I have learned something from experience, and the process of learning it has come at a very heavy price...
I once thought I wasn't all that productive and that I could benefit from a productivity system of some sort, and agreed to participate in the first GOE here on the forum.
Each & every system presented, left me with a confused look on my face, as they weren't geared towards how I live my life. I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. For example, GTD has some @phone crap that doesn't apply to people like me that avoid phones and maybe makes 2 calls a year! And they all either make a distinction between work life & home life, or are only geared towards one of them, ignoring the other. And I don't make that distinction or seperation in my life. Or they assume that the area you need to be more productive in, is in a corporate office setting. Or they assume you have disposable income to blow on "
productivity crap", which they insist that you can't be productive without. (none of these systems recycle envelopes from junk mail for your todo lists, or use empty ramen cases for your inbox)
And then they wanted me to over-think things, over-plan things, and think about things I didn't want to think about. Why do I have to plan where I want my career to be 10 years from now in order to get the dishes done today? Why do I need to have well defined long term goals, and have them written down? Is this so I can be disappointed in myself if my life takes a change in direction or doesn't go as planned?
None of the productivity gurus believe in "
organized chaos".
The end result was that these systems destroyed my productivity and left me feeling very seriously depressed about my life. I was lucky to have survived. I felt worthless. I was borderline suicidal.
I haven't been able to fully recover from it.
But this is what I learned:
I already was quite productive before all of this and I didn't need any help being that way. I had my own productivity system that was perfect for me, and it worked better than anything anybody else has ever come up with, written about, blogged about, or talked about. This system was a part of who I was and something I did on pure instinct. And it was frugal (just like me) and cost me $0 in the way of supplies, tools, books, and software.
Now if I could only figure out how I used to do it, I could return to my highly productive life that I used to have, regain my self-esteem, my purpose, and be a much happier person.
I thought about taking notes related to my journey back to my former self, with the intention of writing my own book on how to be productive (and happy), but then it dawned on me...
If I did, the system wouldn't work for anyone else but me, and it's quite likely that I would screw up other people as badly as other people's productivity systems screwed me up.
I know I am not alone. I know there has to be other people that were destroyed by all the productivity crap, like I was.
Here is my best advice:
Stay away from other people's productivity systems that were designed to work for them, how they think, and how they live their lives. Stay away from productivity systems designed to line the pockets of their creators...writers that create a new system when they start running low on cash. Stay away from productivity systems designed to increase traffic and sell ad space on blogs that publish the system. Stay away from productivity systems that come with
magical mops. (nudone's "works for 2 months system" is nothing but magical mops)
Just don't do it....
Just do it.
Look into yourself and draw from that, the system you already know from instinct. Following anyone else's system will destroy that part of you that already knows how to be productive. It will take away your instinct. You already know what you have to do. You already know how to do it. You know where your strengths & weaknesses are. You know how to fix it. You don't need anyone else to tell you.
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