The Productivity Project
A fresh, personal, and entertaining exploration of a topic that concerns all of us: how to be more productive at work and in every facet of our lives. Chris Bailey turned down lucrative job offers to pursue a lifelong dream--to spend a year performing a deep dive experiment into the pursuit of productivity, a subject he had been enamored with since he was a teenager. After obtaining his business degree, he created a blog to chronicle a year-long series of productivity experiments he conducted on himself, where he also continued his research and interviews with some of the world's foremost experts, from Charles Duhigg to David Allen. Among the experiments that he tackled: Bailey went several weeks with getting by on little to no sleep; he cut out caffeine and sugar; he lived in total isolation for 10 days; he used his smartphone for just an hour a day for three months; he gained ten pounds of muscle mass; he stretched his work week to 90 hours; a late riser, he got up at 5:30 every morning for three months--all the while monitoring the impact of his experiments on the quality and quantity of his work. The Productivity Project--and the lessons Chris learned--are the result of that year-long journey.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
4mentions
3people
2018–2022years
75% recommend25% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Productivity Project, I think it was (I checked a few).
It’s pretty good. At times it falls in the style of self help books rambling on personal stories, but it has specific and actionable advice.
- Sleep better, regular exercise, learn the skill of focusing on a single task with no distractions for at least 45 mins. Eat your frog every morning - i.e. do your most difficult task first.
Most of your questions can be answered with the usually productity space answers. If you want resources try Chris Bailey’s Productivity Project and the book The One Thing.
- Consider reading "The Productivity Project" by Chris Bailey, it has a lot of techniques that might give you a start. The exercises in the book are also very helpful.
Having a good idea of where you stand and what you are looking for is helpful if you do choose to go into a coaching, therapy, or psychology session.
- Notes:
Apple Notes - it's on every device I use and online, so it has the lowest friction. I use Apple Notes for grocery lists (using checkboxes), semi-permanent notes, and sometimes as an inbox of things to process later.
Task Management:
Things (https://culturedcode.com) using the basic GTD framework. I add things to the Inbox through the day to get them out of my head. In the morning and when taking a break from work, I process the Inbox into projects/areas as well as defer them (give them a date to start/do them). Every Sunday I do a review/braindump of projects or anything still open.
By the way, you can use this GTD method with any tool. I know people who do it with Apple Reminders.
One extra thing I do at the beginning of each day is pick 3 tasks I absolutely need to do by the end of the day - a successful day is when I do at least those 3. I got this idea from Chris Bailey's book "The Productivity Project".
--
I don't keep "permanent" notes (book notes, personal wiki, etc.). I've tried before and I never looked at them again nor did they help my memory.
