Why productivity advice is ruining your life

We’ve forgotten the art of transformation.

Last week I had a conversation with a friend who is still hard set on the traditional career path.

He is gunning for a promotion.

He wants more responsibility. More money. More status. More stress.

His story and reasoning resonated because that was me just five years ago.

I was stuck in productivity hell.

Have you ever noticed how people work themselves into the ground and use that as a badge of honour?

Their identity, their ego, their very reason for being is tied up in the idea that “working hard” makes them a good citizen.

This is not just the state of modern productivity it is the state of work in general.

I am talking about this from Germany, a country that is well known for its work life balance and social systems. Yet even here we have misunderstood productivity.

American Hustle culture screams “I can sleep when I’m dead!”

European productivity is grounded in the puritan work ethic.

It’s not just about achieving something - its a question of morality.

Both miss the point

In a world that craves short cuts and instant gratification we’ve forgotten the art of transformation.

To cross the chasm of where you are now to reach your dreams on the otherside you need focus, intensity and clarity.

We have forgotten the compounding effect of lived experience and intentional focus.

With this letter, I want to provide you with 2 frameworks I’ve personalised that will radically transform your productivity.

The thing to understand here is that there are different kinds of work.

Mainstream productivity was not developed with creative work in mind.

Creatives, artists and entrepreneurs, attribute their success not to how much they work, but to how much they rest.

“If you don’t take time to rest, your body will force you to take time to recover. Recovery is not optional.” Tim Ferriss

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang in his book Rest, describes how the ancient Greeks saw rest as the pinnacle of civilised life.

The Roman Stoics argued that you cannot have a good life without good work.

Ancient societies saw work and rest as necessary for a good life. One provided the means to live, the other gave meaning to life.

The problem with the modern interpretation of rest is that we equate it with destructive behaviours:

Binge drinking with the boys. One netflix series after another. Lying on the couch. Doing nothing.

In ancient Greece leisure σχολή (scholē) did not mean being idle but was dedicated to intellectual pursuits and self improvement.

In fact the greek word for leisure - scholē is the root of the English word "school."

Parents understand this for their kids as they ferry them from music practice, to swimming lessons, to extra math and play dates.

Somehow once we grow up we think we are too old, or too good, to engage in learning and intellectual pursuits.

This is the fatal mistake which most adults make once they get their first job. They stop learning and instead start trying to look for productivity hacks to squeeze out one more fatigued ounce of energy after 10 hours at a job they hate.

We all understand this with exercise.

We plan workout sessions, nutritious meals and recovery time.

Productivity is no different.

As with productive work, we must schedule time for intentional rest.

Before you start with this it is important to hold in your mind the concept of progressive overload.

We have to start small and build up over time as our strength grows.

If you feel yourself getting anxious, frustrated or worried– stop. Take a short break and come back with a cleared mind. It’s ok to feel overwhelmed at first. That’s normal.

So, now that we understand what rest is and how integral it is to our productivity, I want to introduce to you, the Consume-Create-Connect framework.

Consume

Consumption is necessary for creativity.

You cannot produce if you do not consume.

But just like creativity and productivity consumption must be done with intent.

When you go from mindless to intentional consumption it takes you from passive to active learning.

This is where the passive observer might think you are “resting”. But you are, in fact learning.

The quality of your information diet determines the quality of your creative process and what you end up producing as a result of it.

Books are the highest quality form of information. A book takes an inhuman amount of effort and energy to produce. If it was written prior to the early 2010’s then it had to go through multiple rounds of edits before it was authorised for publication.

This is all individual. Find what works best for you. The important thing is to consume intentionally. If you are consuming from your phone then the chances are someone else is deciding what you read, watch or listen to.

Create

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”Maya Angelou

The way I interpret this quote from Maya is that creativity is a skill that improves and comes more easily the more you practice it.

The key here is to practice the art of creation. Remember what I said at the beginning about progressive overload.

This starts small. I would suggest the first small act is to start taking notes. If you don’t know what to take notes on then just use yourself.

Study your thought patterns. Become aware of your emotions and take notes. Note when you are tired, sad, happy, frustrated.

Overtime you will start to understand your own behavioural patterns. This will guide you to find your optimal state, environment and conditions to be at your most productive.

For me, my creative time is in the mornings, I consume in the afternoons and connect in the evenings. But everyone is different- find what works for you.

Do not make the mistake of focusing on output. That is the modern productivity trap. The paradox of productivity is that it cannot be forced. We are optimising for creativity. Machines are optimised for productivity.

This is an exploratory state. Be curious. Ask yourself why you feel the way you do? Why did things flow naturally yesterday and not today? What has changed?

Ultimately by doing this you will determine when you get the most returns from your creative energy. What kind of environment is best for you. How long your attention span is and how to gradually increase that over time.

Connect

This is the part that is most overlook but is critical for three reasons.

1. Connect the dots in your mind.

The more intentional your consumption and the more you practice your creativity the greater your capacity to connect disparate pieces of information. To be able to pull stories together, find common threads and begin to create something that feels unique.

2. Emotional connection

Most people are stuck in their heads. They see writing and growing an audience as a science - if I input x I get output x. Writing is both a science and an art. We have to understand linguistic structure, rules of grammar and modern expectations to write something easy to consume.

The art comes from emotionally connecting with yourself and translating that for your audience to pick up on.

3. Connecting with other writers

If your goal is to make an impact and have influence good writing won’t get you there. You have to connect with others to get your work seen.

Novelty — Efficiency — Synchronicity

The reason consume-create-connect works so well is because of the Bliss Principle. Creation is meant to be joyful. The more you engage in fulfilling activities, the more effortless creativity becomes.

Following your curiosity triggers joy which makes learning and exploration feel limitless. This creates an upward spiral of consciousness where you feel pulled to create.

There’s no need for discipline or force. This is a natural impulse which increases the more you engage with it.

When you share your work and receive feedback on it this creates the positive feedback loop which urges you on even further to deepen your knowledge and hone your craft.

Novelty

Humans crave novelty. We crave new things. New experiences. New connections. Dopamine is the driving force here, aka the dopamine loop (the neuroscience of motivations).

Your curiosity sparks a search. Learning something new triggers dopamine. Sharing reinforces learning. Positive feedback fuels more curiosity.

The thing to note here is that you need some kind of guiding mission or vision. if you don’t have structural guard rails dopamine can throw you off into a negative spiral.

For example If you don’t get the positive feedback you crave it’s tempting to try and change course in order to get more of it. This is why children act out when their parents neglect them. It’s why certain creators end up making the same thing over and over again because it gets them views even though you can see that they are over it. Take the time to articulate your vision and deeply understand why you are doing what you do.

Efficiency

Creativity works best under constraints. Time constraints add a sense of urgency. A certain level of pressure is necessary to create good work.

Structure. Systems. Simplicity. This is what I optimise for. It’s also why I say that your job is your best asset. It means we have to be efficient by design in order to create something meaningful with the limited time that we have.

Efficeny comes from experimentation and implementation. You first have to be inefficient before you can start to make improvements and find what works for you.

Synchronicity

This is where creativity starts to take on a spiritual aspect. The Law of Synchronicity refers to the idea that events are meaningfully connected in ways that go beyond mere coincidence.

It was introduced by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung to describe instances where two or more events occur at the same time in a way that is deeply significant, but without any obvious causal connection.

This comes back to the point I made about connection before. When you consume intentionally and turn that into creation the quality of your thinking improves dramatically.

Your brain starts to make connections where no obvious connection exists. The more meaningul connections you make in ideas, relationships and values the greater your capacity is to experience and increase sychronicities in your own life.

In essence, synchronicity suggests that events or experiences are interconnected through a hidden order, or a "cosmic pattern." This can asisst us in delivering our message, provide us with guidance, and reassure us that we are on the right track.

This is something that can only be experienced. It can’t be learned in the classroom. You have to work towards a meaningul vision and apply a lot of effort before sychronicities start to make themselves apparent.

This is the reward for hard work and intense focus. A deeply meaningful connection to a higher plain of existence.

These two frameworks when implemented are enough to transform your productivity.

This is how you can get 10 times more done by working just 2Hours a day. When you are aligned in every way force, discipline and grit are a hindrance not a badge of honour to be taken out at every opportunity.

The energy of force prevents you from getting into flow, from becoming synchronous and making new connections.

Pursue your curiosity. develop creativity and productivity will occur natually.

Thanks for reading.

If this resonated with you please share it with someone else who might benefit from it.

If you want to go deeper and learn how I apply these frameworks in my writing click HERE