I'm Happily Productive. Are You?

Traditionally, productivity is conceived as the number of things you manage to do during your day. Productivity is the art of being efficient with your time, which is true. And what is this efficiency about?

In offices across the world, you might hear things like: My calendar is packed; I have back to back meetings, I have to work on the weekend to finish that presentation. Staying late could be a sign of hard work in some countries. Moreover, after leaving the office, workers are glued to their phones replying to emails after hours, so they never disconnect. Office culture includes eating at their desks, energizing by taking absurd amounts of caffeine, sitting all day long, never taking time off and a long et cetera.

There is a misconception, the more you are busy, the more you seem successful. People high in the corporate hierarchy appear to be busy all the time. This is less and less true these days in some companies. However, we need to break the most dangerous productivity myth: our value is what we produce.

I want to be more productive. You need to be more productive. Use this new app, implement this new method. I read this book, and...

How do you measure your productivity?

More than that, why do you want to be productive? What do you want to achieve by being more productive? Why do you need to wake up at 5:00 a.m.? Why do you want to be a millionaire?

Don't take me wrong! If you want it, you want it!

Little advice. Apply the Five whys method always.

For me, productivity is related to happiness. The question is: what is happiness for you? In other words, what makes you happy? I'm not talking about the ultimate goal of life. I'm talking about the enjoyment you experience every day. That's the reason why talking about productivity is to talk about your happiness.

Let me try to put it more logically or remember some Math.

Productivity = f(time, energy, attention).

Productivity is the way you invest your resources: time, energy, attention

What you do with your resources will impact the outcome. Therefore, the investment you made affects your happiness as the level of satisfaction you experience in life.

Productivity gets to permeate all the aspects of your life; it is not just about work or professional life. It's about how you spend your life, the time you dedicate to your passions, family, friends. More simply put, how present you are in your present. It's about how you want to experience life. Of course, there are circumstances, but ultimately you decide what you do, don't you?

So... happiness... what the heck is happiness after all?

For some, it's the maximum state of satisfaction, maybe get all the pleasures, take champagne baths, or having a car for each day of the week... I don't know what it means for you, and that is precisely the key: FOR YOU.

If you don't know yourself, the concept of happiness will be determined by others, such as culture, family, and even peer pressure. Therefore, you need to work to find out what does happiness means for you?

Remember what Delphi Oracle says: Know thyself. That is the fundamental premise of a life worth living, stealing Socrates' words sort of.

Productivity is all about intention, and intention is all about being happy, at least if you are an earthling (who knows, maybe aliens also want to be happy too after invading Earth).

There are many formulas and methods, apps, and books telling you how to be more productive. And they are all wonderful, but you have to test, experiment, and adapt until you find the right for you. The one that makes you happy.