10 lies you’ve been told about productivity & 10 pro tips to do instead

Do you still view productivity as maximizing every minute of your day?

Believe that one less hour of sleep means one more hour of work?

How effective do you find multitasking?

In this issue, we're busting the 10 most common productivity misconceptions.

Avoid these pitfalls on your journey to achieving your goals.

Instead, embrace my 10 industry-vetted strategies for true productivity and high performance.

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Before we begin: Here’s what you might have missed last week

• In issue #22 of The Productivist, I shared 4 strategies to gain a high performance edge in 2024.

• You learnt the importance of bringing your best energy consistently.

• You discovered that escaping difficult emotions is the wrong goal because you need to learn to deal with difficult emotions better, and much more!

Click here to access the full issue.

Big lie #1: Productivity is all about doing more.

FACT → The most successful people accomplish more by focusing on less.

PRO TIP → Ruthless prioritization.

Spend 60% of your time on the needle-moving activities.

Big lie #2: Saying YES to every opportunity is how you accomplish more in life.

FACT → Saying ‘yes’ is a good advice only at the start of your career when you want to increase your luck surface area and have way less responsibilities and commitments outside of work.

But for the rest of your career be clear and focused on your goals.

PRO TIP → Make 'no' your default.

It will help you accomplish much more, compared to spreading yourself too thin.

Big lie #3: Multitasking will help you get more done.

FACT → Multitasking is killing your focus.

You are training your brain to be distracted and scattered.

PRO TIP → Focus on one thing at a time.

Even when you are not working...

• Do not listen to podcasts while working out.

• Do not check social media while eating.

• Do not watch Netflix while cooking.

Big lie #4: To-do lists help you get important things done.

FACT → Daily to-do lists make you feel slow, overwhelmed, and like a failure.

After writing a to-do list, what’s the objective?

To cross out as many items as possible! ✅

That’s why, you end up finishing the easiest and the least important tasks first.

By the time you only have important and challenging ones left, you are out of willpower to even approach them.

As a result, your needle-moving tasks travel from one day’s to-do list to the next, and to the next, and to the next…

How does that make you feel?

PRO TIP → Try time-boxing.

Rather than using to-do lists that mix tasks of varying priorities, utilize your calendar to ensure important tasks get done.

Time-boxing is essentially allocating specific time slots in your schedule for certain tasks.

Simple, yet brilliant.

Big lie #5: Less sleep means more productivity.

FACT → 1 hour less sleep ≠ 1 hour more work.

1 hour less sleep = (1 hour more work tonight) - (3 hours less productivity tomorrow)

1 hour less sleep = 2 hours LESS productive work

PRO TIP → Get one more hour of sleep daily this week and notice how much it improves your focus and productivity.

PRO TIP #2 → Focus on the quality of sleep by implementing the tips from my Sleep Mastery Checklist.

Big lie #6: Optimize your calendar to book every minute of every day. 

That’s what I thought… So I made errands, chores, and commuting more “productive” by listening to books, podcasts, and lectures. 🥲

FACT → Empty spaces in your calendar are essential.

You need time to think and process all that information that’s already inside you.

PRO TIP → Daily walks without entertainment.

Leave your phone/headphones at home and give your brain time to process thoughts and be present.

And if you get bored… It is a goal, truly.

Boredom is a prerequisite to creativity and innovation.

Big lie #7: Rest is a waste of time.

FACT → Rest is productive.

That is, if you come back with more physical energy and mental capacity.

PRO TIP → Make your rest 7 times more productive by incorporating all 7 types of rest into one activity.

I described them in this infographic:

Big lie #8: Experiment with multiple businesses concurrently and find the one that thrives.

FACT → They will all fail. (Or you will give up because of how “long” it takes).

PRO TIP → Go from zero to one.

Particularly when starting new things, you must dedicate your full attention to one project.

For a rocket to launch successfully, all engines must be engaged and aligned.

Only after it takes off and reaches particular altitude and velocity, it drops off the booster engines.

Same with your new endeavours.

You need all your resources engaged and aligned in order to launch successfully. 🚀

Big lie #9: Stress is always bad for your productivity.

FACT → Stress can be good, and it can be bad.

It depends on our interpretation of it.

PRO TIP → Adopt stress-is-enhancing mindset.

It’s when you choose to:

• view stress as a chance to grow, and

• recognize its potential for positive impact.

Stress can boost your productivity.

Big lie #10: Plan your day in the morning.

FACT → It’s better than not planning your day at all, but morning is not the best time to plan your day.

Why?

The more decisions you have to make throughout the day, the faster you hit decision-making fatigue.

Making all of them first thing in the morning is like sprinting towards the cliff.

Cliff, in this scenario, is that moment when you hit decision-making exhaustion, and it starts to take forever to make easy decisions such as what movie to watch.

PRO TIP → Plan your day the day before.

Make as many decisions as you can about your day in advance to delay cognitive fatigue until as late as possible if not to avoid it entirely.

PRO TIP #2 → Allocate your first hours of the day for deep work, not planning.

Plan in advace what your priority task for tomorrow is that you would do first thing.

Also, going to bed knowing what your big focus of tomorrow is can lead to breakthroughs in your sleep. ✨

Has it ever happened to you?

Tiny Habit: Taking back the control over your time starts with taking control over your language.

When it comes to time management, many feel hopeless as they find lack of control over where their time is going.

It’s someone else who tells them what to do.
It’s someone else who breaks their boundaries.
It’s someone else who blocks time in their calendar.

If you related to any of these, I want you to change this narrative starting today.

3 steps:

1. Take ownership of your decisions.

You are the one who said 'yes' to that job/commitment and put those things into your schedule, aren't you?

Although, 95% of the time, the problem isn’t even what's in your schedule.

It's your attitude.

Leading to the next belief you should adopt instead:

2. You always have time for what’s important.

Start focusing on every occasion when this is true.

Keep reaffirming it to yourself: "I always have time for what's important."

3. Never say, “I don’t have the time.”

That phrase comes from the place of scarcity and lack of agency. Let's leave it in 2023!

Instead, say, “It’s not a priority right now.”

Take back control, as you are the one dictating what’s a priority and what’s not.

The Productivist Question

I have an underrated question for you today:

What lesson have you had to unlearn recently?

Maybe you’ve just unlearned something about productivity after reading this newsletter? 😉

Remember, you can have it all if you don't do it all.

Have a productive week ahead!

Valeriya

PS: I want to make this newsletter more valuable to you. Please share your opinion about it with me via an anonymous form by clicking the button below. (It’ll take <5 minutes.)

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