Top 5 Productivity Lessons From my Favorite Self Help Guru

Haloo and welcome Nick’s letters!

Getting things done is one of the most difficult things to do.

We are all nearly doomed to the power of procrastination.

But thanks to the million dollar self help industry, there are countless tips and hacks and tactics to help us become more productive by simply getting things done.

If you are like me, you may have seen and heard and even tried multiple tips and eventually given up because of failure to work.

You have probably heard of things like pomodoro technique, creating a daily to do list, timeblocking and autofocus method. Surely those are tactics that can work.

However, these tactics just lack one major thing.

And the thing is that they are not based on the principles of human motivation. What this means is that you may even end up getting more confused and achieving less just by following such tactics. Why? Because they do not just work for everybody.

Well, today, for those of us who often postpone things, the New York bestselling author of the only self help book you may need is here with good news.

Mark Manson wrote the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. I want to tell you that the book changed my life.

I consider him my guru even without doing much of what he teaches by the way. And let me tell you why.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck inspired me to quit two good jobs just because I never gave a fuck about nothing else but my dreams.

For example, I had figured out that waiting on tables at Artcafe would never take me where I needed to go. So I quit with a handsome promotion already on in my bag. The subtle art also manifested when I quit as a digital marketing manager at local PR and media company. If you start following Mark Manson’s advice, I guarantee you might start looking like a mad person to most of your family and friends. People will start thinking that you are going mental. Which I believe is essential for us to grow by the way.

Anyway, Mark Manson has impacted the lives of millions of young men and women around the world. His influence is past that of many pastors and preachers.

As a forty year-old millionaire writer, marketer and speaker, Mark tried every hack, every tip, every piece of advice on how to be productive and getting things done. And in this letter, I am going to rely on his principle-based lessons to delve into what actually works to get things done especially for us people who like postponing things.

When we follow one or two or all of these lessons, we are going to become more productive and get things done even amidst the crazy chaos of the world.

Let us begin.

Work with your biology.

Everyone of us humans is unique and different.

The way your body and brains works is not the same as mine or everyone else’s.

For example. You may get advice like waking up early in the morning to work. Or wake up and go to the gym before work. Or wake up and start meditating.

The truth is that you are built differently. Maybe you just can’t work in the morning for some biological reasons. That means you can be productive in the afternoon or even at night when people are sleeping.

To make sure you are productive and getting things done, try listening to your body and brain when it comes to productivity. It does not matter the time of the day to work, especially just because someone said it!

What matters is working when you are at your best.

Minimum viable action.

This refers to the smallest action that feels doable to you.

Remember that procrastination is natural. By this I mean you are always going to find yourself overwhelmed by things and start postponing. This is okay.

But when it happens, Mark’s advise is to simply try completing the simplest action that you can. On a personal note, I never wrote this letter on the go. I really felt tired but wanted to push myself to write this letter. But according to how I was felling then, I knew I could not write. So I postponed! But I first came up with the headline and a subheading then went to enjoy my sleep.

Guess what happened when I woke up? I was ready and fresh to start writing again. And motivated that I already had a headline.

You can apply that in your life.

You see, there is a human psychology principle that goes like this; motivation is not just the cause of actions. It is also the effect.

This means that you don’t have to be motivated to do things, you simply have to do something to get the motivation to do things. It is kinda does not make sense but it is true. That small action can be so simple but will push you forward.

On to the next point.

Track, measure and improve.

Tracking and measuring is something that lies deep in the human soul.

You see, we are incredibly motivated by seeing things go up. So if you don’t measure things, how the hell are you going to improve? That is why whenever we are stuck, all we need to do is look back at our progress.

It is from that progress that we naturally get motivated and keep going. In Mark’s own words; “If you don’t measure something, it likely won’t improve.”

This principal cuts across everything in life. Just be careful to track the right metrics and improve the right things.

Stop fighting your emotions

What do you do then?

You take advantage of your emotions. The truth is that there will be a lot of distractions and emotional outburst through out the day.

Many people especially those of us with a penis are taught not to use their emotions. What we don’t know is that emotions are human and there will be no time when everything makes total logic or sense.

Productivity is an emotional game. We can work best about the things that make us excited. Trying to push through misery is always going to fail.

Being passionate and falling in love with what we do is how we get into the flowstate and get things done properly.

In short, we need to understand ways to get excited about what we are working on. And tapping into how we feel about things is the way we do it!

For example, writing is my passion. I love writing. I am always excited about it. It is like my first gafwend. I don’t need hacks to write, I write when I feel is the best time.

Otherwise, when I force myself to write just because I have to write, I end up writing things I do not like. I rely on my emotions than my intellect to get me going throughout any writing exercise. If I feel like it, I just do it. Even one sentence. Even just one line.

And now the final lesson…

More is always not better.

People like thinking that being busy equals to being productive.

I used to think so too.

You see, spending more time doing something will not necessarily make you put out great work.

This culture is common in the corporate world where many spend more hours at work while really doing nothing much than just gossiping office politics, using the phone or siting on the toilet. This culture has also entered the freelance world where guys and gals spend long hours into the night so that they can complete clients projects, only to deliver shoddy work!

Anyway, more is always never better. And it is embedded deep in the human mind.

Let me tell you about a fancy economics term called the Law of Diminishing Returns.

What this law means is that after a certain point, adding more of something (in this case time) will give you smaller and smaller increase in results. You don’t need to have attended the school of economics like me to get it! Because this term is true when it comes to everyone’s productivity. And so just because you do more work, it does not mean you will be better.

Can you imagine if I sent you letters everyday or many times per week just because I want your attention? It is likely I will not deliver value and so that won’t be better for you, my dear reader,

And so there you go…

It is important to remember that most of the advice you see online does not work for everybody.

This is because the advice is merely tactical and not based on the foundations of human motivation. In fact, most gurus are 20-something year olds still figuring out life with no proven track record of success and life fulfillment. That is why listening to experienced fellas like Mark Manson can work for us professional procrastinators.

To wind up, Mark is not the only guru to follow. Please remember that OK?

But for me, I have my valid reasons to listen to him sometimes. Yes, I don’t listen to him all the time. And I think that’s OK.

So I want to encourage you to have someone to take advice from because that is how humanity moves forward. It is easier and better when we learn from others. But let us be careful of the people we take advice from.

Because guess what? Not every piece of advice is realistic.

But Mark Manson is to be believed especially on the lessons in this letter! And I think society needs more of such people.

Go ahead and apply these lessons in your work. Feel free to write back to me how it went.

Until next week.

Nick Osale.

P.S

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P.S2

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P.S3

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