Why I Stopped Reading About Productivity Hacks (and how you can too)

I once got caught up in the productivity rabbit hole and it was difficult to come back.

There are hundreds of books and countless online articles on productivity. Yet, we see the problem remains unsolved. Why so? It’s because productivity is subjective. A productivity hack may work for someone but it may not work for you. Productivity is not something like One-Stop-Shop. The moment I realized this, I removed all the saved articles in my bookmarks and never looked back.

How do you come up with strategies for productivity on your own?
Being productive is a result of:
- knowing what to do
- knowing a time when you are high on energy, willpower, and focus
- monomaniacally working on the task at hand
Once you figure these things out, you will start to question yourself. The answers will lead you to a strategy that you can agree upon and implement.

How do you find out what works?
You have to experiment. Play around stuff and observe your output levels. Adapt what works for you. When you are experimenting, make sure you follow it for at least 21 days before determining whether it works or not. (Studies suggest for something to see its effect(s) you have to do it for 21 days.)

What has worked for me?
1. Creating an artificial sense of urgency enforces you to have a deadline to do something.
2. Simply doing it.

Create systems that work for you. Reduce dependence on external motivation to do something. Save time by not reading about productivity hacks and utilizing it to work on things that matter.

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog