Naiman Labs newsletter #27. Laws of productivity.

Hi friends! Welcome to 27th issue of Naiman Labs newsletter.

Today I want to talk about personal productivity. In general. I am diving deeper and deeper into this topic and I believe embracing personal productivity.

I believe that healthy, non-toxic productivity is one of the essential skills we as professionals need to develop and we should definitely have it in our toolkit. Unfortunately today the term productivity has become an overused buzzword (as many other career related things).

Redefining Productivity

Back in the day, productivity meant "doing more." Even if we look at the origin of this word it leads us to industrial era and to the basics of modern business world. So it was all about quantity—how many things you produced, minimizing costs, and making processes more efficient.

But today, personal productivity is different. It's not about doing more; it's about making more outcome of what really matters. It's about focusing on the right things, staying motivated and finding joy in the process. And that by the way allows you to progress and “do more”.

The Personal Productivity Equation

Personal productivity can be well described with the following equation:

As you can see, it's not about the quantity or the number of tasks you complete. It's about creating meaningful output while finding joy in the process. This aligns with the concept of efficient goal setting. It's like setting the right goals. You must ensure that you set the right goals and target what truly matters. After all, it doesn't matter how fast you're moving if you're heading in the wrong direction.

When we look at productivity in general we can identify several principles of productivity. Let’s make a deep dive and break them down.

💡 Principle 1. Our Brains Are for Having Ideas, Not for Storing Them

Probably this is one of the most famous quotes in productivity from David Allen. What it tells us is we shouldn’t rely on our memory. Instead, we should establish systems and tools that support our brains. We should outsource the task of remembering. This will free up mental space and increase the likelihood of retaining important information. That’s why all productivity hacks and tips include task managers and note-taking systems.

🛁 Principle 2. Work Fills the Time You Give It

This is Parkinson’s law. The work expands to fill the time allocated to it. If you believe you have a week to complete a task, you'll likely take the entire week to finish it. Similarly, if you give yourself a month to write an article, you may spend the entire month overthinking and procrastinating. And you’ll be doing it in the last couple of days (Unfortunately this is my typical behavior 8 times out of 10). This is where techniques like time boxing and time blocking come into play.

ProTip: it’s easier to deal with it when you have solid deadlines. For example when we have solid project deadlines at work we stick to them. Tip for you is set artificial deadlines and make time blocks in your calendar for specific bucket of work.

✅ Principle 3. "Better Done Than Perfect"

Write this down at a sticky note and put at your work desk. Do it right now please.

Perfectionism can be a real buzzkill and a major cause of procrastination. Repeat after me: "Better done than perfect!" Sure, you can spend ages polishing your work, but if you embrace the principle of delivering completed outcomes, you'll get feedback and improve along the way. Don't get stuck in an endless pursuit of perfection.

Perfectionism is a common stumbling block that often leads to procrastination. You can spend days polishing your text. You can spend weeks polishing your presentation. You will never be completely satisfied with your website. Is it the reasons to delay launching it? No.

If you embrace the principle of delivering completed outcomes, you can gather feedback and iterate for improvement. By having tangible results, your brain will be satisfied, and you'll be motivated to continue rather than getting stuck in an endless cycle of perfectionism.

Pro tip: sometimes it’s hard to complete a big bulk of work in a highest possible quality. Divide it into small pieces of work. You have to make 10-slide presentation - divide it into 5 buckets by 2 slides and complete one piece at a time. It is easier to control the quality this way.

💪 Principle 4. Action Drives Motivation

There's a widespread belief that motivation must come before action. We think we need inspiration before we can start working on something. While this may be true in some cases, more often than not, it works the other way around. Taking action initiates motivation. Sometimes, all it takes is a 5-minute rule—convincing yourself to work on a task for just five minutes. After those initial minutes, you'll likely find yourself deeply engaged because action drives motivation. You'll be motivated to make progress and move closer to your desired outcome.

🎯 Principle 5. Intrinsic Goals might help better than Extrinsic goals

Setting goals is essential for maintaining focus and direction. Without clear goals, we may be moving quickly in the wrong direction. However, it's crucial to set the right goals to keep our motivation high. Often, we fall into the trap of setting extrinsic (output) goals. Don’t get me wrong - it is very good to have a vision and “north star goal”. I think it is more suitable for companies' objectives, such as revenue targets or profitability percentages.

But when it comes to personal productivity, setting intrinsic (input) goals works better. Let's take the example of a writer. Instead of setting a goal of reaching 100k views (which is beyond your control and can be demotivating), set a goal of writing five texts in a month. This goal is fully within your control and allows you to be accountable for your progress, thus enhancing motivation.

Try embracing some non-toxic productivity principles in your daily life. And please don’t trust those who say that productivity is still about doing more. It is about meaningful outcome for a time period having joy and fun in the process.

Want to know more?

Productivity myths by Ali Abdaal (by the way I don’t 100% agree with all of the things he mentions, I will make my review on this soon).