How do you make productivity a path, not a goal in itself?
After years of sinking countless hours of my free time trying to improve my productivity system, I realized last year that I was doing little more than when I began - I just felt less bad about procrastinating.
My breakthrough was this realization, coupled with goal setting. I learned how to set long and short term goals, and this gave my productivity a purpose: suddenly the focus wasn't to tick off tasks, it became reaching a goal I'd set for a few months into the future. Tasks were just small steps in that direction.
I'm curious if you ever fell into the trap of treating productivity like a goal in itself, ironically making yourself less productive in the process?
How did you climb back out?
Yes, absolutely! I reached the apex when I had to use a Project Management solution to manage my project management solutions! Seriously, all joking aside, of course. We all get caught up in the software, metrics, golden stars in the upper right-hand corner of the paper.
I cleanse my workstations: if it hasn't been used in 6 months, it's gone; if I cannot remember the last time I used it, it's gone.
You must purge.
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