A counter-intuitive approach towards productivity.
MYTH-BUSTING #1
The entire premise of productivity revolves around doing more in less time. Sure, almost a year ago I said the exact same thing. Output divided by time input is productivity. But I've come to realize that it's not always the case. We live in the age of the high-information diet, where our brains are constantly bombarded with little bytes of information, ranging from short-form video content to all the assignments school throws at you. There's just so much to keep in mind, that it becomes a messy bundle in your head. Some days we feel like we've been working, but when the sun sets, we feel tired, drained, empty, and unsatisfied. It feels like trying to chase a rainbow. You NEVER seem to get the workload off your shoulders. Let me show you what real power looks like.
BUSY IS THE BODY
The simple truth is this. We're so busy being busy. We want to feel like we're "working" hard, but really all we are doing is stuffing our brains with unimportant, low-value tasks. This used to be my crutch, if I'm being honest. When I felt a little lazy or got the"I'll do the thing later,"feeling, but still wanted the satisfaction of feeling productive, I'd start working on unimportant, extra tasks. I was addicted to just making my to-do list, so I started doing it almost thrice a day at one point. Here's the thing: You need to find out which tasks are truly high leverage. You need to stop filling up your to-do list with all the unnecessary baggage. It might truly seem like you're "working", but all you're doing is productive procrastination.
PRODUCTIVE PROCRASTINATION
You might then ask, "Hey, isn't it good if I productively procrastinate? Better than nothing right?". I thought so too. Until it became a habit. Then an addiction. When I started getting some free time slots in class, I would focus on trivial tasks like surfing the web for my coursework projects. During those free slots, I should have started on my assignments that were due soon, but I instead chose a lazier form of work. The problem with productive procrastination is that since it's easier to do, and we feel kind of satisfied we did "work", any free time we had, which could be used for some solid deep work, instead becomes a filler for unmeaningful, low-value tasks. So now whenever I had time, I opted to do what was easier but had lower importance and urgency to it comparatively to maybe, doing a past year's paper.
A Week Has 4 Hours
And I found the solution to this devilishly deceptive issue. I discovered it in this wonderful book called," The 4-Hour Workweek," by Tim Ferris. It's very simple. If you had 4 hours a week to work on your profession, what will you have to do? 4 hours a week seems absurdly short, retarded in fact. But it doesn't ask you to work only 4 hours a week. The point of this question revolves around the 2 pillars of productivity: The 80/20 rule and Parkinson's Law.
Terminology: 1. 80/20 Rule: 80% of our outcomes are determined by 20% of our actions. So make sure that 20% of your actions are the most vital tasks that will noticeably move you towards your goal. Eliminate the other 80% of efforts, because most of the time it isn't worth the 20% gains.
2. Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time allocated to it. If you give yourself less time (but not unrealistic) to finish a task, you'll be more focused and intense with it.
In short, the question helps you identify what is the most high-profit task that can you can do to achieve your goal. It cuts out all the unnecessary baggage that bogs you down but isn't going to give you many benefits either way upon completion. For students, in my humble opinion, that would be," Do past year papers and assignments. Mark. Learn from the mistakes. Redo questions you made mistakes on. Repeat,".
BYE-BYE
That's it. This is the single most, high-leverage approach to productivity I can give you. I can go on about "OH HEY HERE'S 7 TIPS TO PRODUCTIVITY" and all that, but when was the last time you actually applied it? This is honestly all you need to know if you're going to be productive. Identify what truly matters, and give yourself specific timeframes to complete it. Less is more. See you soon. Yours sincerely, A fellow student.