Productivity

Traditional resolutions are notorious for being abandoned by February. Instead, Itzler's approach is to focus on adding one new habit per quarter. It’s a far more realistic way to create lasting change, because it allows you to really hone in on one thing at a time. Think about this, that’s 20 new habits in five years!

The conventional strategy for subtraction is to do it by default: Procrastinate on everything that isn’t a priority. Rebel against the escalating commitments on your time. Opt out and ignore.

This is hard for me. It’s actually easier for me to do more and work more, than to stop and listen to my energy levels and inspiration and create from that place. My brain has been trained quite well under the “putting more in, means you get MORE out of it, so, ERGO! you gotta do more” model.

In our design sprints, we found that if we ended each workday before people were exhausted, the week’s productivity increased dramatically. Even shortening the day by thirty minutes made a big difference.

The list of tasks one has in mind will be ordered by importance. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the list.

the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.

I quickly learned that it was easier for me to focus on work in the hours before lunch, so when I found myself struggling with a not-so-hard task late in the day, I’d give myself permission to quit and pick it up again in the morning. Almost every time, I’d breeze through and finish in a fraction of the time it would’ve taken me the previous night.

You never had control; all you had was anxiety. And when you let go of that, even a little bit, what you’re left with is one of the most powerful reasons imaginable for taking any action that feels as though it might make life more meaningful or vibrant, which is that frankly, at the end of the day, you might as well.