The Three Principles of Productivity

Distilling a writing challenge into actionable advice

Published in

The Startup

6 min readMar 18, 2018

I recently concluded one of the most challenging and productive periods of my life, a 100-day writing challenge which made me create 100 texts all about self development topics and my inner thoughts.

Although the challenge was meant for me to become a better writer, I think I learned a lot about productivity and how I can use constraints to create time for creative work. More than tactics, I think I discovered principles which allowed me to produce quality content at a consistent pace.

As you might expect, this challenge demanded me to get into a creative state to be able to perform but if you don’t do this type of work, you can still benefit from these principles. Actually, they should work even better as all the mental blocks that come with creativity are removed.

The principles were baked into the challenge so let’s look deeper into the specifics of this 100-day writing challenge.

The Right Ingredients for Productivity

Everyday, I was required to write about my thoughts and interests. If you are familiar with my online content, you know how much I’m into productivity, performance and other personal development topics. So naturally I wrote about that.

The challenge also required me to post my daily texts on social media, making it apparent to everyone I had to show up every day. Because I wanted to build up my Instagram page, I also had to create a shareable image reflecting the general theme of the text.

Unintentionally, I got myself into a funny spot. Manage to get into a headspace where I can write about challenging topics of self improvement and distill that idea into an interesting image worthy of a Instagram picture.

I guess that why it’s called a challenge…

Yet, these challenging moments are also the most rewarding. After these 100 days of creative chaos, I uncovered three core productivity principles that can be integrated into any work routine.

NOTE: In addition to productivity lessons, I also learned about the creative process and how pain outweighs inspiration. If you are a creative, I’m sure you will also benefit from those lessons as well.

Principle 1 // Daily Activities are King

In the past, I tried to commit to creating content on a weekly basis. As you may know, it’s a good idea to plan out such activities, yet I found myself procrastinating until the end of the week to start working on the content. My intentions were good but that’s not how you should plan things.

This challenge made me see the power of daily activities. It turns out that seven days is too long for my monkey brain to fall into a productive mode. But as soon as I turned it into a daily task, everything changed.

The daily writing routine quickly became part of my routine and most importantly, part of my internal conversation. My morning commute became brainstorming sessions to find a topic to write about and my evenings became an open battle against procrastination and sleep.

Being restricted to 24 hours also creates urgency, which personally is a big catalyst for productive work. Because I have a full-time job, the only chance I had to write was during the evenings.

This time, the good old Parkinson’s law worked in my favor.

Principle 2 // The outcome must be clear

Besides being a daily challenge, the outcome was as clear as water: Write and post a text about a topic surrounding my daily thoughts. The moment I was done posting it on social media, the challenge was completed for the day.

You know when you write down a to-do in your notebook that later turns out to be extremely ambiguous?

Start working on the Portuguese language essay

Not the clearest task right? There is no way to determine when this task will be completed. This lack of direction can turn a simple task into an epic battle against procrastination. By reframing the to-do into an actionable and deliverable task, we gain control over the outcome.

Spend 1 hour researching the history of Portugal and create a 1-page summary.

Better right?

Because the daily goal of the challenge was so clear, it made it easy for my mind to preview the amount of work ahead and anticipated the pleasure that comes from completing the task of the day.

Principle 3 // Consequences for failure

If you commit yourself to complete a task, you might not complete it. But it turns out that if you commit to others, you will get it done no matter what.

As I started posting my writings on social media, I realized people were actually reading them, which immediately made me step my game up.

The fear of being publicly judged turns out to be a great motivator. But like most fears, it turned also out to be a figment of my imagination. On some special occasions, I missed the daily challenge and quickly compensated with double the work on the next day. You know how many people called me out?

None.

Our minds do funny things. It manufactures these scenarios of judgment and fear with no bearing in reality. Most of the times, it just makes life a bit harder but if controlled, it can be a great driver of productivity.

The challenge ends but the work continues

After extracting and understanding the effects of these principles, I created four guidelines that can be implemented into any productivity routine.

1. Breakdown a project into daily tasks

Chop a big project into daily chunks of time. Make each task as clear as possible, with a clear finish line.

Consistency is probably the most important aspect of productivity so if you are able to focus your efforts for a few hours every day, you will quickly produce a lot of work without even noticing.

2. Schedule tasks, create consistency

Instead of freely deciding what you should do during the day, try organizing your daily chunks of work into a simple calendar. It may sound quite obvious, but I only started doing this recently. Powerful stuff!

If possible, try to create consistency by doing the same type of work during specific times of the day. For example, mornings are reserved for deep work while evenings are more for planning.

3. Create a metric to track your daily success

For each task you do, try to create a metric to help you track your progress. No need to get all fancy with excel spreadsheets and lookup tables. Keep it simple.

For example, when I’m writing, I track how many words I am able to write during each Pomodoro (25-minute chunks of time) I do. When I’m finally done writing a blog post, I know exactly how long it took me to write it and how much I was able to produce for each chunk of time.

4. Create accountability

If your daily task is part of a bigger project with a clear deadline like a school assignment or client presentation, you already have enough pressure to produce as much as possible. But if you are the one taking the initiative, you must be able to create consequences for your inability to produce.

This blog post is completely self motivated. I can take 1 day or 1 year to post it and the consequences will be the same. To counteract this, I created artificial accountability around this project. Using a goal-setting platform called stickK, I basically bet my own money against me. If I don’t post this blog post in two days, I will trigger a 50€ donation to a anti-charity chosen by me.

Talk about motivation right?

Hopefully, these principles and guidelines will give you more knowledge and tools for you to create better work processes and help you do more with your precious time.

Enjoyed this post? Let me hear those 👏 and let me know your thoughts ⬇️

Note from the future: I’m happy to report that I didn’t lose my 50€… More money for blueberries I guess.