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The 3 Waves of Productivity

Over the past 15 years, productivity training has matured significantly. We began with an emphasis on efficiency; then we began to ask the question about how to use that efficiency to do meaningful work; and now we are realizing that doing meaningful work is a skill in and of itself.

Productivity Wave One: “Efficiency”

This first wave focused heavily on systems and methodologies and tools. It touted efficiency as the ultimate form of productivity, stating that you need to capture and organize all your tasks and projects and other areas of responsibility. And to do this you need smarter lists and more powerful tools.

Efficiency is threatened by inefficiency. Without decent workflows and routines and tools that serve you well, you won’t be able to manage your day to day life. You’ll be spending a significant amount of your time just juggling and wrangling things that could easily be managed better and to give you more time and energy.

Productivity Wave Two: “Intentionality”

This second wave build on the first. Saying that organizing your tasks is not the height of productivity. But rather it’s about making room to do the real work. This second wave was more of a mindset shift than a skill.

In other words, it was the realization that when you are efficient with all the incoming stuff and your ideas and your time, then you are able to create space in your day to do the important work. (Note that another way to create space in your day is to say ‘no’ to certain incoming things and get yourself some margin.)

Your free time can be swallowed up by the demands of others and by overcommitting yourself. Without margin and by always giving into the tyranny of the urgent, then the free time you create will be consumed by other things. This is why boundaries and (as you’ll see from the third wave) clarity are so important.

This intentionality of choosing to do meaningful work exposed a truth that to merely free up your time isn’t enough.

Once people time available to do the “real work” — they often didn’t even know what it was, nor did they have the skills needed to take advantage of that time.

Doing the real work is, in itself, a craft that takes time and practice. And this is what the third wave is all about…

Productivity Wave Three: “Meaning”

Wave three is about defining what to do in the time that you’re fighting to clear out and taking advantage of that “real work” time.

We have had to reengage with what it means to concentrate and do focused, meaningful work. We are now giving our attention to what it means to do deep work.

These three waves serve one another. You need all three to get the true benefits, and it’s not until you get to the third wave that you start to see all the benefits.

It is in the third wave where you start to produce more valuable work and you find your work more meaningful.

However, the challenge here is that many people do not have clarity about what it means to be productive and valuable. They cannot define what important, deep work is. As a result, that lack of clarity leads to unfocused busy work such as checking email, social media, news, etc.

Your ability to do meaningful work is hindered by your lack of clarity and inability to focus.

In his book, Deep Work, Cal warns against using busyness as a proxy for productivity:

In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner.

Clarity cures busywork.

Clarity about what matters also gives clarity about what does not. Clarity is vital if you want to do deep work on a regular basis over the long run.

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How To Improve Your Everyday Workflows

We talk a lot about the meaningful productivity stuff, and I’ll also be diving into more of that in the newsletter over the coming weeks, so today I wanted to dive into the First Wave stuff of being more efficient.

You don’t need to do this all the time, but perhaps once per year is a good pace.

Our lives are ever-changing. As are our interests, priorities, and availability. It’s worth the effort to take a look at our systems and tools to make sure they are still the ones serving us and not the other way around.

1. Audit the apps and tools you use: On my Mac and iPhone I consider what software I no longer use or need; what files can I archive away onto a backup drive; and what files can I delete?

2. Review your current schedule: In my schedule I consider how I’m spending my time over the course of a week; what would I like to add or remove to my routines; is my time being spent how I want it to be spent; at the end of a week do I feel a sense of accomplishment and contentment in the areas that matter?

3. Audit your office workflows, systems, and dependencies:Look at how to remove bottlenecks and friction as well as ways to empower other team members, give them more autonomy, and increase overall team moral.

4. Consider your most common activities at work (email, scheduling, tasks, etc.): How can you remove friction? For my own day-to-day activities, I consider how I plan my day; how I manage and accomplish my to-do list; how I deal with email; how I write and publish articles; how I read and study; and how I make consistent progress on big projects. These considerations have led me to get a better keyboard, to buy an iPad, to start using Ulysses, to use my baron fig, and more, to create my “Calm Inbox” and more.

5. Any repetitive tasks you can automate? A while ago I switched from OmniFocus to Todoist to Things. But as a result, all of my fancy OmniFocus scripts got lost. I haven’t yet taken the time to updated these scripts, and as a result I’m far less productive.

6. Create a Standard Operating Proceedure: This sounds super boring and like it’s right out of the first page of a franchise guideline, but this is actually really helpful. I had an SOP for my monthly budget transfers and bookkeeping work. I have an SOP for renewing the SSL Cert on my websites. And I have an SOP for updating the articles of incorporation and annual report for my companies with the state.

7. Have a weekly “learning goal”: For each week, have a goal of an area you want to learn more about. Perhaps just giving yourself one hour per week to learn more about how to set up email rules or how to use a bullet journal, etc.

8. Find the highest point of leverage and improve it:If every other area of your operation remained at its current level of performance, what is the one area where change would have the greatest impact?