Productivity

The Hemingway hack could maximizes productivity, and the clue is to stop while you’re ahead. This is a psychological tick to lower the barrier to return to work, because if you now know where to start. This momentum hack will put you in flow state fast. When you are going good, stop writing. This can be transferable to many other domains, but obviously not for everything. For instance, a surgeon shouldn't abort in the middle of a medical procedure.

The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it. ― Ernest Hemingway

How to become more productive? There are hundreds and thousands and whatever books on productivity. You could read them all. Actually, you could not. There are too many, even if you're a very fast reader. And even if you could, new ones will be published every day. You might find some of those books helpful, but that's only because you're too low on knowledge, or wisdom, or both. And then there's talks, like, lectures, and obviously blog posts and whatnot. Opinions on productivity is everywhere, but the basics are very simple. There is no reason for you to read a productivity book, unless you're a lost case. As always there are exceptions. Highly specific productivity hacks could be thought, and if you find the right mentor or coach or person, there might be tangible benefits to it. But general productivity tips are in general useless, stupid, boring and useless and stupid, repetitive and repetitive.

Simplicity is a key part of productivity. There's an app for everything, but mostly you don't even need an app for that thing. If you're stuck to a screen every day all the day, write down the tasks of the day on your computer in a simple text file. If you're not a screen guy or girl, bring pen and pencil. If you must, the most simple note-taking app will do. Do not use productivity apps. Use reminders and calendars if it helps, but if you have to rely on these tech tools, there might be too much in your calendar. If you're calendar is less than blank, you might be too busy in life. No reason to fill up blank spots with things. Just enjoy having free time. And if you don't have free time, that might be because you're not a free person, and that might suck. So you might want to work on that.

Do one thing per day. One thing per week. One thing per year. One thing per decade. Keep it simple, and stay focused. Doing just one thing, and if it's the thing you value the most, it's a thing you will get done. But if that one thing is related to business, and you're neglecting health, family, friends, fun, and important things which you value, then what are you productive for? You might earn a million, ten, or hundreds of millions within a year or twenty, but who cares. By the time you're done, not even you will care. Because you lost all the important things, and time is the one thing you can't get more of, right? Wrong. How? Life extension and longevity. If you have 10 years left to live, you could increase your lifespan by another 20 years. But then you wouldn't have only 10 years left, you would have 30 years left, right? Right. The thing is, you never know when you're done, like done done. And when you're done, that's when you're done. And then there is no more life hacks for you my friend. So all the time you've got is the time you've got, and for some reason you found this text and keep on reading this because, maybe, just maybe, you might be able to derive some extremely valuable wisdom from this page or anywhere else on this site, and for once, your assumption is actually spot on. There is. There is something to be gained from this. Perhaps. So, to be clear, pick one thing in each moment, in each slice of time, and do it, do it well. But pick the right thing. You can do that. You can do that if you have no obligations, no life, no sense of responsibility or self-worth. Then you might want to do just that, just that one thing. But life isn't that simple. One thing, and one thing only. Do one thing today. One thing that will make the day. Then complete the task. You could do the same thing on a weekly, yearly basis.

Balance focus and perspective. Staying focused, that's what it is, that's the one thing idea. Focus is important, zoom in on the details, stay with the task, don't get distracted, and this is how you lose perspective. This is why you need to get the perspective first, then stay focused and productive. And once in a while you will have to recalibrate your perspective. Perspectives change, there are dynamic properties to perspectives, just as everything is dynamical, and that's that. Don't lose focus, don't stay focused. You can't do both at the same time, you can't, but you must, so what can you do, well, you can alternate, and then do both within a broader time frame, which will ensure your ability to balance your focus and perspective. Time is amazing and helpful, you can't both be alive and dead, but people do tend to die, after they've lived, and so they've done both, and time is the secret sauce that will make the impossible synchronous asynchronously possible, if you know, and hopefully you do, if you don't you must be kind of limited, but the good news about that is that limits, like everything else, are dynamic, although there are absolute limits, and if you can't do it you can't do it. Most people will probably not understand what this is all about, and that's fine. If you understand some of this, good, if not, forget about it. The most important thing for you now, is to keep reading this piece on productivity, just don't skim it, as the message is purposely obscured and you need to stay focused and extract the wisdom poured into this text, then your brain will digest the information slowly, and you will somehow get it when you get it and this text will probably not make much sense until it does. Actually, you might want to revisit this text more than twice, and it'll be beyond spaced repetition, as the text will completely change its meaning to you between each revisit, if you just live your life and gain some wisdom yourself in between. Now focus.

Execution is key. Do the task, and do it well. Productivity is all about doing the thing well. Efficiently.

Don't do it. Everyone wants to be productive, right? Wrong. You might do that thing fast, you might do it the right way, you might be the best at that thing, it might make you a lot of money, it might make you happy, but it might not be the thing that will serve you well in the long term. You might actually not want to do it. And you could spend all day all year all life trying to be productive and achieve things, just to learn that productivity itself might be overrated. Getting the most out of life isn't just about being more productive. Look where that have taken us. Society is more productive than ever. We're productive at good things, but also we're productive at doing harmful things. Productivity itself isn't great or good, it's just a measure of achievement in contrast to effort over time. You might thing you've been productive, then later you've gained some wisdom, and it's not that obvious. Pat yourself on the back, you've been a good boy, a good girl, all the things in your life you did so well, you did great, but maybe not. You're not that great or smart that you think you are. You're also not that horrible and stupid as you think you are. What you are is wrong, completely wrong. At least that might be the future assessment of current self. You've done some good things, but they weren't really that great. You've also done some other things, which you might not even consider achievements today, that actually did serve a purpose to your life. And you've done some bad things, that really wasn't that horrible, and unbeknownst to you, you've also probably committed some horrendous acts, which might induce burdensome guilt later in life, but don't worry about those things right now, as you're too busy making all the mistakes you haven't made yet. Wisdom grows slowly. You might regret the things you didn't do, you might regret the things you did do. You might even learn how to live without regret, or you might have the psychopathic ability to live without remorse.

The conclusion to everything. Either way, you live life your way, stay productive, and feel productive, and then later contemplate on the discrepancy between feelings and reality. You're smart and get this, or you're not. You're you, and there's nothing we can do about that. You came here for advice on productivity, and you got this piece. The most important productivity question is not how to become more productive. More, more, more. And then what? More! It's like, that's all you've got? More! More quantity. More quality. Then there's the less is more. Less and less. Then what? Less! And you minimalize. Take everything to the extreme. One way or the other. Then you finally get it: Balance. Finding the balance. And you begin to optimize your balance, engage in some fine-tuning. Perfecting the skill of balancing. Staying focused. Losing perspective. Then you wake up. Most of your days are lived, you revisit your past, forgetting that there are still more days ahead. You're not dead until you are. It's not over until it's over. And suddenly, before you even realize it, it's all over. So, go ahead. Be productive, if that is what you think you must do. Pick your destination, and go there. At least you will get there faster. And when you're finally there, and you come to the realization that this destination isn't all that great, you've at least achieved one thing, which is the realization itself. Then you'll move on to the next destination, and perhaps, you'll eventually learn something beyond moving from one destination to the next. Life isn't just about moving from here to there, and from there to anothere. What's wrong with just staying here? Try that, like, right now. You're here, so stay here. Don't go there. What's over there anyways? Here is fine now, because here is where you will ever be, and if you move there, that will be the new here. Here is just fine. Even if that means you're trapped inside a burning building. Everything is fine. All you can do is all you can do. If you're trapped, like completely helpless, just enjoy the heat and the fire, embrace the experience as it's the last you'll ever have. And it's over, unless some miracle or unlikely event will save you. Or it might not be over. It's not over until it's over, and the thing about that is that when it's really really over, you won't even realize. Thinking it's over isn't the same thing as actually being over. Thinking does not make it to actuality. If it's over, then it's over. But if you're reading this, it's not over, and you're not trapped inside a burning building, take a moment to appreciate this fact, you're not trapped inside a burning building. Now, by the moment someone is trapped inside a burning building, they're unaware of the fact that they are trapped inside the building. Some readers might actually be trapped inside a burning building, yet not realize it. For those readers, one of their final acts in life was to read some random productivity text. For those poor souls, if enjoyment is what they were seeking out of life, and if the article was an amusing read, then perhaps, the read was worth it. And if some readers now begin to think about, wait, what if I'm trapped inside a burning building, there is fire and smoke I'm just not aware of the danger yet, now, you must check, what if there is some danger lurking beneath you, some ugly death trap, there could be something there, and if you don't investigate now, later might be too late. The thing is, the most productive thing you could do right now is what? If you're about to enter a death trap, the most productive thing is any preventive action, don't obsess over those little things in your life that really does not matter. What really matters, does matter. What doesn't matter, does not matter. And you've got to get those things right, but you won't always get those things right. This could go on forever, but mostly, these things ends with a sweet conclusion, but nothing is ever conclusive. Everything in life is uncertain. Congratulations, you've survived to the end of this text on productivity. Do you feel more productive? Does it matter?

Productivity might just be a scam. You're trying to do things faster, because you don't want to do the things, but why don't you want to do the thing? If you wanted to do it faster or better, you would have done it faster or better. The thing with productivity and reading a lot about productivity, is it might not be the thing you want to be doing, so you want to do it faster, get it over with, but then, why do it at all? Productivity might just be a scam, and you are both the scammer and the victim.