High Productivity

Just fell asleep, was woken up by the alarm clock at 6 am, commuted for 2 hours to the unit, and started the day’s work with sleepy eyes. Sitting at the desk, facing the mountain of work on the to-do list, I felt that everything was important, but I didn’t know where to start. Hesitatingly, I unconsciously picked up the mobile phone at hand and started to brush the web page, video, and circle of friends. Around 10 o’clock, colleagues, remote calls, emails, and WeChat came in one after another, dealing with various temporary things until noon. At 2 pm, the boss called me to attend a customer reception. There was no substantive content in the whole process. I heard at the end that the comer was just a friend of the boss, passing by. At 4 pm, I was called to attend a cross-departmental temporary coordination meeting. The meeting initiation department did not clarify the meeting theme beforehand, nor did it have meeting materials. Everyone fought for 3 hours and did not reach a consensus. After the meeting, I sat at the desk again and found that the to-do list was the same as yesterday, and none of the things that should be done were done. When I got home at night, it was already 10 o’clock after dinner. Lying in bed, brushing Weibo, chasing dramas, brushing short videos, I didn’t realize it was 1 am. I knew I should go to sleep, but I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know how long it took to fall asleep in a daze holding the phone. Subconsciously, I made a plan for tomorrow, and I must complete the work that has been shelved for a long time. The alarm clock at 6 am rang on time, and the day’s work was repeated.

Finally, one day, without outside interference, I started the work that had been delayed for a long time, but my attention was not focused. Inexplicable thoughts popped up in my brain, and my hands habitually wanted to open the browser to brush the web page. Every day is repeating the same state, temporary matters, irrelevant meetings disrupt the scheduled schedule, to-do items, books to read, will only be listed on the schedule, things to do will never be finished, day after day.

In the long run, output efficiency is getting lower and lower, performance is mediocre, unable to meet unit requirements, anxiety is getting heavier, sleep is getting worse, and quality of life is deteriorating. Time is precious, everything is difficult, every important thing is difficult, time-consuming, and grinding. To do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools. With sharp tools in hand, things can be smoother. The basic principles and methods of doing things are these sharp tools.

Principles of High Productivity

Understand human nature and pursue fundamental meaning Laziness is human nature. Without a strong driving force, it is difficult to accomplish great things, even a small thing. This driving force is the pursuit of the meaning of life. The meaning of life is definitely not fishing at work and sleeping after get off work. That is no different from a salted fish. The meaning of life does not lie in how big the ideal is or how small the dream is. Everyone’s pursuit is different, but everyone should set the goal they pursue, not regret for wasting time, nor be ashamed of doing nothing.

Time is money The fingers are too wide, and time is too thin. It will flow through the fingers inadvertently. The importance of time cannot be overemphasized. If preaching is pale, you can price your own time, and you will know the value of time. Cherishing time is cherishing life.

Set clear results and roadmaps for goals In the 1960s, the United States launched a space war with the Soviet Union. Then US President John F. Kennedy condensed all space goals into one sentence “send a man to the moon and return safely before the end of the 1960s”. The goal was clear and specific. Under the guidance of this goal, NASA formulated a very clear plan and roadmap. On July 21, 1969, Armstrong successfully landed on the moon. Later, when an emergency occurred during the [Apollo 13 moon landing](https:// .xyz/apollo13-okrs), the commander-in-chief of the moon landing, Gene, adopted the same strategy to clarify the goal for everyone: bring three astronauts back to Earth alive. Houston mobilized the entire project team to overcome difficulties such as hypoxia, carbon dioxide poisoning, orbital deviation, manual docking, etc., and Apollo 13 finally returned to Earth smoothly.

Resist temptation and endure loneliness All that provide instant gratification are temptations. These temptations have a unified name: tittytainment, that is, those things that can fascinate people, are low-cost, and can satisfy people. From the essence of social development, the reason why these vulgar contents are rampant is the inevitable product of overproduction. Due to the improvement of productivity, a large part of the world’s population will not and need not actively participate in the production of products and services, or need not (unqualified) devote most of their energy to it. In order to comfort these people, a large number of entertainment activities are used to fill their lives to divert their attention and dissatisfaction and maintain social stability. In today’s world, there are mainly three types of tittytainment,

1. High-calorie food stimulates the pituitary gland to secrete dopamine. The US government elites feed a large amount of high-calorie food to the unemployed to keep them stable, eventually forming a phenomenon where the elite class is well-proportioned and the poor class is obese.
2. Vulgar content, get instant gratification, time-consuming. In the era of artificial intelligence, there are more and more tittytainment. The extreme is like William in “Westworld”, who is immersed in virtual reality all his life and forgets to return. Daily, it is the recommendation algorithm of various media, constantly pushing favorite videos, texts, and pictures to humans.
3. [[ content/posts/20180109-Middle-aged, how to avoid game addiction | Middle-aged, how to avoid game addiction to get pleasure, it is rumored that a certain national civil servant will not get off the bus without finishing “Honor of Kings” during a meeting.

Choice is more important than hard work In the fast-paced era, everyone has multiple roles, and the same role also faces different choices. It is necessary to handle the relationship between roles and switch well. It is also necessary to distinguish between tasks within the role. Time is limited every day. Only by prioritizing important things can we produce efficiently. This requires an accurate grasp of what is important. For individuals, important things are those that promote the achievement of goals. We must closely revolve around the goal, divide tasks, and accumulate small victories into big victories.

Methods of High Productivity

Maintain the best working state Long working hours do not mean high work efficiency. It is necessary to arrange work and rest reasonably. A reasonable day schedule should be a three-three system, working 8 hours, sleeping 8 hours, and living daily 8 hours. Develop good work and rest habits, get up, work, rest, and sleep on time every day. A regular life will adjust the body to a stable biological clock, and you will be in the best state when working. There are exceptions. Sometimes you want to work very much, and you are not tired after working for 12 hours. Sometimes you don’t want to work at all. This is normal. Do more when you want to work, and do less when you don’t want to work.

Prioritize things No two tasks have the same priority. Before doing things, first carefully consider the to-do list, the attributes of each task, including importance, urgency, estimated time consumption, external collaboration required, etc., and make a choice. Task classification can be based on the four-quadrant rule, dividing work into four categories: important but not urgent, important and urgent, not important but not urgent, not important and urgent. Among them, the most important things should be arranged in the important but not urgent category as important things, leaving enough time to complete.

Calculate the cost of everything Time is the biggest opportunity cost. Even if a thing is important, it cannot let the work go on indefinitely. It is necessary to set deadlines and time consumption for all things. Must be completed within the specified period and duration.

Set aside whole blocks of time Important problems often require deep thinking. Deep thinking takes time. It takes a large period of time (starting from one hour) to think independently to consider comprehensively. It takes great concentration to be efficient. At this time, a time and space without interference is needed. Once the train of thought is interrupted, it takes a long time to recover.

Do only one thing at a time The brain is single-threaded when dealing with specific things. Only by concentrating and doing only one thing at a time can mistakes be avoided. Of course, in order to relieve fatigue, you can cut time into blocks, deal with one thing in a whole block of time, and deal with another thing in the next block of time, just like school classes.

Pomodoro Technique The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method founded by Francesco Cirillo in 1992. Set 25 minutes as a Pomodoro. Within a Pomodoro, cut off all possible disturbances, including the Internet, mobile phones, emails, calls, meetings, personnel interruptions, etc., and concentrate on work. After the Pomodoro ends, rest for 5 minutes, and then continue to the next Pomodoro. Rest for 15 minutes after completing 3 Pomodoros.

Many a little makes a mickle Large projects sometimes span years and months, such as writing a book, developing a game, etc. At this time, it is necessary to divide such tasks into reasonable small tasks. As long as small tasks are completed every day, you will get closer and closer to the big goal. Anyway, move first.

Finish first, then perfect Don’t hope to do things well at once. Finish first, then seek perfection. Once you pursue perfection in the process of doing, you will distract your attention to details, such as typesetting while writing manuscripts, retrieving while writing, which will affect efficiency. Prepare a shorthand notebook to write down anything that distracts you, such as Google search terms, flashes of inspiration, new ideas, etc. If you write them down, it won’t jump around anymore

Good at using things If other people can do a thing 80% well, let others do it and leave time for more important things. If a thing can be recombined from existing work results, don’t reinvent the wheel. For example, program development should make good use of open source components, and fashion design should make good use of magazine clips. If a thing can be done or not, it can not be done.

Make good use of inbox When you enter the working state and focus on doing things, sometimes tasks will fly like paper. At this time, set up a task inbox to collect new tasks temporarily, and deal with new tasks after finishing the things at hand. Otherwise, a small episode will ruin a whole afternoon.

Reserve maneuver time Although there are 8 hours of working time every day, only 45 hours of work can be arranged, and 34 hours are set aside as emergency time to deal with emergencies, such as meetings, calls that have to be answered, etc. Maneuver time can also be used to deal with to-do items in the inbox, summarize the day’s work, arrange tomorrow’s plan, etc.

Establish a reward mechanism You can use games and entertainment as rewards after completing work to stimulate work interest.

Published at: Sep 22, 2021 · Modified at: Dec 4, 2025