The Productivity Experiments
By: Yadvendra Jadon
Tags: Digital Nomads, Digital Transformation, Productivity

Digital Productivity

The Productivity Experiments

Photo by Bram Naus on Unsplash

Ah! that lovely idea of Digital Productivity — it will one way or the other make you adapt to the exploding digital world.

Everyone who has been using the digital form of reading and writing as much as I do, (which going by the contemporary standards is pretty much) would have at some point of time or other been smitten by the idea of productivity. One way or the other, productivity is a pretty inviting idea. If one emerges as someone who has benefited, it is good, else, well, there are folks who can be cynical.

So, when it comes to digital world, either one is sucked in the trap or one becomes a master of productivity, at least in the individual domain. There is possibly no other outcome, if one seriously attempts to improve productivity in these times of “too much screen-time”. My time to start seeking to improve my digital life began long time back. Day One was not born and masters like Steve Dotto were not accessible to me to make me learn how to use Getting Things Done® popularly known as GTD® when using the new tools of the digital world. The bells and whistles of the digital world were alluring and seemed to offer possibilities to make us supermen when it came to handling our data. The digital mode was an obvious option for an engineer steeped into Information Technology. That was the last decade of the last century. Many may recall those days of Y2K Bug.

Fast forward that by about a decade and the world all around us started exploding with digital data. The humans have been creating data like never before. To give an idea of how much data we create, The World Economic Forum put out an article in April 2019. It may seem mind-boggling to those who are still in the blissful era of pen and paper or who need not be concerned with what really are the Digital Nomads up to. Do read that report nevertheless, for one day sooner than you realise you will not be very different from an average digital nomad of today. Somewhere around that time, I had also started to leave a bigger digital footprint. The process wasn’t subtle but it was sudden and expotential, especially after I bought a smartphone driven by almost always available mobile connectivity. Things seemed to have become better than one could ever imagine in th 1990s. There were new apps like Endomondo to track my bike rides and Evernote to organise my documents. Even if we leave out the personal data that I created just by using the various apps, I was to amass colossal amount of data by the existing standards in the decade when digital explosion was taking place — just about a decade and a half back. My computer was flooded with bills, invoices, investment proposals, professional reports, presentations, white papers and almost everything that was thrown at me in a digital format. Soon the pleasures of organising your data became a challenge and one was forced to explore options to get a better methods for handling personal data. It was scary to be swamped in that manner. The need to be better organised was pertinent and had become a pressing one.

Thus, started my journey of Digital Productivity. I started reading productivity books. Learning methods like The Secret Weapon, using applications like OneNote and Evernote and trying to find the best tactics that suited my requirements. There was a great learning in my endeavours to understand and master different methodologies. I also discovered the new tools of productivity like Todoist, OmniFocus, Any.Do, Wunderlist to name just a few prominent ones. I did end up mastering the use of calendar apps by Google and Apple. I was also exposed to numerous Email and cloud services. To cut the story short I was being bombarded by not only the digital data but also the various options that had become abundantly available by then. The numerous variations apart, the existing options were themselves evolving, every now and then new versions were released and the learning curve was at such an incline that even after mastering a methodology, one would feel that something was missing. Some great tools like Sunrise Calendar got sold out to bigger giants like Microsoft who themselves were offering OneNote as a productivity platform. Then there were forums like Forte Labs, The Sweet Setup and The Asian Efficiency to help you become better with organising your digital data. These forums still exist and excite me. There are Youtube channels like Keep Poductive by Francesco D’Allesio and other masters of digital productivity like Carl Pullein and Ali Abdaal. It is after learning from all these as much as using different platforms/apps and methodologies that added experience to my journey as a Digital Nomad so far.

There was also an aspect of different devices. From the Symbian based devices like Nokia E71 and the BlackBerry OS based BlackBerry phones to the early versions of Android on HTC, the learning curve on the productivity bandwagon always remained interesting. Then came better cross-platfrom availability linking phones to computers. This led to discussions/debates on which platform was better and how much better. In the initial years of cross-platform productivity systems, I had a hybird setup of Windows-based computers and Android phones. There was a lot to learn there. Over a period of time and as and when my finances permitted I began to acquire Apple devices. Today the ecosystem for me is totally Apple. Am I satisfied? Yes and no. Yes, because I know the environment deeply enough and no because the frequency of changes that lead to the next level of evolution is fast enough to to keep me jogging on the learning curve. One cannot really be called a master as was possible a couple of decades back, inspite of learning so much and investing so much time and often money in the endeavour to keep up. The debates and discussions still continue on the internet. I am a little wiser now and choose to stick to what my requirements are rather than falling to the bells and whistles of every new shiny app on the block. I will venture out only if my requirement changes, else the status quo is the best for me. That is wisdom for any Digital Nomad. One can after all do only that much.

The biggest question is have I adapted to the digital world? A part of me says yes and the other part just laughs off in an offending manner. Thankfully now I am pretty clear about what I need to know and what I need to pursue and learn to keep from getting swamped. But to say that I am a master of sorts would be as incorrect as saying that the Sun is in a different Solar system. The debate still rages hot — should I follow Chris Dacy or should I start to work on “How to Stop Being Constatntly Overwhelmed” by Thomas Frank. All this while I was thinking that the technology is changing and so must I endeavour to adapt to the ever-growing demand of the digital world, screaming for change. The following thought is what strikes as something that is closest to the truth.

“Clearly, the thing that’s transforming is not the technology — the technology is transforming you.” Jeanne W. Ross | MIT Sloan’s Center for Information Systems Research

As time passes I know one thing for sure that it is the basic principles of digital productivity that matter more than the devices or the apps. If you are the master of those principles and if you broadly understand numerous methodologies then digital productivity is a cake walk. Another thing is that it is important to know the guiding philosophy of digital productivity and that is whatever apps and platforms you may use your flavour of the way you deploy your system will be unique. Two people using the same set of apps and platforms are in all likelihood to have their own unique workflows. There is no correct or incorrect method of implementation as longs as the basic principles of digital productivity are applied. A well implemented set of workflows howsoever different will stilllead to an optimised digital productivity. Another great lesson in the journey of digital productivity is that after doing adequate research, choose your platforms and/or apps well. Therafter do not fall prey to the bells and whistles of new apps as and when they come out. There will always be a a better version of the app with better features. There will always be the most selling app, the app of the year and what not. These are are a swamp that will drive you away from your own sytem. You would be tempted to try out the new app. What should be borne in mind is this — is there something that is you are missing in in your existing apps/platforms or your workflows. If the answer is yes then it is worthwhile to explore otherwise it is a sheer wastage of time and effort. Once you find something better, try out all permutations and combinations for all possible contingencies before you proceed to implement the new one, discarding the old one. This is a cat and a mouse game of sorts. So it is prudent to be mindful and deliberate in applying change. The best thing to do is sit down with pen and paper, (yes, pen and paper) and design your own productivity system, make your own workflows and choose your platforms/apps after doing adequate research. Deploy the system and work on it to keep refining till you are satisfied. That should do the trick for being digital productive.

Yet, at the end of the day one would still have to evolve. The following lines are evergreen and especially relevant to the journey of every Digital Nomad: -

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change” Charles Darwin | English Naturalist and Geologist.

Have a productive New Year 2021.