Daily Productivity: 21 Life-Changing Meditations on Time Management and the Art of Extraordinary Performance: The Daily Learner, #5

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.

― Paul J. Meyer

Lost time is never found again.

― Benjamin Franklin

INTRODUCTION

I'm immensely grateful to you for choosing this book. This particular volume of The Daily Learner series is an attempt from me to distill the life-changing ideas from the best books on productivity and time management in daily easy-to-read meditations. 

So what exactly is productivity? The classic definition suggests that it is a way to measure efficiency. Many people assume that productivity means getting more things done on a given day. If you think the same, you’re wrong. Productivity is getting the most important things done on a consistent basis. No matter what line of work you’re in, there are only a few tasks that are truly essential to achieving your desired outcomes.  

At its core, productivity is about getting the results you want with minimal time and effort. Learning how to be productive involves designing a strategy that helps you systemize and better manage your life so that you have more time to do what you want. Your chief aim is to achieve your big goals while having time to spend on things that matter the most to you. 

We often make the mistake of equating being busy with being productive, but those things aren’t the same. We all know people who run around haphazardly throughout their days busy being busy. It’s almost as if they are addicted to constant motion. I’m not judging anyone, in fact I’ve been one of them. Working hard yet not achieving your desired outcomes is a double whammy! And yet many of us fall in the busy trap so that we can adhere to the status quo. 

You must quit being busy. Instead, it’s much better to be productive. Not only will you achieve more, but you’ll also get rid of that uncomfortable knot in your stomach — yes, the one that tells you’re doing something wrong — that you feel your entire day. The satisfaction of being productive always trumps the hollowness of being busy. Don’t mistake movement for achievement, Jim Rohn explained, It’s easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what?

It’s much better to focus on progress, not motion — to stop being busy, and start being productive. We must be efficient and diligent with our time. We all have 24 hours in a day, and it’s wise to make the most of them and develop lasting habits of high performance, achievement and fulfillment instead of running around like a headless chicken and chasing endless lists of tasks. In other words, work with intentionality, not intensity. Work smarter, not harder. Focus on tasks that bring significant outcomes and spend time doing work that truly matters.

Living and working with purpose and intention helps us eliminate the constant rush and stress in our everyday life. It slows it down and frees us from the modern madness of living a faster life. It empowers us to create an alternate world for ourselves and to only keep the essentials letting go of the frivolous and the insignificant. Furthermore, it drives us to pursue those things, endeavors and activities that bring joy and add value to our life.

If we want to transform our lives, then learning about productivity and time management is not enough; we need to practice it as well. As Tony Robbins has rightly said, Repetition is the mother of skill; we can change our core beliefs and enhance our mental skill set by repeating the important learnings every day to ourselves. John Maxwell echoes this truth in his book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth as well: You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.

In the following pages, I have extracted the knowledge and wisdom from the best books on productivity, time management and the art of extraordinary performance in a form that is easy to digest and consume (even if you're not a reader!). Every meditation has been crafted to give you either the essence and the formula, if you will, of the subject at hand, or a groundbreaking idea introduced by the respective author. The repetition of the priceless gems and core principles of productivity in these meditations is intentional in order to help you learn and internalize them in a quicker way. I'm sure the condensed timeless knowledge in these meditations will assist you in navigating through the