How to Be Productive
By: Ricardo Guaderrama Caraveo
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Organizational Culture, Time Management, Producitivity

“It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. … The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.”

― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

There are so many things that I want to do, so many books that I want to read. I want to become a writer, an alpinist, a photographer, a dad, you know the drill.

Doing all that requires time and action, lots of action. And yet, I keep falling again and again into the same old behaviors day by day. Instagram, YouTube, just plain good ol’ time wastin’.

Do you ever feel the same?

Then you get sudden rushes of energy and productivity. You sit down to work for hours on end, and then realize, that it’s absolutely unsustainable. You open YouTube again. And so it goes.

Then you feel guilty because you read quotes such as the one above, telling you that you do have a lot of time, just that you ‘lose it easily’, that you’re a time-waster and that you should be ashamed of yourself.

And that’s just normal. The movies lie let me tell you, big time. Human life is slow. Things take time, a lot of it, and effort. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Knowing that things take time, and that life is more gradual than sudden, what’s the best way to go?

Enjoyment

First things first. You want to enjoy your life as most as possible. There is never going to be a time in which you’re gonna ‘get there’. This is it. There no ‘there’, just here and now.

You’ll reach different levels of happiness in your life, but peace can only be found in the present moment.

Sometimes you’re going to find yourself doing things that you don’t like. Like doing your taxes, or filling out forms in your job. Or maybe doing something physical and tiring.

Can you even enjoy these things? How?

Flow.

Whenever I find myself in these types of situations, I think to myself, that more than getting better at doing my taxes, I want to get better at getting into a flow state.

“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person’s skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Intrinsically rewarding. That is, you just enjoy doing the thing, just because.

Test your ability to do stuff in a focused, clear, and qualitative way. This will inevitably get you into a flow state.

If you want to learn more about this state I recommend this article.

OK, now that you know that having fun and enjoying your time on earth is a top priority. Let’s move on.

Attention

Your attention is, without a doubt, after time, your most valuable asset.

I used to struggle a lot thinking that I wasn’t as good at something, anything, playing guitar, playing chess, writing, you name it, and so I just didn’t do it.

This still happens from time to time.

And every time it happens, I have to remind myself again that it doesn’t matter how much you suck at anything, what matters is that you become good at training your attention. My ability to focus on a problem or an activity, such as writing or playing guitar, for an extended period of time without distracting myself with the damn phone or something.

Your attention is like a laser beam, you just have to direct it and sort of let it do its thing. Your mind will get to work as soon as you sit down to work, trust me.

So, sit yourself down, and focus.

Great, now that you know how to enjoy yourself while living and what your most powerful weapon is when it comes to productivity, let’s move on.

My recommendation regarding the magical power of attention? This guy: Cal Newport

The Pomodoro Technique

I used to laugh about this. Just get to work already, I used to tell myself. Get shit done, that’s it, that’s the answer.

Haha, nope, not at all.

Burnout is a painfully real thing.

No matter if you’re working at your dream job, no matter if you’re doing the thing you love, you’re going to burn out if you don’t have occasional rests here and there.

In my job, as a project manager, there are so many things to do, always, all the time. You think that you’re going to be done by noon, and the gods of undone tasks send you a thousand more tasks to do by the afternoon. It’s mentally draining. So much so that by the end of the day, I don’t want to do anything but watch Netflix.

You need to rest to let your brain recover and become able to use that superpower of attention.

What I do now? I set a timer for 50 minutes. And I do nothing but work, I laser focus and try to finish as much as possible. Then I rest, first for 10 minutes, then work other 50 minutes, then rest for 20 minutes, then other 50 minutes work stretch, then 30 minutes, then an hour.

It works wonders. Try it.

So! Now that you know that you’ve got to enjoy yourself while living, your most powerful asset (attention), and the Pomodoro technique so that you don’t burn out, let’s move on.

Another resource? Sure, here you go: Pomodoro Technique

Follow his or follow mine, it’s the same (mine’s better).

Your Goals and your Calendar

“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.” — Seneca

What do you want to do? What do you want to become?

It all starts with a tiny action.

Say, I want to start with documentary filming. So what I’m going to do, is that this weekend I’m going to go for a run and will document it.

What will make my Sunday run interesting? What are the small details that make it worthwhile watching?

I will shoot with my GoPro some video (I’d use my iPhone 6 if I didn’t have the GoPro).

I already downloaded Resolve, a free video editing software, and I’m going to do the shittiest video you’ve ever seen on Sunday. I’m going to upload it to YouTube.

Let’s see how it goes.

I also put the activity on my Google Calendar.

That’s how you begin. You define what you’d like to do, or what you have to do, like cutting your hair or applying for a job, then you write it on your calendar, and then use the things mentioned above (flow, attention, Pomodoro Technique) and get farther and farther.

Eventually, you’ll get there.

You’ll find that you’ll write a lot of shit on your Calendar, then don’t do it. That’s OK. The first step is planning and defining. Write it down, all of it.

If you don’t do it that day, move the activity to the next day. Do that until you do it.

So this is it.

First. Enjoy yourself, there’s no happiness at the end of the road. Happiness is the way. Get involved with life and happiness will happen on its own. Remember flow.

Second. Put attention to what you’re doing! You don’t start being great at anything, you become great with time and focus. Learn to see your attention like a laser beam that can penetrate through anything you focus it on.

Third. Pomodoro Technique. Learn to take rests and bursts of action. Act, rest, act, rest. Rest is just as important as action. Be silly with your friends, your partner, then put your game face on again, and get to work.

Fourth. Use the damn Calendar. Seriously, you’ll realize you need it for the simple fact that you cannot remember so much shit! You’ll learn to love it, trust me.

Thanks for reading,

Ricardo Guaderrama

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