(Part 2) Top products from r/productivity

It's a lot to write out because written explanations are wordy, but in person, it would be like "create a calendar entry for a weekly time to pick out what you're going to work on every day for the next week, then create a recurring daily calendar for a set time to write for 5 minutes, then make the choice every day to get to work when the alarm goes off & use your various checklist procedures & tools to help kickstart you into the writing zone". Boom...consistent progress that will let you blow past barriers like "writer's block"!

It's also hard because we all tend to just get sucked into the flow of the day & go about our merry way, and stuff like being able to write well seems a little bit like magic. If you're interested in learning how stuff works regarding talent, there's a really great book called "The Talent Code" (available as an audiobook as well, so you can just listen to it) where the author dives into talent vs. work & how people get good at things:

• https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown-dp-B07VH2KNT2/dp/B07VH2KNT2
  
  It's a really fantastic book because while people do come to earth with natural abilities, unless they work to develop them, then they're not going to get very far in their field. That's why the name of the game is kind of "small bites daily" rather than huge amounts of effort day after day after day, because it's incredibly hard to keep up that level of effort, motivation, and attention for more than a few days!

>Part of the family obligations are cultural.

I thought as much, which is why I suggested telling them you needed their support, rather than their opinions, which I don't think is unreasonable and may be able to alleviate some of the pressure they put on you, because they might not realise how much they're actually hurting you. I think learning what the difference is between weakness and vulnerability is also important because you may hopefully be able to show your family that of course, there are times when everything is very difficult, but you are managing those times and taking actions to improve them.

I would also ask for help and advice, because that usually mollifies anyone and they will be more compassionate and kind towards you, and their expectations may feel lessened. Ask them about times when they struggled, or experienced issues, and what did they do to get out of these issues? Humans bond over common humanity. And we all fail and make mistakes, and connect through sharing these experiences. But I believe the more of a voice you have, the more respect you'll earn from them and the less they'll interfere.

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>I'm too scared to take that plunge and change the person I've been for so long.

That's a perfectly valid concern to have. It took me about two years of regular work on myself before I was able to stop fearing what would happen if I stopped being the mess that I was. For me, it happened because I ended up in a workplace where people are incredibly kind, supportive and understanding, and I finally realised all that I could be instead of what I was.

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>I've just not been able to accept that those changes are necessary yet

It sounds like you know that these thoughts and behaviours are hindering you, but it also sounds as though there might be a little pride speaking and saying "I can get over this and do this myself" maybe? Again, a perfectly valid reaction, but maybe you can start from a less drastic place than me.

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The following are resources that I've consumed at some point in my life and have found to be very beneficial. I would of course highly recommend going to a therapist, but if this feels too much like a failure on your part to do so at the moment or it's too big a step or you are worried about looking weak, these books might help you work through some of your issues without being so committed.

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Kristin Neff has been doing a lot of research on self-compassion, and I would recommend her book to for anyone to read. If therapy is too big a step at the moment, but you'd be willing to get your feet wet, have a read of her book and see if anything resonates with you. The commitment is very small, and you might get some benefits from it. She's an academic and discusses her methodology and research as well as actionable solutions.

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She also has an audiobook of self-compassion meditations, which is available on Audible (if you don't have a subscription, the first book is free as part of their trial). Some of them are also available for free on her website, alongside a host of other exercises. I have found meditation to be very useful to slow down my anxiety. If I'm better at focusing on the present moment, I spend less energy worrying about the future.

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Next I would recommend Mind Over Mood, a CBT workbook that you can complete at your own pace and in your own time. It goes through the same things that a therapist would cover, minus the therapist.

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Finally, I read some extracts from Dare To Be Average during my therapy sessions, and have found it incredibly valuable to reframe my thoughts about how if I weren't the mess that I was I would surely be worse (spoiler alert, you won't be).

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I hope these will help you if you decide they're not too much of a commitment, or you find themselves in the terrible place I was in twice before and can't get out of there by yourself anymore.

Hi there fellow overthinker,

I have a book recommendation for you. Mental Traps: The Overthinkers Guide to a Happier Life by André Kukla. It's book about unhealthy and unproductive thinking patterns that are common amongst overthinkers. It can be a bit dry at times, given that it is written by a professor who works in both the philosophy and psychology departments at his university. That being said, the book is written in plain enough English and provides actionable advice on how to stop faulty thinking patterns such as those you're experiencing. I fell on this book a little over a decade ago and it was a game changer.

I strongly recommend that you read the entire book (it's not that long) but you'll want to particularly focus on the chapters about the traps of "Formulation" and "Regulation". Those two traps are about the attitudes we adopt towards things that don't really affect us, how we make decisions about events that are just as well left to chance, or how we purposelessly keep a detailed description of what is happening in our lives. I think those two chapters will help you the most because you're essentially overthinking the whole spectrum of your decisions (from tiny to major life decisions) and concerning yourself with the "butterfly effect" of anything that happens to you (whether by your own hand / design or pure chance).

Kukla will cover the "mental traps" part better than I ever could but here is my own personal advice. Coming from someone who has thought and read a lot about being productive and on how to lead the best possible life: what you should focus on is to know yourself as well as possible (so do exercises and seek experiences to get to know yourself really well) and then align your life goals and objectives with your personal values. On a daily basis, your mind should ideally simply be focused on what's in front of you (i.e. being "present" or "mindful") in order to keep mental traps at bay and ensure that you're maintaining the habits that will lead you towards a life that is aligned with your values. If you do this, along the way, you'll achieve important objectives and major goals you dream about. Major life decisions (Which college should I go to? Should I get married to this person? Should I have kids?) should indeed be given lots of time and thoroughly examined but once you make a decision - during your own personal "strategic thinking time" sessions - you shouldn't second guess yourself. Smaller questions & decisions , such as "what effect will be had if I leave the house 1-2 minutes late?" are not worth thinking about in terms of how they will affect your overall life; random events and forces entirely out of your control will have as much, if not more, effect on your life trajectory than those small decisions.

Be present (to both enjoy life and get things done efficiently) and make decisions that allow you to act in a manner that exemplifies your personal values (in order to strive towards your own potential). Have a "bias for action" rather than a bias for constant planning and second guessing.

I remember hearing... or reading?... about a study where they were testing burnout. What they did to test it was give several groups an impossible-to-complete task and timed how long they took to give up. Two groups were presented with radishes, and the other two with cookies- the radish groups were the control. Of the two groups presented with cookies, one was told not to have a cookie, and the other group was given no instructions about the cookies- they could have as many as they wanted, and most had one or two.

The group that was instructed not to have the cookie gave up after spending only 40% as much time on the task as the other groups.

Aha! I remember, I read about this in This book. (I may be quoting numbers wrong and don't have a copy handy to check, if somebody else does, I'd appreciate the correction!)

Anyway, The point I wanted to make is that willpower is a finite resource- but one that can be replenished, conserved, and spent wisely. The book describes it with the metaphor of a mahout riding an elephant: "You", the 'smart' part of your brain, are the mahout- and the 'elephant' is the part that does the work commanded by 'you', or more to the point, the part that is 'feeling burned out'. So there are two things to do here, if you want to reach this goal. First, do not let your elephant realize that it has any option but reaching this goal: if the elephant can get away with less, it will try to. Think of a 4.0 GPA as normal- and you'll be able to trick your elephant.

The second thing to do is: Take care of your elephant. Elephants- the real thing, I mean, not the stupid part of you- need to eat a LOT. they need exercise. They need to socialize. And they need very strict discipline when working. So you- the mahout- can slack off sometimes, when the elephant is working. And the elephant can slack off sometimes- while the mahout is watching. But never both at the same time, or the elephant runs amok and the mahout has to do an elephant's work.

NP; hope it works for you. BTW, there's a great book, Death by Meeting, written as a novel / fable, that has ideas about specific types of meetings.

I thought Rework was a great read. It in and of itself is a productive book with the chapters being super short and to the point lol. But it's catered more towards business and startups so just depends what you're looking for.

THIS!

http://www.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-Unexpected-Achieving/dp/0062116924

This book is fantastic. It's written by a Google engineer who did a fantastic job on introducing other engineers (!) to meditation and how it improves their daily lives.

Good post but it's missing references.

The poster book for Stoicism and productivity mixed together: The Obstacle is the Way

Not sure about the rest but for subjectivity, I'm guessing The Now Habit

Guess for negativity bias Predictably Irrational

Guess for think objectively Succeed

Guess for advice to friends The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

I guess this goes to explain my downvote. I'm not really expecting a fully referenced article but it goes to show that either productivity concepts are overrated and can be summed up in one short article or the concepts, as written in the article, is vastly under-represented if not mis-represented.

I'm sure my lone vote won't matter much in the river of upvotes and congrats for giving your site and articles that "Seth Godin" touch but you could do better.

This article is honestly an echo of Cal Newport’s ideas in Deep Work and Digital Minimalism neither of which were referenced. Attention residue isn’t “his idea,” but he definitely communicated it in a productivity sense for the masses in Deep Work.

Also, the entire message of Digital Minimalism was to show that being mindful of non-essential technologies (social media, video games, blogs, etc.) is better than going cold turkey quitting them. If you’re going to write an article on a topic that’s been written about extensively, you should reference those sources. Poorly written and fluffy article.

Maybe I misread something, but none of the rules state you must love your work.

The last two ones, "be calm" and "smile" strike me more along the lines of the mantra "choose your attitude" from the book FISH!.

> Start small to build regular routines.
>
> Wake up at 6 am before trying 5 am ⏰
> Exercise 2 days/week prior to 5 days/week 💪
> Read 15 min/day preceding 60 min/day 📚
> Meditate for 5 min before tackling 20 min 😌
> * Pack a healthy meal 3x/week ahead of daily 🍎

via Todoist on Twitter

A good book on this subject is The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.

Another is Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, although it's longer and more technical.

Both books exist in audiobook form as well.

There’s a pretty good book about this exact problem: https://www.amazon.com/Unfu-Yourself-Your-Head-into/dp/0062803832/ref=nodl_

You're over organizing. Have you thought about trying to simplify your systems? Cal Newport (he writes about simple ways to succeed in college) has a bare bones system that's easy to maintain and can survive periods of neglect. He describes it further in a book you should check out from the library: How to be a Straight A Student.

Just use a calendar to roughly plan out your week (it will change, so be flexible!) and a piece of paper to schedule out your day. Write down tasks and notes as they come up during your day, and then roughly schedule them in your calendar every morning.

Can you clarify the first part? I tried Amazon and Google and only thing I could find were a bunch of MLA articles and this.

You can start with most any of his intro books:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/038548349X/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1521410314&sr=1-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=D.+T.+Suzuki&dpPl=1&dpID=51Sq0VaL6cL&ref=plSrch

"Kaizen" by Masaaki Imai

"The Toyota Way" by Jeff Liker

exercise, meditation, self-talk, visualizing are all garbage answers when trying to address something happening AT THE MOMENT.

read this book

> What's wrong with these tools? Are they outdated?

Yes. I think the traditional time-management is largely wrong. First of all, it is based on assertions that have no scientific basis (Richard Wiseman debunked many of the time-management dogmas in his book 59 Seconds). Most time-management gurus are not psychologists or neuroscientists, they are simply good marketers. I consider people like Tony Robbins charlatans.

GTD suffers from the same problem. There is a good summary-review of GTD, where its author easily proves, that 95% of the book is filler - you could place the whole system on 10 pages and wouldn't lose any value. But even the system itself isn't good enough, otherwise Leo Babauta wouldn't have to create his own Zen to Done. Babauta lists 5 problems with GTD:

1. GTD is a series of habit changes - it forces you to change your life altogether
   
2. GTD doesn’t focus enough on doing - it says nothing about how to actually perform the tasks
   
3. GTD is too unstructured for many people - it doesn't provide systems for planning
   
4. GTD tries to do too much, which ends up stressing you out - it doesn't discriminate among what you actually need to do
   
5. GTD doesn’t focus enough on your goals - it is very low-level and bottom-up
   
   Practices like "to-do" lists or prioritizing by importance are also no use for a person seeking productivity boost. What is a "to-do" list after all? An open list, where you indiscriminately add everything that you need to do, and that stresses you out, as you never do everything on the list. That's why Mark Forster in his book "Do It Tomorrow" proposes to use closed lists (see Overwhelmed by Your To-Do List? Go With a ‘Will-Do’ List Instead). And prioritizing by importance is also an unneeded complexity, as there are some things that you should do, and some things that you shouldn't (see Methods I don't recommend).
   
   Most productivity apps are bullshit. Even the most busy person needs only 3 things: calendar, a list of tasks, and a pomodoro timer. I think time-management should simplify our life, instead it adds complexity. And all it stems from the fact there is no rigorous approach in time-management, instead there are only dogmas, unjustified enthusiasm and self-promotion.