As someone who has been trying to optimize personal productivity for years, I felt that I've reached a point where I'm much less obsessed over "how productive I am today".
I guess there have been a few changes in my mindset toward productivity, and there's no better time to reflect on it during this time of the year.
Some of these are unshakeable beliefs I've had since the start of god-knows-when. Some I've picked up along the way, but not necessarily in 2022.
1. Specialized tools > all-in-one tools
If I have a specific problem, I'd want a tool specifically designed for it. It's much more efficient and mindless.
I can understand the hype with Notion: an extremely well-built note-taking software. But I cannot imagine myself spending hours learning all the formulas and shit in order to create a habit/budget/time tracker out of this app (a great trend of the past 2 years), which at the end of the day is so hard to use on my phone, so slow to open, and so troublesome to maintain.
I wrote a heartfelt post about this (in Vietnamese) last year.
2. Goodbye jam-packed calendar
Gone are the days I try to leave no space in my (both work and personal) calendar. It looks super optimized, yes, but it also turns me into a robot with absolutely no break time in between.
Even if I still plan ahead for the week, I intentionally clear out 1-2 hours each day and at least 1 day with no activity. This way, when my planned work runs overtime, or I have a sudden invitation from a long-time-no-see friend, I can easily make the time for them.
Productivity = optimization.
Enjoyable productivity = flexibility.
3. Productivity is a muscle. It needs the gym, and the effort to go to the gym.
Many people look at productivity as a task. You simply do it, and it's done. If you use this new tool or method, you're guaranteed to be 100% more productive. With that mindset, they are more likely to search for short-term solutions.
Productivity, for me, is more than just tools. It's a combination of mindset, methodologies, tools, health, and emotion. To "be productive" is to tweak and collaborate all of those factors in an efficient way. And that takes years of training, just like going to the gym.
In some situations, one factor might play a bigger role than others. Maybe "not being able to focus" might not stem from you not having the right distraction-blocking Google Chrome extension, but because you slept at 3 am after playing Fortnight with your friends.
4. It's a lonely journey, so we better find a way to enjoy ourselves
Your boss doesn't care if you submit a well-crafted piece of work on time, cuz that’s expected. But he/she will certainly "care" if you miss the deadline :)
Optimizing your productivity never equals being honored or complimented by your superiors in front of anybody. The funny dilemma is the more productive you are, the more work assigned to you, and the more productive you need to be.
So, we need to reward ourselves. Buy yourself a nice meal or a movie ticket even during weekdays, share the wins with your partners, or catch some wows by teaching your colleagues some cool tricks during breaks.
After all, the purpose of being productive at work is to have more time for ourselves.
5. Productivity definition is contextual
Another funny realization: there is no universal description of "how a productive person looks". It's all about the outcome.
Why funny? Cuz we’ve all talked about “the journey” rather than “the end”, about “controllable inputs” rather than “incontrollable outputs”. But at the end of the day, we still have to look at something to know whether we should feel good or not. Productivity is emotional.
There are tons of websites out there drawing a scene where replying to emails at the start of the day is a productivity killer.
But what if you're a sales rep and replying to emails is part of your essential task list? What if by replying to this email early you can close a billion-dollar deal? Then can we call that non-productive? No, right?
If productivity varies according to the situation, then the only way we can measure how productive we are is to use the standard measure of success of that particular job we do. And because of that, sometimes, we cannot use "day" as the unit to measure productivity. Some outcomes take many days or weeks to actualize.
I'm a PM, and these are what I ask myself every week (because it's hard to see this daily):
Did I gain any user insights today?
Did I lay out plans to improve the UX of my app today?
Did I bring the [insert_team_name] and [insert_another_team_name] teams together to solve their conflicts?
—
I can’t wait to see what I will think of productivity by end of 2023.
Weekly discovery: Lex.page
Recently, instead of trying out ChatGPT, I spent my time playing around with AI-powered writing apps to see how they can affect me in the future. Lex.page is one of them.
Lex intrigued me not because of its landing page (there was literally nothing there except a login button).
It intrigued me because it was created by Every, an amazing team that publishes smart, thoughtful essays on business and personal development, and the social hype its creators built around itself.
Lex's USP is to help you overcome writer's block - when you're stuck and don't know what else to write while your post isn't supposed to end yet.
To test this out, I gave the above sentences to Lex and let it do the rest. The result is truly eye-opening for me.
To test Lex, I started writing a post about my experience using AI-powered writing apps. I got the idea, but now the question was how to go about it? Lex enabled me to draw inspiration from other content, as well as point out the key points I wanted to discuss while staying true to my writing style
The fact that Lex allowed me to rapidly generate ideas, tweak and shape my posts through its autosuggestions, while still keeping my voice intact, was amazing.
-Lex
The outcome, though still sounds a bit stereotypical, is informative enough to end this section.
Lex is still in Beta, and you have to join their waitlist to try it out.
BUT, I have 5 free invites so you can skip the queue and try it out today!
👉 Reply to this newsletter if you're interested!
Around the internet: eh, where is Youtube Rewind?
The past week, my Internet was full of self-reflection-but-mostly-lowkey-achievement-showing-off posts.
It's this time of the year when I feel the strongest about how much peer pressure social media can inflict on me.
Ok, enough ranting :”>
Now, with all of those reflection posts, #spotifywrapped, #redditwrapped, do you notice someone missing?
Yes, it's Youtube Rewind. It has been missing for the past 2 years (3 if you count 2022).
Why is that? Well, this video explains it all:
Summary: because Youtube Rewind was trash.
.
.
.
Nah just kidding, they have their reasons. Just watch the video till end.
In place of making Youtube Rewind 2022, the Youtube Team decided to make a list of the most-watched videos in a few countries. I'm bewildered they didn't include Vietnam (huge 👎), but well, better than none:
If you want to have a closer look into the hottest videos in Youtube as well as the overall creator economy status quo in the past year, check out this wonderful podcast by Colin and Samir:
And if you're anything like me, not wanting to drown in the pressure-inducing posts on Facebook and Instagram, here are a few fun rewinds from the big bois to keep you entertained:
Googal:
Netflex:
If you care about Product Management, you MUSTN'T miss this recap by Lenny Rachitsky:
The gifts are still on! 🎁
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Da anh Tuấn đẹp rứa :v
"After all, the purpose of being productive at work is to have more time for ourselves." => this is so true bro. Thanks for this great share!