Taking Productivity Systems to Excess
It is my observation that productivity ‘systems’ appeal most to people with a certain kind of mindset: process-oriented, rigorous, ordered.
Other types of personality can certainly see the benefits of a certain approach, but in my experience they’re less likely to take it on board fully or to adhere to it slavishly. More for them the buffet approach, a dollop of this and a splodge of that.
For a long time I thought the first bunch had it right, without doubt. If you’re considering something that’s going to have a massive positive impact on the way you run your affairs, logically the more fully you embrace it the better your results will be.
Going too far
But what I hadn’t considered was the possibility of overdoing it.
One of the key benefits of ‘getting organised’, having a ‘system’, Getting Things Done, whatever you call it, is to release time. Time you can spend getting more things done or going home earlier or spending more time with your kids. Releasing minutes and hours you would not otherwise have had free.
My question is whether the sort of person to whom productivity systems appeal most is more prone than others to spending this ‘released time’ on nerdy activities like organising their paperclips?
If the extra time is used to indulge little obsessions more thoroughly than they could have been otherwise, that’s a debit against the total productivity gain. If alphabetising the recycling is genuinely something important to do, or brings great happiness, or has some other significant benefit, then maybe it’s ok. But I can’t escape the nagging feeling that the discretionary activities this group might choose to pursue in the time successfully released are just pointless tinkering.
I see a risk of somebody of an obsessive nature releasing extra discretionary time as a result of ‘getting organised’ but not using that time wisely. Instead they may use it to indulge the obsessive tendencies that helped them implement their ‘system’ so effectively, resulting in no net benefit in terms of output. Unless you count the paperclips.
So what?
So there’s a fine line to tread. Between going far enough in taking steps to boost your productivity to actually see a significant benefit, and going so far that you spend your released time on trifling activities that bring little or no benefit.
A balance must be struck between sufficient rigour in applying a methodology that will give you more time and retaining sufficient perspective to make good decisions about how to spend that time.
Our Changing Identities
June 2009, age 28. The month I got excited about a garden. In my defence, it was my garden. The former gravel pit surrounded by blue concrete walls began its transformation into an urban oasis. To me growing up, caring about a garden was a symbol of the dullness that was the lives of the old and boring. It meant cardigans, classial music and copies of The Daily Telegraph. That was not somewhere I could see myself going. And then one fine day I caught myself thinking happy thoughts about a garden. I was dimly aware of an invisible line not so much crossed as trampled underfoot several miles back.
Until recently my peer group did most of the same things at the same times. School. University. Getting a job after graduation. Leaving home. But now that those highly structured years are behind us we’re free to go our own ways more than ever before. We’re all doing different things in different combinations and at different speeds. Careers. Relationships. Living arrangements. Planning for the future. Taking each day as it comes. In all respects, changing and adapting to others’ changes. We’re meeting new incarnations of each other; none of us is any longer the student we once were, or even the person we were last year.
The things that bring me enjoyment are changing and starting to include stuff that I and others might think painfully uncool. It’s a gradual evolution. I still like some things the high school, university, and early twenties versions of me liked, while others fall out of favour. Video games are largely forgotten but I like to think air guitar will be with me always.
So what’s the point? I see a tendency to regard identity as largely fixed, with any changes taking the person further away from their previous self. This can be threatening to the person concerned and those around them. If the person you first got to know is wholly or partially gone, it can feel like a betrayal. “Hey, you’re not the person I once knew! I liked that person!”. Entirely possible.
Part of the art of living is managing your relationships with yourself and others. Demand respect for who you are and who you become. Extend the same to others. We’re engaged in an ever-changing dance of identity, sometimes making subtle, measured gestures, sometimes busting out some serious moves, and all the time influenced by the others on the dancefloor. So get out there and throw some shapes.
