Stop Listening to These 3 Productivity Hacks

Hacks, techniques, mental models, call them what you will, people love to talk about how to be more productive.

Productivity porn is everywhere. The more smart and sciencey it sounds, the more corporate consultants and personal development gurus throw them around in conversation as a sort of productivity flex.

What, so you don’t have a habit tracker? You don’t have a timed internet blocker and listen to gamma binaural beats to focus?

I guarantee those who preach about these “hacks” don’t use them in reality.

In theory, there’s no difference between theory and reality. In reality, there always is (are you following at the back?)

So, here are 3 of the most pervasive “hacks” we’ve been fed and then fed some more, and why, to be blunt, they’re straight-up bullshit.

Let’s begin.

1. Eat the Frog

This is a metaphor. Don’t actually eat a frog or interfere with amphibian life.

The frog represents a looming task, the hardest or most pressing thing on your to-do list. The idea is to complete this task first (“eating the frog”), and then you’ve won the day. If you don’t, the frog eats you.

Yep, it’s a messy metaphor, but suffice to say, I didn’t make it up.

Why "eat the frog" is bullshit

It’s shouting the destination at someone rather than telling them how to get there.

Everyone knows they need to do the hardest task; labeling it as a cannibalistic frog doesn’t help.

Where are the eating instructions? Do we eat it whole? How do we eat it when we don’t know how to start? What if we’re afraid? What if it’s got a ton of dependencies or you just don’t have the time?

Humans procrastinate for myriad reasons, I suggest we always know what we’re meant to do, but our brains get in the way.

Eating the frog is just a crap metaphor for an obvious problem that offers no solutions.

2. Pomodoro Technique

Pomodoro means tomato in Italian. It’s a time management technique designed by Francesco Cirillo, an Italian student.

What have tomatoes got to do with anything? Well, it’s not another shabby metaphor; it’s simply that Cirillo used a kitchen timer that looked like a tomato to measure out his work periods.

This method involves 25 minutes of work time, 10 minutes of downtime repeated throughout the day. People vary the time periods to suit their needs, but that’s it — that’s the tomatoey method.

Why the "pomodoro technique" is bullshit

It’s good marketing, but there’s no substance to it. If someone said, “I’m working using the Pomodoro Technique,” you’d think they’ve got some advanced mathematical formula to maximise productivity and enhance cognitive performance using set-squares, equations, and some sort of pulley-and-lever device.

But no, it’s just someone with a kitchen timer that looks like a fruit.

Focusing for periods of time is something people have always done. We don’t need a swish sounding name for it. It’s not new.

Besides, it’s so rudimentary it doesn’t even begin to discuss how to focus. It just assumes you set a timer and then work like a robot. No one is a robot, a frog, or a tomato. These metaphors don’t help anyone in the real world.

3. Pareto Principle

Now, on the surface, I quite like this one. Often known as the 80/20 rule, it is a framework for understanding effort vs. results, essentially proposing that about 80% of the results come from 20% of your efforts.

I agree with that. It’s a good model for understanding what to prioritise and not waste your time on meaningless busyness. However…

Why the "Pareto Principle" is bullshit

It’s a formula, and do formulas neatly fit into real life?

Fuck no!

A lot of our time is governed by necessary, low-level daily tasks such as eating, bathing, commuting, childcare, and so forth. Or, our time is eaten up by reactive tasks that hit your desk and require immediate attention.

Other people’s deadlines often become our own. Sure, we’d like to work on the most effective tasks, but we end up fighting fires.

This principle is developed by an Italian. Like the Pomodoro technique, it has another sexy sounding name. But good marketing does not a workable productivity hack make.

If you have to abandon Pareto’s principle to deal with real shit, then it ain’t no good.

Final Thoughts and Remedies

There’s no wrong way to be productive. If it works, it works, but I question how much these techniques help anyone. If anything, they set overly strict guidelines. When we fail to stay within those guidelines, we can beat ourselves up, feel bad, and work even less. The truth is, they’re textbook answers to real-life problems, and they don’t work in the field.

Sure, they can help build a strategy to tackle work and projects, but what if you hit a flow point as your tomato timer tells you to stop? What if you can’t eat the frog in the morning? Does that mean the day is a failure, and so the frog eats you? What if you’re working on a task that gives you 80% of the results only to finish and realise you were wrong, and it was pointless?

I love meta-thinking and understanding how I work, and these “hacks” can help — after all, I’ve tried them all — but they disintegrate in the cold light of day.

As mentioned, if they work, they work but don’t get hung up on tricks and tips. Find your own flow. Creativity is always about your own flow.

No textbook or academic can fully explain creativity, and I wouldn’t want them to anyway. The mystery is the magic, so stick that in your consultation slide deck and smoke it.

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This article was originally posted on Medium.com