, in fact, I mostly wear similar things 😂. But, this podcast episode got me thinking about the impact of "fast fashion" on the world.
- 🎮: Chess.com: I don't usually include games here as I don't play them often enough but I've been hooked on chess.com.
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Questions
If you have a question you'd like me to ask me then I'd ask you to consider publically tweeting me it so others may be able to learn from it. However, I understand not all questions are suitable for the public domain in which case you can email me at hey@conermurphy.com
