The Greenroom

Modern life has us enmeshed in a web of unwanted and unnecessary commitments. Most of us spend the majority of our time doing things we don’t want to do.
We join committees because we think they’ll look good on our
resumes, go to birthday parties out of obligation, attend inane
meetings, stay in bad relationships out of fear, take on unwanted work
projects to gain favor with our bosses, stay in jobs we don’t
like instead of quitting.

Unwanted commitments seem to beget more unwanted commitments.
They’re like lies: they multiply fast. If you take on an
unwanted project to please your boss, then the next time a similar
project comes by she’ll throw it in your lap. If you
unhappily go to an acquaintances birthday party out of sense of
obligation, they’re likely to invite you over for dinner, or call
you more often. You get my drift.

What Does this Have to do with Productivity?

Well, it’s common knowledge that productivity naturally
emerges from passion: when we love what we’re doing, productivity
becomes irrelevant. The corollary is that being unproductive results from doing things you’d rather not do.

And while it’s a stretch to say that demand for productivity
material is driven purely by job dissatisfaction and passionless
living, I’m quite certain that the booming productivity industry
would be far less lucrative without an overworked, overwhelmed, and
continually stressed workforce. It’s not the fault of
productivity experts, they’re just responding to market demand
and they’ve done excellent jobs. It’s just that elaborate productivity systems have all too often become crutches for passionate living.
These systems are largely geared towards helping people do things
they’d rather not be doing. There are people living
passionately who still need productivity systems, but they’re the
exception rather than the rule.

The problem isn’t that people don’t have passions. Half of the bored-out-their-mind
workforce knows what they’d do if they weren’t so damn
busy, and the other half would find their calling if they only had
enough time to come up for air and breathe. The problem isn’t lack of passion, it’s lack of energy. It’s lack of time.
Perhaps a better time management system, or any number of hacks, would
help. But these things are often temporary fixes for an un-ideal
situation.

Passion and Productivity

Like many others, I’ve been quick to point out that the direct
route to productivity is being passionate about what you do. This observation, however, is largely an academic point
that doesn’t do much to help the problem. Very few people
hear that passion will make them productive and then-out of a
dedication to productivity-immediately proceed to follow their dreams
and become more productive. So, instead of talking about how
passion will make you more productive, I’d like to re-frame the
conversation by saying this . . .

Unwanted Tasks are the the #1 Cause of your Productivity Problems

If you only did things you wanted to do, you’d probably be the most productive person in the world.

Q: What’s the solution?
A: Stop doing things you don’t want to do.

Of course it’s not that simple, and
I’ll be spending the rest of this blog post trying to make sure
that this solution isn’t an oversimplification.

De-Simplification

OK, we all know that there are some things we have to do to
avoid imprisonment and being horrible human beings. We have to
pay taxes, we have to take care of our children (hopefully this is a
joy), etc. The problem is that most people are very bad at differentiating between these very real non-negotiables and fictional non-negotiables.

What I’m saying is that if you want ultimate productivity you
might want to think about aggressively removing everything you
don’t want to do from your life. Declutter your headspace.

Some Lists of Things you Don’t Have to Do

You simply don’t have to…

• Return all phone calls
  
• Respond to all email (I have 258 unread messages in my inbox right now)
  
• Stay on that committee you joined to pad your resume
  
• Take opportunities that “you’d be stupid to pass up”
  
• Stay in college
  
• Stay in grad school

It’s not necessary to…

• Hang out with friends you only kind-of sort-of like
  
• Stick with everything you start
  
• Live up to others’ expectations of you
  
• Have a respectable career, own a home, and be married by the time you’re 35, 45, or 55

In order to make time for renewal, you might have to…

• Not buy great/cool/expensive birthday and Christmas gifts for everyone
  
• Make your husband file his own papers
  
• Let those who have become unhealthily dependent upon you take responsibility for their own lives

In order to jump-start passionate living again you might have to…

• Stop being an (unnecessarily) “responsible” person
  
• Quit projects that are no longer relevant
  
• Be happy with a less than permanently clean home

In order to come alive, you might have to…

• Pursue an occupation that doesn’t put your insanely expensive degree to use
  
• Move back in with your parents
  
• Work a low-status, low-paying job in order to make time for your new endeavor
  
• Come to terms with your messy home
  
• Completely and utterly ignore your parent’s and friend’s expectations of you

If you really want to live passionately, you’ll need to
consider leaving nearly everything you’re not passionate
about. To live passionately you may have to quit your job, sell
your home, rent a small apartment, and live simply for a while.

To get off the treadmill you’ll have to realize that your high IQ does not obligate you to work 80-hour weeks in high-status professional career. Your high IQ also doesn’t obligate you to get a Ph.D., or to put on any other golden handcuffs.

In order to de-clutter all the crap in your life, you might have to
quit a lot of things. You might have to say no hundreds of
times. You might have to back out of several commitments.
And you’ll very definitely run an incredibly high risk of looking
like a flake, coming across as arrogant and ungrateful, and
disappointing people who love you. It’s an understatement
to say that . . .

All of This Takes Chutzpa, and is Scary as Hell

It’s scary as hell
not just because it requires hundreds of leaps of faith, but also
because people will aggressively resist your liberation. (For the
best illustrations I’ve seen on this topic, check out The Well).
People stuck on the treadmill of life have often invested a lot of time
and anxiety buying into all the “shoulds” of life.
Your liberation will threaten their mode of existence. Lots of
people have devoted themselves to following, and strictly enforcing,
societal rules, and your liberation will threaten the very foundation
of their false parallel universe. By breaking free,
dropping down the rabbit hole, taking the red pill, etc. you will
challenge numerous false assumptions, and you may sadly loose
friendships. I have. It sucks.

I want to emphasize that it’s not quitting things and being
flaky that will make you productive, it’s the aggressive
elimination of everything that doesn’t make you come alive.
You have to clear the weeds to make way for a garden of authentic living.

This is a lot of sacrifice for the sake of getting things done, and you may be thinking . . .

Why Do All This for Productivity?

The answer is that none of this should be done for
productivity’s sake. In the grand scheme of things,
productivity is mostly irrelevant. No one lying on their death
bed wishes they had implemented a better time management system, or
created a ticker file, or been more diligent about emptying their
inboxes each week. They may, however, wish that they’d quit
their 30-year-old dead-end job, spent more time with family or
children, and actually traveled the world or wrote that novel.

Quitting, “Flakiness,” and Escape: Not for Its Own Sake

All of this quitting and flakiness is certainly not for its own sake; it shouldn’t become a way of life or your primary mode of existence. Leaving,
quitting, backing out should not become a habit. Escape should
not become your primary means for solving difficult problems.
The elimination discussed in this article is for the sole purpose of
creating space to grow a beautiful life, and as you eliminate, be sure
to replace all your “shoulds” with joyful work and
authentic endeavors.