How to get on the productivity wagon Scene II Part I

For my procrastinating reader

A quick note: I’ve mildly edited this post for coherence since it was first published.

Okay, here’s the productivity follow up that I promised. It is getting out much later than I had planned for it to. If you procrastinate, you might relate with this -  having already written a detailed post on productivity, it felt dull and boring to revisit the topic. So every time I sat down to write about productivity, I felt like writing about something else - guilt, love, empathy, morality, confirmation bias. All these topics could have easily waited. 

Okay, so where were we with productivity?

It will not be the best use of your time to share everything here again but a quick recap might be useful to re-break the ice:

1. Productivity is not equal to slogging for long hours: It’s about maximising your output to input ratio. Staring for 6h at your work laptop everyday should not fool you into thinking that you are productive. Doing 1h of focused work can help you get more stuff done than 6h of disjointed, distracted work. 

2. Productivity is not supposed to feel exhausting: Rest is a critical part of productivity. Staying on the productivity wagon means taking out time regularly to rest. If you think that the exhaustion you are feeling indicates productivity success, you are probably wrong. What is key to remember about resting is this - how you rest matters equally if not more than how much you rest. Breaks should be used to replenish dopamine reserves e.g. walking, not deplete them e.g. scrolling.

3. The science of productivity is closely linked to the science of dopamine: Dopamine is the molecule in our body that is responsible for motivation, among other things. Having a steady source of dopamine available is important to get any real work done. Spending time on social media gives you cheap dopamine that is not sustainable, and certainly not the kind that is helpful for productivity.

4. Productivity and wellbeing are positively correlated: Getting work done feels good. When we work hard to accomplish a goal, it leaves us feeling satisfied, motivated and with energy to do more. Curbing short-term impulses for long term rewards greatly helps our physical and mental health. 

Please don’t listen to the guys who say that productivity sucks. Productivity is awesome. 

Right. You wanted to try this whole productivity thing. Cool, let’s do it.

What is the toughest part of being productive?

IX. Figuring out the HOW

We make resolutions in January and never look at them until next December. December is the holiday season, so might as well start the next year which is almost right here, we think. It’s not a long postponement. The new year arrives. Jan 1 is for recovery from Dec 31 which we allow, we’re very understanding of ourselves that way. On Jan 2, we sit at our desks, we open our notebooks and we write a list of things that we are dead serious about getting done, no excuses this time, we have wasted enough of our life away already. We make a list of 15 items that are nicely distributed across health and money and family and relationships and learning a new language and also an instrument, and all the other things we could never get to the previous years. This will be the year that I *get my shit* together. Okay, goals are set. Feeling fantastic. Time for a break. And just like that, our castle in the air is gone with the wind. We were so close this time, we had a list and and all. If you actually think about it, we come close so often but then don’t make it. What happens?

The toughest part about productivity is not the ‘what’, it is the ‘how’. All of us want to figure out the how. Every time a new productivity tool gets out, we are first filled with hope and then disappointment. We install time-tracking softwares but refuse to do anything about what we paid them to show us. We get excited when we hear about a tool that plans to take away all our money if we don’t get our goals done. Now, that should definitely work, we think. We sign up, and then go add fake points an hour before our credit card is about to be charged. We buy expensive safes to imprison our phones. It works for a few days until we give up and permanently release our phones. It’s tough to part from our phones, it is probably easier to break up with our partner. 

The ‘what’ is important too but it is not enough to get you on the wagon. It’s the difference between knowing how a car works vs being able to drive it. Between knowing and doing, there is a transparent but hard wall and through its cracks, we fall again and again until we give up trying to climb the wall altogether. Most of us have been there and it’s okay. I’ve been there, done that too. Many people who we may view as being “sorted” or “disciplined” might be for all you know fighting the productivity demons every day. I know I still am. I was supposed to get something done this morning and I spent 6 hours trying. In the end, I failed. How did I respond to my failure? Ate bacon and eggs. Watched a lot of standups. Got a headache. Felt more miserable. Around 2 hours ago, I decided to pause the self-pity and do some work. And here I am, ironically (or rightfully) writing an article on productivity. 

We all know the value of hard work, the struggle is always in doing the hard work. How to transcend this gap?

X. Start with a goal so easy that it’s hard to take it seriously

Funnily enough, in spite of what it sounds like, most give up at this stage. And it’s not what you think. They don’t give up because the goal is too tough. They give up because it’s pathetically easy. Have I told you that I also work as a productivity coach? I do. Sometimes the goals that me and my clients begin with are as simple as ‘Stretch for 2 minutes every day’. 2 minutes, that’s it. 

I can see how this sounds pathetic. My clients find it incredibly stupid. They had signed up to battle procrastination and get some real work done. And here I was, wasting their time by setting silly goals. “What on earth is 2 minutes of stretching supposed to achieve when I need to lose 10 kgs of fat?” It is supposed to achieve 2 things, I tell them.

1. Builds consistency

If you want to lose 10 kgs of fat by the end of the year, you need to start exercising regularly. But you cannot count on your desire to help make that happen. You cannot go running whenever you feel like it because you will not feel like it on most days. Neither can you expect your motivation to get you to the gym 5 days a week because it won’t. You need a better strategy, one that puts exercising almost on an auto-pilot mode. It needs to be ingrained into your system so that you don’t think about it anymore, you just do. How do you get to that place? With 2 minutes of stretching! What most people miss when they are asked to start with a goal that seems ridiculously silly is this - it minimises your friction to getting started. This is super important for productivity, especially at the beginning stages. What is the role of friction in productivity? What is friction, first of all?

Friction is a Physics term that refers to the resistance experienced by an object when it comes in contact with another object. More the resistance, more the energy needed to move forward. Apply this knowledge to productivity and getting started with 2 minutes of stretching will not seem so silly anymore. To a person who is currently at 0 minutes of exercise, jumping up to 30 minutes of exercise a day is not just ambitious but plain unrealistic. Most of us don’t work like that. 0-2 minutes is a doable, bare minimum increase in effort. Committing to 2 minutes a day doesn’t feel overwhelming, sounds easy and it accomplishes something that otherwise seems impossible - it gets you started. Do 2 minutes a day for 7 days a week, you have done ~15 minutes of stretching. Not only have you gotten started working towards your goal of getting fit, you now have 1 week’s consistency to show for it. Consistency is productivity’s best friend. Having done 7 days of stretching albeit in miniscule quantities will make Week 2 slightly easier. When Week 2 is slightly easier, Week 3 of stretching is more likely to happen and so forth, you get the idea.

2. This builds momentum

Momentum is another Physics term that refers to the strength gained by motion. A rock that is hurtling towards you at high speed carries more strength than one you bump into while hiking. Again, apply this knowledge to productivity and you see why going to the gym 5 days a week will help you move up the weights quicker than when you depend on your mood to help you get there. When you start working on a goal consistently, you build forward momentum. Keeping on going feels easier and over time, it can feel easier than stopping.

I have been trying to do strength training on and off for a year now but I never got into a consistent routine. I would do parts of a Bodyweight Fitness routine once every few days and use that as proof to convince myself that I am doing strength training  (I wasn’t). Around 4 months ago, I decided to stop messing around. I began with 1 kg squats and yesterday, I did 4x8 sets of 17.5kgs squats. It felt good. I’m telling you - start easy, be consistent and build momentum, that’s all.

You start with 2 minutes of stretching. As easy as it sounds, doing it for 7 days in a row is tough. Consistency is what is hard to attain here, the goal itself is doable. Taking on 30 minutes of stretching and also trying to be consistent with it in Week 1 is tackling two difficult things at the same time which reduces the chances of your success. The interesting part about consistency is that it can grow non-linearly. You might begin with 2 minutes of stretching in Week 1 and be doing 60 minutes of daily workout after 90 days. 

But very few of us want to start with 2 minutes of stretching. We all want to go straight from 0 minutes to lifting 50kgs. The instinct is understandable. We want to start achieving right now, succeed instantly. Unfortunately that is not how life works, there are laws of productivity that cannot be defied, and one of them is that your current baseline will double down both as a stepping stone and a resistor to your next level of progress. One must keep this in mind while goal-setting. Setting overambitious goals will not just result in failure but also leave you feeling demotivated and gasping for energy to keep going.  On the other hand, starting realistically and progressing slowly will set you up for success in life.

Getting consistent and building momentum are productivity basics. Without this system in place, it becomes challenging to get ahead. So far, so good. For most people, this will give them a sense of where to begin. What about the outliers? The ones who struggle to get out of bed before 3pm. The ones who spend all their days using as a way of coping with their abysmally poor productivity. The ones who spend 6 hours watching reels and shots until finally at some wee hour, nod off with phones in their hands.

XI. Shock therapy for the chronic procrastinator

If you are a severe procrastinator and often find yourself struggling to get even 2 minutes of any productive work done, then maybe what you need is a kickstart rather than an easy one. It’s going to be tough but if you are at productivity rock bottom, I’m hoping your location gives you the impetus to try this.

To chronic procrastinators, their procrastination can feel a lot like addiction. And that’s because it is. Procrastination is a function of poor impulse control - you choose the quick dopamine from Instagram instead of the delayed pay-off from doing your work. And in that sense, it is a lot like chain smoking or heavy drinking. You indulge in the behaviour not for lack of knowing but in spite of that knowledge. Your productivity goals are always reserved for tomorrows that do not come. You repeatedly find yourself in the cycle of despising the tasks on your list → avoiding them →  failing them and beginning to loathe it all - the task list, the people who follow up on the tasks, the people who remind you of your goals, yourself. I know people who have lost thousands of dollars because of procrastination. I know people who have gotten fired not because they are not smart enough, but because they just could not gather the focus and discipline that was required for work. I’m not making this up. We are talking about debilitating levels of procrastination here. The kind that affects our mental health and can leave people lurching from crisis to crisis in their lives (Somehow the anti-productivity folks never seem to talk about this. But that is a discussion for another day). 

If you are a chronic procrastinator, asking you to start with 2 minutes of productivity is like asking an alcoholic to reduce their drinking problem, 1 glass at a time. We know what will happen. There is a reason why people who emerge successfully from rehab (there are not many to begin with) change their friends, their house and get rid of all of their old connections. Any reminder of their past life can send them tumbling down the addiction hill. They are always a step away from slipping. If your procrastination troubles resemble addiction, then unfortunately you just have to cut all of your cheap dopamine sources out, immediately. 

Cheap dopamine sources are subjective. For one it is Instagram and for another it is porn. For one, it is Youtube and for another, it is their stack of trashy novels. For one, it is Reddit and for another, it is junk food. For some, it could even be Substack. Whatever your choice of cheap dopamine is, you have got to Cut.It.Out. And no, you will not do it tomorrow because your tomorrows have this weird problem of never arriving. So you got to start today, and you got to start now.

For the chronic procrastinator, this is your starting goal - stay off all cheap dopamine 24/7 for a minimum of 30 days. What to do with all your new free time? Sit idle. It would be great if you can work but it’s okay if that seems too much. Just do anything besides engaging in cheap dopamine - go for walks, talk to your partner, play with your kid, go for longer walks. Anna Lembke has written a book called Dopamine Nation which might be an interesting read if you want to delve deeper into the science behind this recommendation.

I’ve a lot more to say on procrastination and productivity including some of my personal hacks but all that will have to wait for another post. Don’t worry, as long as I’m not procrastinating, I’ll get it out soonish.

Another quick note: I’m doing a 1-month long paid productivity learning experience for teenagers. If you are a parent who would like to sign your kid up for something like this, you can check it out here. Also tell your other parent friends?