The Most Valuable Productivity Tip Has Nothing To Do With Habits

Different approach to productivity in 3 steps.

How would you define productivity? The effectiveness of effort? The measure of how efficiently you use your time, energy, and resources to achieve the desired outcome? Yeah, that’s what it is. But (what may seem counterintuitive considering all the stuff that reappears when the topic is touched), there are no strict rules on how to boost it. Some ways are more specific and narrow, some universal. We focus on the latter today. In fact, you can’t get more universal than that.

This post is a follow-up to:

1. Mindset shift

During the most productive period of my life (which lasted about 1,5 week), I haven't been using any system, tracker, or whatever fancy tool you can imagine. I was running on willpower alone, something in my brain just shifted and I was doing only the things that I deeply know are good for my future. I was so eager to do productive stuff as I was eager to play Counter-Strike a few years ago.

I had no interest in watching any TV series or playing video games—none at all. It just felt bad to do that, but not in a ‘‘do it anyway and feel guilty later’’ way. I genuinely had 0 will to do those things, to do anything that doesn’t serve my goal. The energy levels too, insane!

Although to this day I have not been able to recreate this state, I have understood one simple and important thing: Doing hard things gets easier when you deeply realize it’s for the future you.

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” — Cesare Pavese

You won't remember the day your child was born from sunrise to midnight, you will remember it as the day your child was born. The same way, you won’t remember the dinner you ate and the work you did the day your dog died, you will remember it as the day your dog died. Highlights of them are what make memories. Throughout your whole life span, there are few days that you can categorize as 100% good or 100% bad.

Sometimes you remember a random unimportant detail from a given day (not necessarily remembering what day it was), like eating a salad or train ride home. Something with no significance that for some (or none) reason pays a visit to your memory from time to time.

The bottom line is: you can make time to follow your goals while still being able to make memorable moments.

This realization is the base for shifting your mind into being able to sacrifice invest quality and interrupted time to build the future you want instead of pursuing various forms of escapism, entertainment, relationships, and adventure all the time.

2. Plan

Let’s make a plan keeping in mind that highlights will be the only thing future you remembers, and you can stuff the boring stuff into the mundane background.

The plan should cut out stuff that doesn’t matter and make a skeleton. As it’s the very start of 2025, we will set a yearly goal. Amount of money, body weight, something measurable. You can use the formula “By the end of … I will … which I will achieve by doing …” Let’s say: “By the end of 31 December 2025 I will have $1000000 in my bank account which I will earn writing online.” For now the goal is still general, so it’s time to add more blocks. You can try to set monthly goals, but usually the situation changes too much by the 6th, not to mention the 12th month.

Let’s set a goal for January though. A chunk of the whole—one project that will propel you in the desired direction.

Now, for each week of the month, a smaller building block for the monthly one.

Now, the single brick—the most important task for each day. You don’t need to plan it out in one sitting, just do the first week now.

Whatever you plan, do it mindfully.

3. Execution

Time to put muscles on our skeleton. How are muscles built? By repetitive process and regeneration. If you want to build muscles, you can’t skip gym sessions or speed up the process. It’s about dedication and patience, but the results are guaranteed if you do everything right. Can’t say the same here, that’s why the plan is so important. Hard work by itself will not pay off, hard work on the right things will. If the plan is good though, it will lead you somewhere, opportunities will open. And here is where habits, systems and all that other stuff comes in handy. Planning is cool, but following it is not the fun part. Few things I want you to read to help yourself with that:

Hang Your Attention, But What’s The Hook? (1/2)

A Way to Deep Work: Full Focus Kit (2/2)

Less relevant:

23 Micro Habits and Tools to Boost Your Productivity

5 Habits That Ruin Your Productivity