Tag: “Habits”

Today, our productivity is always threatened by the existence of constant interruptions that we cannot control. An interruption is anything that prevents you from starting and ending an important task. It is hard to do the important things and ignore the trivial when the universe is conspiring against you.

GTD, Autofocus, ZTD, Pomodoro technique, Personal Kanban… Personal productivity has always been surrounded by different formal methods intended to systematize our behavior to make it less erratic and allow us to better focus on what we have to do. From time to time there is a new method — or a variation of an existing one — supported by a handful of evangelists, which enjoys a period of relative popularity… until it is replaced by the next.

Your performance, and largely your productivity, is determined by your ability to give full attention to one thing at any moment. Everybody can do it and, indeed, we all do it unconsciously when we are totally committed to what we are doing or when our brain accepts, without any doubt, that the thing at hand is a top priority issue.

Many people think that a personal productivity system consists of some software and/or a calendar and/or an ordered to-do list and/or a series of notes or documents relating to all this. However, this is nothing more than the physical, tangible part — the least important — of a personal productivity system.

Something that all the people interested in the existing methods of personal organization and productivity have in common is a deep desire to reach a future state much better than today’s. These people have control over what is happening and, therefore, seek ways to do things better, faster or easier. They are people willing to admit that they might need to change some habits. This leads to a paradox: people who want to be more productive are actually those who need it the least.