Why I Ditched My Search For The Perfect Productivity Tool
How intention changes the productivity game
Have you ever made those long list of to-dos? Did those ever make you hate yourself so much because you were never able to make the to-dos disappear? Well, we are on the same boat then. One more question while we are at it, are you in search for that one tool, one good-for-all-tasks productivity tool? Yes?Good to know. You can stop that futile task now. I am not proposing any productivity tool that will help you to achieve all the goals in your life. Nope, I have left that dream long back. Not the dream of achieving goals, the dream of finding that ultimate tool. (Side note: I thought I found that tool when I tried Notion, I was horribly wrong. Though it does help.)
Now, listen to my view for a second. Sure, there is no one-stop tool to solve all your productivity problems. However, if you mix and match a couple of those tools with some brilliant productivity approaches, you can bring your productivity issues in control. My suggestion is an amalgamation of Tiago Forte’s PARA approach, Bullet journaling by Ryder Carroll, Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey, along with other assorted productivity approaches. Put these all together in a combination of tools like Notion, Evernote, Sorted3(yes, it is the new guy in town) and a pinch of Roam(I am writing this article in Roam. Extremely good for brainstorming and putting words to screen)
Let’s approach this in two steps. First, see everything through the PARA approach. (I will come to it in a second) Second, run the PARA operations daily using journaling and breaking tasks into chewable chunks.
If you see some tasks without any area, then those are your hobbies. It does not fit with your long term goals. If you see some areas without any tasks, then those are your dreams. You have not started doing anything about it.
Step 1 — Seeing everything through the PARA approach
- PARA was introduced by the productivity expert Tiago Forte. PARA stands for Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives. Let me explain how each of this fit into the big picture.
- Projects are tasks or events with a deadline and a goal attached to it. For example, “Write the book on Productivity”. It should have a deadline, let’s consider it as 1st of Feb 2021. It should have a goal, let’s say the goal is to sell the book on Amazon. The project starts when you start thinking about the idea and ends when you accomplish the goal.
- Areas on the other hands are more general aspects of your life. Areas will always remain as areas and it is something you continuously improve upon throughout your life. It is always better to link a project to an area. For example, the project “Write the book on Productivity” will be linked to the area “Writer Life”.
- Applying this part of PARA itself will grant you some mental clarity and intentions in your day to day activities. Now, if something comes across your way, just think whether this fits in your Projects or Areas. If yes, then it is worth working on, else, pass it.
Activity
I recommend doing the following activity before you jump on this approach.
- Write down all the tasks, events, activities that are currently in your to-do list and calendar. Now note down all the tasks, events, activities that are in your mind. Keep this combined list aside.
- Write down all the aspects of life you want to improve upon. For example, mine looks something like Personal Finance, Writing life, Company growth, Personal Relationships etc. There may be 20 of them, just write it down. Now, these are your areas. These do not have a deadline but they all will have a goal, a long term goal. It should be the compass that leads you forward.
- Now let’s take the list of tasks and activities you created initially. Assign these tasks to different areas you identified.
- If you see some tasks without any area, then those are your hobbies. It does not fit with your long term goals.
- If you see some areas without any tasks, then those are your dream. You have not started doing anything about it.
This activity is intended to give you intentionality in everything that you do in your life. (Intentionality is something which is presented in most of the productivity books but Hyper Focus is the book which really opened my eyes to it.)
Talking about Resource and Archive part of PARA may not be required for this section. Maybe we could talk about it some other time.
This may not exactly be how Forte envisioned it, but this is how I use this principle in my daily life. Whenever any task or decision comes your way, pause and think how does it fit in the PARA paradigm. If you would like to read more on PARA, click here.
Your tomorrow starts tonight.
Step 2 — Running the PARA machine using journaling and hyper-focus
Evening Ritual
Yes, let’s start with the evening ritual. I know it is counter-intuitive, but your tomorrow starts tonight. During the evening ritual, ask yourself the following questions.
- Did I accomplish the 3 main tasks? We will see that in the morning ritual, we choose 3 main tasks from the list of todos. These will be your priority for the day. If you have achieved these, then you have conquered the day.
- Did I accomplish the other tasks for today? Do not be critical, if you have missed some, it means that you might have to go with lesser tasks per day.
Go through the projects one by one, find out the progress you made in each. Note down, what is the next step to be taken for each project. From this, choose what has to be done tomorrow.
Piece together all your “to be done tomorrow” items and voila, you have your to-do list for tomorrow. I do this using a wonderful tool called, Notion. We will discuss in detail about this in another post.
You can stop at this point if you do not want to hyper-schedule your day. I recently found a tool called, Sorted 3 to help me with this. It’s nothing short of a to-do list app on steroids. Yes, it has its own limitations and drawbacks but it does the work for me.
Take the action items “to be done tomorrow” and assign it a time and duration. Most of us waste time since we do not know what to do next, assigning a time to your task will resolve that problem. You might feel pressurised by hyper scheduling your day but the idea is to take this lightly. It is okay to reschedule some activities to tomorrow.
Morning Ritual
Make sure you have a morning ritual and start with a very simple one. Have activities which are very easy to perform so that you start the day with accomplishments.
Make it a very simple checklist. Something like “Drink a glass of water”, “Stretch for 5 mins”, “Meditate for 5 mins”, “Go through the action items”, “Choose 3 main tasks”.
This will prime you for a productive day. As all productivity books tell you, always start with the most important work.
Some thoughts on tasks
Always make sure, a task is associated with a project or an area. During evening ritual, create or update tasks for each project.
These tasks should be very specific about the duration, goal and expectations. For example, “Finish the 1st chapter of the book” might be a wrong way to put a task. Convert it into smaller chunks, for example, “Finish the outline of 1st chapter”, “Finish the rough draft of 1st chapter”, “Finish the editing of 1st chapter”, “Finish the 1st chapter”.
Size of the task is a matter of personal preference. But my mind gets stuck if the size of the task is similar to “Finish the 1st chapter of the book”.
Planning-Sundays
Yes, I call it planning-Sundays now. It is critical to reflect once a week on the achievements you have made across the week as well as to see the overall progress in your areas. Yes, I said that right. The overall progress of your areas and not projects. Why? Areas represent the strategic part of you and Projects represent the tactical part of you.
On Sundays, go through each of your areas and figure out whether the current projects associated with an area is good enough to make improvements in that area. Add projects or remove projects wherever necessary. Also, try to understand whether the progress in that area is satisfactory. Consider this as a feedback session to yourself.
Intention will arise from your areas and projects.
Tasks with intention
Once you reach this point, every task will feel intentional. We will start to avoid any auto-pilot activities. In hindsight, the reason why I could not stick with so many productivity approaches is that I always lacked the intention to do any task or activity. The intention will arise from your areas and projects.
When you apply the PARA principle to your life, you will find less and fewer distractions around you. And once you do this, every action taken becomes intentional. Once it becomes second nature to you then life ahead of you will seem to be much clearer than before. No more binge-watching, no more water-cooler gossips (unless, of course, it is part of your PARA), no more daydreaming (unless you are on a creative project).
Conclusion
You might have a very valid doubt. Does this really work? Short answer, the very fact that I am writing this article is proof that it works. I have been meaning to write something for years. But I never committed to it, or in other words, I never intended to. I got the intention when I applied the PARA principle to my life. Now I know clearly why I should do “what I should do”.
Long answer, from what I understand, productivity is a very personal affair. It depends on how a person responds to each productivity technique. I tried bullet journaling for 9 months and finally figured out I can’t take it anymore. Maybe this method will also fail me eventually. It doesn’t matter, life is a journey of learning. Not just learning about external things but also about yourself. You discover a lot about yourself over the years. For now, this works superbly for me.
Keep learning and keep adapting!
