[World Domination] Productivity and Priorities

People sometimes ask me to boil my productivity tips down to one single piece of advice. It’s really hard to do, because to me being productive is so multi-faceted. It’s a series of processes with many steps, it’s a mindset, it’s a lifestyle choice. Trying to condense it into one sentence is akin to describing the workings of the internal combustion engine in terms the cat might understand.

When I ask some probing questions, what people are actually looking for when they ask for the short answer is a starting point. They want to know what they can do, right now, to increase their productivity and get more done. That’s an answer I can provide in one easy phrase:

Know what your priorities are.

We know the things people say about meeting goals and realizing their dreams, because we all say them. “Oh, I’d love to exercise more, but it doesn’t fit into my schedule” and “I’d love to read more, but I don’t have time” and “I’d love to eat healthier but I don’t know how to cook”. In every single instance, what they — we — are really saying is “I’d love to do that, but I haven’t made it a priority”.

If you actually want to do something, you will make the time and scrape together the money. Those familiar with No Plot? No Problem!, the NaNoWriMo handbook, know of Chris Baty’s method of auditing your days to locate time to write. The same methods can be applied to finding time for anything. Write down what you’re actually doing and how long you spend doing it. Assess where you can make cuts. It’s the same as budgeting your money.

The caveat I would tack onto that is to be truly honest about your priorities, and factor that into things. If you look at the amount of time you play video games and say “oh, I don’t need to do that for two hours a day”, and try to cut video games out entirely, you’re going to be hurting soon. You may not need to play video games, but you want to play video games. It’s like going on a diet; everything in moderation. Don’t quit cold turkey, but maybe limit yourself to only playing an hour a day, or two hours every-other day, to make room for other things. You don’t cook because you enjoy dining out; still dine out, but do it less. You like certain TV shows, so schedule those in and don’t mindlessly channel surf as often. Build in slack time, so you can goof off and do mindless things; it’s important to not burn yourself out.

Sometimes, outside forces will help you to shape your priorities. The recent Netflix fiasco is an example. When the pricing changed, Katie and I looked it over and decided that the price point was more important than the number of DVDs we could have out at a time, so we switched to a smaller plan and opted to turn to streaming choices when we were between discs to watch.

When they announced that the DVD and streaming businesses were going to require two accounts, and two websites, I started feeling that it was getting inconvenient and complicated, even if only minutely so, and it made me start evaluating not only how much time we spend watching media via Netflix, but reassessing how important watching TV shows and movies is in the grand scheme of our lives. Could we watch less, and get content from other sources like Hulu and other free-content providers? If I watched one less movie a week, that could be two more hours spent reading books I haven’t gotten to, working on projects I haven’t yet made time for, doing more volunteer work. The money I spend on Netflix every month could finance some other things I need, like clothing, more books, kitchen gadgets, or going out to dinner and a movie with Katie once a month. Is what’s important to me the amount of media I consume, of the time I spend consuming it with Katie?

I can’t tell you what your priorities are, or what they should be, but you need to take a hard but realistic look at what they are and plan accordingly. Once you do, you’ll either begin to gt more done, or be happier with what you currently accomplish. You need to continually evaluate your priorities, however, to make sure that what you thought was important really is, to accommodate new goals and obligations, and to maintain a focus on the things that are right for you.